I have a dog. A lovely, sweet, territorial, overprotective and prey-driven Doberman. If he sees a squirrel, cat, or rodent in his perceived “territory,” he takes off after it. Usually, I can distract him or catch him before he does this…and when he does take off, he crosses a rarely traveled alley. But it still worries me that he’s going to get hit some day. And, even though I keep an eye on him, he slips away down the alley if I turn my back for more than 15 seconds.

In the far future, it’d be nice to be able to leave him outside unsupervised, at least for short periods of time.

There is more to the fence project than dog protection. I’m trying to make my house more salable in the future, and the look I’m going for is “cottage chic.” Nothing says cottage like a white picket fence. Especially with garden beds along the base…I envision peonies, sunflowers, poppies, mums, dahlias, phlox, columbine, allium…the list goes on and on. Maybe even some roses climbing over an arched gate…And of course, the fence will surround a larger vegetable garden in a sunnier part of the property.

The walkway will be jackhammered up, and re-routed in stone in a more pleasing direction. I will reduce the amount of lawn, and increase the amount of gardening space. The lawn is too small, hilly and full of obstacles to do anything with, anyway. And, even when the two dead trees are gone, I don’t see it being much better.

I do want to do some leveling at the bottom of the property, where the steep drop-off makes gardening along my neighbor’s fence impossible.

The fence is part of this larger project, but I see it as the highlight. 3 years ago