Fencing is for the Dogs!

Recycling helps save the environment, especially when it comes to fences. My daughter and I have been doing that for the last 23 years. Our latest venture illustrates our efforts. We have a large side lot to our house and it is so large there is room for gardens, the carriage house, a fireplace with a covered table area, large English garden, all of our firewood storage, 50% of the parking for the office and still about 1/3 not used.

My daughter and her son lived with us about 8 years and towards the end of those years she decided that they needed a Golden Doodle for a pet. For those of you that are not familiar with those words it is a cross between a Golden Retriever and a large Poodle. Golden Doodle #1 , Golden Doodle #2 , These hyperlinks will take you back to Dec of 04, when the Golden Doodle came to my house. I wrote about Randy a lot during Dec of 04, and Jan 05, and off and on throughout the years. There were a lot of stories to write about him. Ellen got remarried and soon we had her son Sam, her new husband Mike and Randy the Golden Doodle all living with us. I build a large run for Randy and it enclosed the Majority of our side yard. Went to the Home Depot and bought 4 foot high sections of wooden fencing. Took every other fence picket out and nailed them to 2x4's making another section of fence as the fencing I bought was solid with pickets. This was my second dog run as we also had another 2 dogs at the house. Both dogs were rather small and the run wasn't very large but I took those fence sections to built the new run along with many more sections.

Eventually Sam, Mike and Ellen gathered up Randy and moved to their own house but they needed a dog run for Randy at the new house. We didn't have much use for a dog run as all we had left was Simon, a shiatsu, and there were no fences around that could contain Simon. He found a way out no matter what we did but it really didn't make any difference because when he got out he never went anywhere. So down came the fence and off to Ellen, Mike and Sam's with it. Some where along the line, Ellen and Mike picked up Boo, a Black Lab, as company for Randy. Boo has turned out to be the real escape artist. He has tunneled under the fence, gone over the fence, tunneled through the hedge that is actually part of the fence, ate his way through the fence and has escaped through every door in the house. He's good! His escapes have provided me with reasons to keep bringing more fence sections to their house instead of mine. Recently they have changed their design and made the dog run area much smaller and much easier to control but that has allowed them to store many more sections of fencing. They have a Plethora of fencing sections, you might say.

Along comes my wife and we buy a new dog. A cute, little Yorkie/Shiatsu mix who now needs a dog run at our house. My wife lays out the boundaries and I make a phone call to the kids asking for my fence back, at least the sections that they are not now using and it all magically reappears in my back yard. They even brought back the sections of pickets that Boo chewed up. Must have figured I could work it into the new design or something? Friday I started digging fence post holes again and today I started putting up fence sections. I had to completely rebuild some sections, taking off the pickets and adding them with others on new 2x4's to make a complete 8' section. I am about half done. I am never going to put this fence up again because if ever we need another I will hire some one to make and install a new fence. I purchased 24" high, green, garden wire to go around the inside of the fence with the hopes of containing Bridget but if she turns out to be as adept at the art of escape as the prior inmates have, this will turn out to be a wasted adventure on my part. Lets hope not. She probably won't be any good at escape cause after all she is a GIRL!

This is not my first foray into fence recycling as 23 years ago my daughter and I built a fence at another house we had. All in the hope of containing Cody, a master pain-in-the-butt, 1/2 rat terrier and 1/2 what ever crawled under the fence and master escape artist. Cody has since passed on but Simon apprenticed under him. We built the fence out of 1x3's with Ellen operating the radial Arm saw cutting the points and I ran the cutoff saw for length. She was 14 at the time. I can't remember how many times I moved that fence as designs and needs changed. I moved it so many times the fence just fell apart and it ended up as firewood for my wood burning stove that heated the shop. That is probably the best way to end the recycle. That brings up the point that used fencing materials make very excellent kindling for a wood stove.