Good fences - do they really make good neighbors?

 In September 2008 hurricane Ike blew through Houston. For some reason we had very little property damage, even though we live on the line between Galveston and Houston. We had a little water blow into the house in a couple of places, but most of the fencing on either side of our property was blown down. The fence was probably as old as the  house and not in very good shape. On one side the trees had been allowed to grow next to the fence and they pushed it all out of alignment. The other side was just as bad with trees, honey suckle and bamboo grown next to or on the fence. Some of the fence posts broke off, but some just tipped over because the ground was so wet. My neighbor to the north was very anxious to get it re-built. He wanted to do the work in exchange he wanted to put all the boards on his side. Before the boards alternated every other section. It wasn't a particularly attractive arrangement in my opinion. So we split the cost and he did most of the labor.  I don't know the neighbor to the south as well, but he was not in any hurry to get it done. In fact, he would just as soon not have a fence.  They got a bid from a contractor and finally this spring had the section from their house to the old fence that was still standing re-built.  The bids were quite high, around $5000 not including disposal of the old fence. We had quite a few sections left standing that were not hauled off by the city in the general clean up. I had to take them to the dump myself.

When I saw that they had rebuilt the front section, I decided it was time to quit procrastinating and get it done. This was a huge project for me, and I obsessed about getting it laid out straight and level. I measured and marked the posts at least three times. My original plan to follow the old fence line turned out to be not a good one because it was really crooked. I finally decided the front of the fence must have been build a foot or two on my side of the actual property line. After stressing and obsessing for a couple of weeks the fence is now finished. Kevin came over and helped me set the last 22 posts and that was a huge assist. My friend Gordon Liufau came over on Tuesday and helped  for a few hours and my home teacher helped for a couple of hours on Monday evening. I finished at 7:59 Tuesday evening. I was tired and sore.

I went out into the yard to admire the finished product on Wednesday and I experienced a strange feeling. I felt slight sadness that I won't be interacting with my neighbor any more. We don't interact that much but for the last year and a half we would see each other when we worked in  the yard and occasionally we would visit. The open yards made both our places seem larger. I will miss that. Now they will once again be the strangers on the other side of a very high fence. there are advantages to having privacy for sure, but there is not enough neighborly interaction in this world and I think fences have contributed to that.