Our fence is complete. Strong, young workmen came one morning and took out the old fence. Then another crew of men dug the holes for the new posts. I was surprised they were using the traditional post hole digger: one wooden handle, two small shovel heads hinged at the end. Dig straight down, pull up with the dirt, do it again and again until the hole is the depth you want. You make a deep hole with a small diameter. I thought they might have a power tool. I asked. The man said that the power tool is too great a risk for injury. Then I realized that there were three men digging, so there would have to be three power tools, and that would be very expensive for the owner of the company, and the fence would cost much more.
They used steel posts, the new thing in fence construction. Steel won’t rust, won’t rot, and will “give a little” in the wind. They set those posts in the holes and filled the holes with concrete. To mix the concrete in small batches, they had wheelbarrows with large wheels. They were here most of the day for these tasks. During the process of digging, they cut into the phone line, even though it was clearly marked. I was without a phone until the next afternoon. Today most people use cell phones, but we, being old fashioned, have only a land line.
The next morning, the work crew arrived at 8:00 am and set to work. They brought a power saw that they set up in the backyard, to cut boards. They had power drills and screwdrivers. Those steel posts have evenly spaced holes, like those cupboards in which you can place the shelf where you want. Easy to measure, easy to attach the board. First they attached the rails, the horizontal boards. Then they attached the facing from the outside. Finally, the steel posts are covered with boards, so they look like wooden posts. Four men working steadily completed the fence by 2:00 pm.
The wood is red cedar. It needs no finishing, no paint or sealer, because the natural oils of this wood protect it against the weather. The wood will age to a silvery gray color, but right now it looks reddish gold. The whole backyard is filled with the aroma of cedar. It feels like a new place, a sanctuary, a haven.
When my neighbor finishes his fence, which he is building himself, in his spare time, our yard will be enclosed. Robert Frost wrote a poem “Mending Wall” in 1914, in which he quoted the proverb, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In this poem, the narrator questions why we must build walls and fences, while his neighbor keeps quoting the proverb. Almost one hundred years later, there are at least twice as many people as there were then, and each person longs for some boundary between himself and the others. Perhaps we could rewrite the proverb to say, “Good neighbors make good fences.”