I am in awe of my neighbor, he just finished replacing the fence between our houses and was only asking me if I wanted to kick in maybe $250. I thought this was way cheap and I told him I would give him $300, but until next time I get paid, he sprung this up on me out of nowhere on Sunday last week. He had brought it up maybe a year ago and because of Covid-19, I have been putting off doing the work, but we really do need to replace the fence, it has holes and broken boards all over the place. I keep buying a handful of boards at a time and replacing ones that fall off here and there, but really, the whole thing needs a makeover.
I feel kind of guilty for not going out there and helping him, but he insisted on doing this during the week and sorry, but I work, so I was not going to stress myself during the day and then go to work at night. It took them two and a half days, but the work is good. They added an extra rail, the boards that are attached to the posts in the ground. Our old fence was held by two boards, one near the bottom and one near the top. He wanted to add a third middle board to make the fence stronger. They also used a line to line up all the boards and before they added the slats, the part that is the actual fence, the three supporting boards formed three almost straight lines, that followed their guide strings. They again used a string tied to boards on either end of the fence and if they had to trim a board to make it all look like a level line, they did. I wondered why they didn't finish the second day, once they had all the rails up, I thought it would just be a matter of slapping on the slats and screwing them in. He said they had to cut most of them a little to make them the same height, but the end result looks great. They also chose to use screws instead of nails to make it stronger. Of course, he said he chose cedar wood because he was not going to do this again, this fence was going to outlive him.
He is probably not kidding about that last comment, him and his best friend, he told me, are both in their 70s. He told me jokingly that between the two of them, they have a combined 145 years of experience. I just love the idea that he is still out here kicking ass and doing work. I remember when I was young that the idea of a 70 year old was an old person sitting around waiting to die, but that is not the only option. My mom is very near 70, if my dad is already there, and she still runs around chasing the grandkids and helping to teach them daily right now that they are doing at home learning. My dad, on the other hand, is a lot more like my original thought of an old person, he is a lazy ass who just seems content to sit on his butt and wait for the Grim Reaper, no offense. I just wish he would get off his ass and do something. After seeing what my neighbors did this week, I know my dad could do more.
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