good fences = good neighbors

I'm not really sure I agree with that old adage, at least not in our case.  We have wonderful neighbors, fence or no fence (or perhaps because of the fence!).  Our front fence was in very bad shape so Mr. C decided it was time to do something.  Or to have Rafa do it.   He's been talking about this for three years but this year he he got serious.  On Wednesday morning Rafa arrived with Wilson the Wonder Dog, his lively yellow Lab, and started tearing out parts of the fence for replacement.  Wilson, on the other hand, was investigating the gardens and the pool; I was waiting for him to jump in but he apparently thought better of it.  On the fence issue, the more Rafa tore out, the more he found that needed replacement.  He's been at it for three days now and it has ended up to be almost half the fence, both on the terrace side and the street side.  The next chore is to paint, not Rafa's favorite part of the job, so perhaps all three of us will do it together. 

He started by taking off the fence by the front door.  This is the portion that gets the strongest sun and was in the worst shape.

 You can also see the frame above the door which he sanded down and it's now ready to be repainted.

This section is at the far east end of the fence on the street side where vines grew all over it and basically rotted it out.

This portion has been repaired and is ready for primer and paint.

Tomorrow Rafa will come back and haul away all the old fence pieces and other debris that has collected while this project progressed.

Home ownership.  It's not for sissies.