can you hear me now?

mumbling that is

on Monday we had wind -- as in BIG WIND -- 68 mile an hour gusts

and that fence that needed replacing -- heh, obviously our "patch" applied the last time is not going to hold it until later in June when we might have had some help doing the work

so here's the picture of what the wind did -- totally broke off the fence post right there at the top of the stairs and took the whole panel down into the yard behind us (oh look, there's a fire hydrant right there in case we ever needed to know)

since I already had a metal mesh nailed to the posts back there for my peas to climb up at least I didn't have to worry about the dog getting out of the yard
so yesterday, when the wind finally slowed a bit, we went out to examine the situation close up

we took out pry bars and hammers and the limb saw and took apart the panel that had been laying on the ground

of about 25 fence boards, I was able to salvage 10 that we will reuse when we put the fence back up

the panels on either side of the one that is down will also have to be rebuilt, but you can see our "props" there holding things together temporarily

the broken post is the only one we will have to replace, which is good news -- so the shopping list is only 2x4s and cement and fence boards

and we'll be doing this a little at a time since we're doing the work alone -- at least I have the money to do it thanks to a generous gift from my sister (pulled my butt out of the fire AGAIN!)

I was thinking yesterday as I was pulling the nails out of those fence boards that the outdoor work, like fencing, was about the only thing we didn't do ourselves when we remodeled the house we lived in in California -- guess that's why I'm getting to learn how here ---

nuts