Wednesday 15 May 2013

Operation Backyard Awesome : Private Parts

Normal people usually understand that someone's backyard is private property, for whatever reason there are a number of people in Lucan who are not normal; and don't understand this concept of private property. They apparently believe that all property belongs to them. Our backyard backs on to the back of a number of shops on main street, with apartments over them. Here's an old picture from last spring, before we took out the overgrown, useless raised garden bed pretty much smack-dab in the middle of our yard.


 It's come in pretty handy, since we basically back on to the only bar in Lucan, so it makes for a quick and easy walk home. Sometimes the neighbours cut through too, which we don't really care about. What we do care about are the crazy asses who come into our yard to steal our patio chairs after we only had them for three days. Or walk their dog around and through our yard, letting them crap wherever they want and not pick it up. Or my personal favourite (which happened the other day) biking through our yard. I was sitting in the van on the street, about to pull in the driveway when this lady on her bicycle came down it. For once, I was stunned into silence, although apparently the neighbour gave her an earful. She apparently thought there was a path there. Ok crazy, I can totally get how the vast green grass looks like a path, often people have dogs tied up to an umbrella stand, next to a garage, on a path; you're right. We're beyond frustrated with all these people. I suggested putting in landmines, but Jason says that's taking it a bit too far - really, it just comes down to we don't know where to get them. So we'll settle for a fence.
   That chain link fence on the right is the only fence we have, it's clearly open to the back, and it's open to our other neighbours as well. We get along splendidly with both sets of neighbours, so we never really cared about fencing in the yard. Until we got Kai. She wouldn't go anywhere, she's a great listener and stays when you tell her, but if she sees a squirrel she has been know to chase them...far. So last summer we started talking about fencing the yard. But then we discovered if we used the heavy, cast iron patio umbrella stand and some old random tools from the shed (like a mini pitch fork and a large spade and some railway ties) to secure it to the ground, then tie a long rope to it, it was sufficient enough to keep her in place. (Even when she's trying to kill Cujo, the neighbour dog) We almost won an award for most redneck pet corral, but the dog who lives in an old dryer won.


So now that we're actually having to be serious about putting a fence up (at least at the back) I've been searching for some nice looking options. I don't want the basic wood slat fence, if we're going to have to put one up, we might as well make it look as nice as possible. We're not sure if we're going to put a gate in or not. Here's some of my favourite "modern" fence ideas I've come across...

(1)

 (2)

(3)

 (4)

(5)

(6)

(7)


2, 3, and 7 are our favourites, although number 6 is pretty freakin' awesome! 2 and 7 are pretty similar, and would be the easiest to build. Regardless of what we're going to do, we're planning on doing some landscaping back there too. We've got to get a move on with this fence because we've put our awesome sectional outside, and we really don't want that stolen.

Which options do you like best? Have you ever had any issues with people coming through your backyard, or people stealing your things?

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