As grandparents, our children ask us to watch our grandkids. We are not alone, and we love doing it. When the grandkids start to walk, they like to roam.
We like them to play in our back yard and we have erected a swing set for them. However, we did not have the backyard fully fenced. We had our privacy fence on the south side and part of the west side. The west side or back of the lot is full of trees and wild vegetation, but the north side is open. We do have several bushes on that side, but there are plenty of areas for the kids to escape.
My wife, Efiwym and I decided to put a fence up on that side. We did not need another privacy fence as the bushes provide us with that privacy. We opted for a three-foot high fence. Nothing fancy, just a pressure-treated picket fence. We found the fence panels we wanted at our local home improvement store. We ordered it and had it delivered.
I had learned lessons from the privacy fence on the other side of the yard. Since the fence was only three feet tall with open pickets, I only needed to dig down two feet for the posts. However, I was going to bring on a beast to dig these holes. I rented a heavy-duty gas-powered one-man tow-behind post hole digger. I could operate this machine easily by myself. Even though the bushes and the swale between the yards complicated things, I was able to get the nine holes drilled out. It was not easy as I needed to bear down on the auger. There were times I had the weight of my body hoisted over the auger.
Additionally, I disassembled two fence panels to have the fence conform to the slope towards the back. That decision reduced the gaps between the fence and the ground and looked better aesthetically.
Like the other fence, I decided not to paint or stain it. The posts needed to be re-plumbed the following year, but in most cases the posts did not move.
I installed a gate near the house. I was going to have the gate swing out, but I discovered after I screwed in the hinges, the gate hit the fireplace chimney. Disappointed, I changed over the hinges to have the gate swing in. The gate would be flush with the outside of the fence. The problem with this setup was that the latch on a four-inch square post does not line up with a 2-inch-deep gate rail. I just needed to build out the gate rail with a piece of 2 x 4 so it would line up the latch post with the latch.
Efiwym and I had a sense of relief that the backyard was fenced in for the grandkids. But our youngest figured out how to get out. First, he knew how to unlatch the gate. Easy fix, we put on a kid-proof cabinet door strap. Second, he found an opening between the fence in the back and the tree line. I talked with Efiwym about putting up another fence panel in the back, but Efiwym just placed in a line three small benches from our old patio table.
