Robert Frost has a poem with the line, "Good fences make good neighbors," and I am not convinced that this is a true saying. Our fences, when we moved in to our New House, were not good fences, yet we had, and so far continue to have, good neighbors. I suppose it's possible that the fences were once good, a long time ago, and at that time the neighbors became good and just stayed good; but I think it more likely that our neighbors' goodness, or lack thereof, is not related to the condition of the fences. That being said, there are other reasons for having good fences at one's house, and we now have two good fences and one mostly good fence at our New House. We will talk more about this later, after we provide an update on our front yard garden.
Front Yard Garden, Take IIII
Our front yard garden is now complete, unless something dies and needs replacing. We added a few more succulents to fill in some gaps, and we added some drought-tolerant non-succulents and some water-appreciating non-succulents. As with our initial round of planting, we chose our succulents based mainly on their appearance and not their names. Behold the updated front yard garden.
First up is an overview of the updated Aloe Arboretum, which received two new species of aloe. The shadows in this picture are real, but they do not indicate that the sun's position in the sky has shifted dramatically to the north - the shadows indicate that this picture was taken at night with the aid of our trusty worklight, held aloft by Becky.
The first new aloe to be featured is the Gasteraloe "Green Gold," which is a hybrid between Gasteria and Aloe (according the label on its pot).
Next up is the Aloe "Blue Elf," which is another hybrid of some sort.
Moving toward the house we see one of the two Ripple Jades (Crassula Arborescens Undulatifolia).
Here we see the other Ripple Jade in a larger context. Can you remember (without looking up) the names of the other plants in this picture?
This little guy is known as Kalanchoe Millotii (yes that is spelled correctly). It is one of three in our front yard garden, and all three are native to Madagascar, as are the Pencil Cacti.
Meet the Echeveria Gibbiflora Hybrid (Echeveria Gibbiflora X), or, as we call it, the Undersea Plant.
Moving ever closer to the house, closer than even the Madagascar Pencil Cacti (native to Madagascar, by the way), we meet the three Petite Butterfly Sweetpea plants (Polygala Fruticosa 'Petite Butterfly), which are native to South Africa.
And finally, closest to the house, in the shadiest zone of the front yard garden, we have three (even though it looks like only two from this angle) dark-colored Calla Lillies.
Alas! I almost forgot to include this Split Rock (Pleiospilos Nelii), one of two in our front yard garden. These are quite small at this point, and easy to miss or overlook.
Good Fences
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, or a fence in this case. That something is rain, and termites, and sun, and earthquakes, and wind. From the time a new fence is installed these forces (and possibly others) wage a constant war against the fence, until one day the fence succumbs and falls over. Optimally one would replace the fence before such falling over, but in our case the fence succumbed before it was replaced. I remember it well. It was a dark and stormy night, a wind-stormy night, to be specific. The wind raged and flowed and broiled through the area, making loud noises that sounded like several jet aircraft were flying over our New House back and forth. Eventually we were able to tune out the noise and get some sleep, but the morning sun revealed the awful result of the windstorm - our fence had succumbed. It was severely leaning along the back side, and it was leaning and split in two on the side side. Fortunately we were able to rig up some temporary braces and install a temporary patch on the split section, and even more fortunately the fences held up until the new fence installers went to work.
Take a gander at the post-windstorm fences.
This is the back fence, shared with Neighbor Joseph.
This is the side fence, shared with Neighbor Peter. The rope is attached at the point where the fence split in two.
This is a close-up of the split part, after the temporary patch was installed. Note that the rope is for support and is not holding the fence together.
Fortunately for us, both neighbors were quite agreeable and no one argued about cost or timing. We made the arrangements with Golden Gate Fence, based on their glowing Yelp! reviews, and we are quite happy with their work. As an added bonus, they invoiced the two neighbors separately, so we did not have to collect any money ourselves.
These next four pictures show the progress after the first day of work by Golden Gate.
Old fence boards are piled up near our pear tree.
We discovered that Joseph's yard is several inches lower than our yard. We don't know why this is.
This is looking into Peter's yard. It is at the same level as our yard.
These next three pictures show the finished fences.
This is our new gate (on the left).
This is the new back fence.
This is the new side fence and gate.
More Helicopter Madness
The other day we saw yet more
mysterious helicopters flying overhead and hovering not far away. One of these helicopters appeared to be mostly black.
There are two helicopters in this photo.
Again, two helicopters are visible here. They appear to be news helicopters, but why would news helicopters be hovering near our neighborhood?
What's really going on?
bIsh
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