Our cat in the window admiring my fence or... the turtle dove in the feeder perhaps?
Most of the salvaged from demolished neighborhood house lumber is gone now. Actually repurposed is more accurate. A much smaller stack on the side of the house and few splinters in my hands is all that remains to be used. The rest has become part of a fence behind our house just like the kind I’ve wanted since forever and a day ago. Thanks to digital photo time stamps I know that construction began on Wednesday, March 3rd. It looked like this.
Ever since first landing in this land I've always enjoyed seeing the roofed fences around older houses I drove home by the one above after teaching that morning, took stock of my salvaged lumber and got to work. A plastic plank taken from a debris pile at the beach was perfect for termite-proof spacers between the fence and block wall. A quick trip to the nearby mom and pop construction supply shop supplied me with 1/2" bolts and a concrete bit to put in the old, louder'n a supernova impact drill that my in-laws' neighbor lady gave me after her husband who liked to watch me build shit passed away.
After measuring out enough 4x4 for posts I gathered all the shorter ones and cut off pieces and used them for the bottom plate, notching them together as I went
Initially I just planned to build a small section behind the open yard but ended up having enough to go twice as far by using ended 2x4s notched into shorter pieces of 4x4 on each end. I secured the end post to the bottom plate with lag bolts and a metal strap before slipping it down over the existing aluminum old fence "post".
The building continued a few hours here and an hour there between classes whenever possible, with longer stretches on weekends. As fence obsession set in social media and news viewing came to a near standstill.
I can't help but notice the shift in consciousness every time I reduce my online time like that. The center of the world became my back yard. I hoped to complete the fence in time to see it adorned by soon to bloom cherry blossoms; checking the buds day after day made me more keenly aware of the Life bursting forth from the dead earth all around me. Then one night I spotted the horns of the bull rising overhead.
Aha!
The ever dying, ever resurrecting moon returning to life after three days dark--its influence both swims in our DNA and has left its mark on every religion there ever was or is. Things like that or the maple leaves sprouting from the dead stick of a stump leave me awestruck. My struggles with religious belief all of it faded to naught.
What's belief compared to that which captures the soul in "Aha!"
That "Whoa!" That mystery that lies outside of all human speech and thought,
That's IT.
And so I carried on with my work
more aware of Nature carrying on with Hers,
or God or with His,
or Life with Its.
Metaphorical signposts return only now as I try to retell that which every human experiences yet none has ever netted with words.
The closest I can come is to say that, once again,
I was in that sacred space
and so it went...
As with other projects this too was interrupted by life on life's terms a few times. One noteworthy interruption was figuring out how to get the nice sofa our neighbor gave us up into our son’s room since he’s the one who wanted it. It wouldn’t fit up through the stairwell so improvise, build skids and break out the rope to pull it up through his bedroom window. I’d share video that my wife took but it’s peppered with some bad dad language when the sofa got hung up on the lower roof. Older boy earned his keep by keeping it from crashing to the ground long enough for me to free it. It’s in there now and some pieces of his old long ago homemade bed are now part of the fence too.
And I have digressed...
The aluminum fencing was supported by posts set two meters apart. They're cemented into the block wall so I built them into the new fence for support. Since hollow I put various “I can use that for something” materials that I’d saved for a rainy day— PVC pipe, a metal pole or stout tree branch-- inside for added strength and notched the 4x4 posts to fit around them where possible.
The old 4x4s are sound but paint had turned to powder so they needed sanding then I coated with bug and mold resistant stain treatment. So goes building with recycled materials.
I continued following the rough sketch of design in my mind and before I knew it a fence appeared.
My biggest concern was making it sturdy enough to withstand the inevitable earthquakes and typhoons. An idea for doing just that appeared one night via the googles in a stock photo of wall reinforcement at Kanazawa castle, only on a much smaller scale of course, but still stiffened up the fence quite nicely. I ran a strap from the post down into a small form and cemented it in along with an L bracket for the small post. A quake hit last night and it held together.So far so sturdy!
I went with a 5&12 pitch with 1x6 on the back and 1x4 on the house side where space is limited. The 2x2 ridge piece is nailed directly into the posts; the edges of the roof pieces are beveled for a tight fit. Someday I'll find a demolished house with copper roofing being torn off to cover the roof and make it match our house.
Also due to limited house to fence walking space I bolted posts to the wall in and cemented in another metal strap and a sturdy piece of salvaged aluminum to make it typhoon resistant on the far end.
Then lo and behold my goal to complete it by the time our tree blossomed was achieved!
It was pure bliss start to finish, especially towards the end when deciding final design for the upper section. What's more is one neighbor has already offered to buy the lumber for fencing between our houses, but first will come the front of the house.
Once getting the design set in the mind, such as repurposing pieces of old fence for sections I want sun to come through, making jigs to expedite the job, etc, it all was easy as pie. Since the lovely missus gave the thumbs up to fencing the front as well I'll make up a lumber list and take it to the lumber guy up the way so it'll be even easier using newly special ordered materials.
Towards the end we tried it out with the BBQ on dad dinner night to rid ourselves of the excess of scrap wood and it worked wonderfully for blocking out the neighbors. Also towards the end the mind started wandering off into nifty things to accent it with, such as a woodcut of
Sengai's circle triangle square (Heaven Humans and Earth) and some new gold swords for the samurai stick people guardians. Oh yeah, and since out there to load up the bird feeder more frequently I made friends with a local turtle dove who kept me company while I worked and, as stated, met my cherry blossom tree blooming completion deadline.
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| A jig for spacing pieces is faster'n using the tape measure every time! |
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| Sengai Circle - Triangle - Square -- Heaven - humans and earth |
That's it. A salvaged, free lumber fenciful success!
