{"id":3762,"date":"2014-06-10T10:14:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T14:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=3762"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"fences-hasenpfeffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/fences-hasenpfeffer\/","title":{"rendered":"Fences and Hasenpfeffer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fence<\/a>Today’s adventure deals with the garden project once again.\u00a0 Helpful hints received from many of you (thank you very much) included advice for dealing with produce munching vermin.\u00a0 I am collecting hair from our weekly haircuts for use in nylon stocking bags that will be hung on corner posts of the garden to ward off rabbits.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have as many rabbits as we did a few years ago because Dolly Dawg developed a taste for hasenpfeffer on the hoof\u2026 or paw\u2026 and while it was heart rending to know she was devouring those cute little bunnies, the damage being done to our flower beds has been dramatically reduced.\u00a0 Perhaps fear of the \u201chorrible, bunny eating beast of 1198\u201d has spread for I have not seen hide nor hare of one for quite some time.\u00a0 But, just to be safe, I plan to hang enough hair bags to drive them out of this end of the county!<\/p>\n

Maybe human hair bags will also help ward off raccoons, possums, and squirrels.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, the dogs don\u2019t seem the least bit interested in squirrels. Personally, I think the squirrels bought them off by telling them where the road kill is before any other neighborhood dogs can get to it.\u00a0 They love possum though, live or flat. And they like coon as well, but rarely get any except when one get s hit by a car.\u00a0 They\u2019re pretty ferocious when cornered, and not as stupid as possums.\u00a0 Possums will fall for anything!\u00a0 <\/p>\n

While the dogs prove helpful in reducing the vermin population, they themselves pose a danger to the garden.\u00a0 Not that they\u2019d eat anything \u2013 they HATE vegetables \u2013 but they like to dig.\u00a0 And they like to roll on Plants. Zadie couldn\u2019t even wait for me to get the pepper plants Marie bought me in the ground before she flopped over and did her \u201cback-dance\u201d on them.\u00a0 They look like they\u2019ll survive, but I was pretty ticked at her.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s Boots, a neighborhood hooligan who pees on EVERYTHING.\u00a0 He\u2019s done a good amount of damage to Marie\u2019s flowers too.\u00a0 So I decided perhaps a small fence was in order.<\/p>\n

\"Posted\"<\/a>I started this undertaking by toting out from behind the garage a roll of wire fencing and a pile of fence posts that were made available a couple years ago when Little Chelsea passed away and we no longer needed to fence in an area to keep her from wandering off, being old and addled as she was.\u00a0 I rolled the fencing out on the ground and measured it with a 100 foot tape.\u00a0 Then I strung the tape around the approximate area I expected to enclose and pegged it at the corners with small wooden stakes, adjusting the stake locations until I had used up the length of fence and it was pretty well squared up.\u00a0 Then I replaced the wooden corner pegs with fence posts and set about spacing the remaining posts along the sides.<\/p>\n

\"Fenced<\/a>
Fenced in<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I attached boards to each end of the fencing with staples after milling slots in the boards for a make-shift latch. More about that in a bit.\u00a0 I mounted one end at the front corner of the barn and began setting the fencing up along the posts.\u00a0 I wired a few in place at the top of the posts, but didn\u2019t get all gung-ho about securing it until I was relatively sure the other end would end up meeting the back corner of the barn.\u00a0 Coming up 3\u2019 short after securely wiring the fence to every post would prove very frustrating.\u00a0 Amazingly, I got it right the first time!<\/p>\n

\"Sort<\/a>
Sort of a gate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I left a \u201cgate\u201d at each end of the fence run.\u00a0 Gate is a pretty loose term here; it\u2019s more like a flap of fence.\u00a0 The board fastens to the edge of the barn with turn-keys made of bent-over nails that fit through vertical slots in the board.\u00a0 Really low-brow stuff, but this is all an experiment right now.\u00a0 If it turns out that I am cursed with a black thumb and everything I plant dies, I can remove all of this in short order and put everything back as it was. Besides, the wire fence is fairly unobtrusive, in fact you have to look close to see it at all from across the yard.<\/p>\n

Why fence such a big space?\u00a0 Mostly because that\u2019s how much fence I had and I didn\u2019t want to cut it up.\u00a0 But also, because if this DOES work out, I\u2019ll be expanding my repertoire and I don\u2019t want to be cobbling more fence in and moving posts.\u00a0 In the mean time, I can be using some of this empty space to compost copious amounts of grass clippings, wood chips and kitchen refuse.\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably produce more compost than we will use, so I will happily share with the neighbors.\u00a0 Heck I might just start my own little composting service, \u201cBring me your rubbish, take come compost\u201d.<\/p>\n

Well, maybe not.<\/p>\n

Another of the Helpful Hints I received was that we should consider adding chickens to the mix.\u00a0 If allowed to run through he garden they\u2019ll eat bugs that would eat our plants and provide dropping that enrich the soil as well as providing us with organic eggs for our own use.\u00a0 That won\u2019t happen this year, but it might later on, so having room inside the fence for a small coop would be good.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A gift from our neighbor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just as I was finishing up, Tim brought me a Farm Warming gift \u2013 a rain gauge.\u00a0 So I cut a point on the end of a walnut post, drove that into the ground and mounted the gauge to the post.\u00a0 Thanks Tim!<\/p>\n

\"Mr.<\/a>
Mr. Toad looks on<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While putting away the tools and supplies, I noticed that I had an audience.\u00a0 This fellow seemed particularly interested in my activities and wasn\u2019t the least bit bashful about it.\u00a0 Perhaps he\u2019s planning to hop over to the Garden Inn Park to see what\u2019s for dinner some evening as well.\u00a0 Eat hearty Mr. Toad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s adventure deals with the garden project once again.  Helpful hints received from many of you (thank you very much) included advice for dealing with produce munching vermin.  I am collecting hair from our weekly haircuts for use in nylon stocking bags that will be hung on corner posts of the garden to ward off … Continue reading “Fences and Hasenpfeffer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,86],"class_list":["post-3762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-dogs","tag-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19688,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions\/19688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}