Out Mending Fences...A Storm Story

I was “out mending fences” tonight.

You say, “Come on, Dan.  You’ve only held an actual work tool 2 or 3 times in your life.  You weren’t out mending fences.”

No, I was.  Really.  It’s true.  I’m sort of like an old cowboy out on the range.  I was out mending fences.  We had a powerful storm tonight and several sections of the fence around our back yard were knocked down.  Solid, 4x4 wooden fence posts were snapped off at the base.  That’s some pretty potent wind.  Also, large branches of trees were ripped from trunks of trees.  One large tree was completely uprooted.  And a house from the neighborhood landed in our backyard, right on a wicked witch.

Oh wait, I’m getting confused.  That last line is from another story that I heard somewhere.

So, with some help from Taylor, Eric and J.D., I propped up the sections of fence that had been knocked over, using pieces of wood as braces to, at least temporarily, hold the fence up and in place.

If you’re impressed, well, frankly, you should be.  That kind of work requires a keen geometrical sense, a bit of engineering savvy, and some manly power for driving nails into boards (occasionally done with the palm of my hand…and once, by accident, with my forehead…don’t ask).

According to the weather forecast, another round of storms are still coming tonight, so, I’m concerned that our fence mending work may be destroyed.  That would be a shame.

…Oh…uh oh…you know what?  Oh no.  Oh drats!  A bird flew by and one of its feathers landed on the fence.  The whole thing just collapsed.

I’m going to go read a book.

P.S.  It’s dark outside, now, or I would take some pictures of our fence-mending craftsmanship.  It’s actually pretty amusing to see.  And it’s impressive that no duct tape was utilized in the project.  Yes, you read those words properly NO DUCT TAPE was utilized.  This involved an actual hammer and nails.  (I’m still beaming with pride, just thinking about it.)  But I am posting pictures of the tree that was uprooted.

*NOTE:  This was posted on the blog on Saturday morning, but it was written and originally posted on Facebook last night.