Location: Manning Valley
Date: April 2009

April 30, 2009. Oops! Almost the end of the month! I've been waiting for my new fence to be painted before I posted this saga, but Chris - the fence bloke - hasn't been back, so I figured I'd better post the story before the month ends. (Updated May 16 to include painting and finished job)

It started in late March when Chris arrived to knock down the old fence. It was pretty derelict anyway. He was hammering and chain-sawing early (thanks very much) to get things ready for the arrival of the bobcat. Now, there's a machine that can do just about everything but tap dance. And even if it had launched into a Fred Astaire impression, it wouldn't have surprised me.

Chris was raised on a farm at Bombala, in the Snowy Mountains area of NSW. I stayed in a pub there one time. I remember pulling on the blind in my room and the whole curtain arrangement crashed to the floor. It was like something out of the movie 'Deliverance' but Chris insists that it wasn't that bad. Oh yeah? As with most farmers, Chris can turn his hand to almost anything - the handyman's handyman. He was a cop for a while but gave that away to go back to being a jack of all trades.

Once the bobcat had done the work of a dozen men in about an hour, Chris and his mate Adrian got stuck into building the new fence. I (being totally ignorant) thought that putting up a fence was a piece of cake. Wham bam, thank you ma'am. Nope. It's quite a complicated business as I discovered over a period of several days. Adrian, as it turned out, is a retired builder who worked all over the world on major projects - a designer and creator. And there he was working on MY fence in little ol' Taree after having built everything except the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal.

"I bet you didn't build the Harbor Bridge."
"I wasn't born yet, otherwise I would have."

By the way, Chris also made the mail box. What a clever little dick! If you think building a fence is no big deal, think again. Click here for the photo album.