Karamea

2023-07-13 Fencing contractor

The roofer, Ivor took all the good bits of the old roof and it was obvious he could use them elsewhere. He also offered to do my fencing using the old roofing material, but I wasn't too keen on having my whole house surrounded by rusty tin, as it would have to be atleast 1½m high to deter Tama from jumping over it.

So I contacted a fencing contractor, thinking the farmers round here do plenty of fencing on ther paddocks. He said he had some horse fence wire that would do the job and I was a bit concerned because Miah can still squeeze thru the mesh of the fence at the back. However i've since learned that is deer fencing which is a much coarser mesh.

Trying to clear the bushes along the new fence line was too big a job for my hand saw, so I bought a chaoin saw. Alas I failed to get protective clothing and have been told ACC won't cover injury if I don't use the right gear. TBH the chain saw terrifies me and won't be easy to manoever unless I remove the improvised fencing that is there. All in all it's going be expensive to do my whole section and make it dog proof when I have to leave my two dogs and the puppy safely with outside access even for a few hours. Locked in doors for any length of time unsupervised I think they would make a big mess.

Most urgent I asked the fencing guy to make me a gate acros the driveway as the dogs were just rushing out every time anyone went past. He must be used to thinking of horses because he built a very solid gate of wood. It's quite heavy and so the posts had to be shored up to stop it sagging. Sadly also, the gap at the bottom is still wide enough to allow Miah to crawl under but eventually decided she would soon be too big and temporarily blocking it off with a spare bit of roofing tin would surfice for now.

Fencing the whole section to be dog proof was going to take some time and lots of money, so I decided on an emergency sollution by dividing the fron garden. That will also protect vegetable plots as the dogs dig everywhere at the moment. So 14½m of wire fence with a gate in it and it would still feel like an open garden rather than a boxed in shady court yard. I discussed it with the fencing contractor and was expecting a price but he doesn't seem to have understood and suggested using old rusty roof tin. I just feel it would make the whole place look like a slum.

Miah is a right little Houdini and has been escaping every day thru my improvised boundary fence no matter how I patch it up. I'm reluctant to lock the dogs in the house unsupervised for half a day while I drive to Westport to get materials and equipment myself, but there is no way I can have 3 large dogs in the car and still fit stuff in.