Wayne and Erika Pfeiler

In case you haven't heard, there's a drought in North Carolina. If you live in NC, It would be almost impossible not to know about the drought, because at least 10 minutes of every hour of local news concerns the drought. I'm fairly annoyed by all the media coverage and weather guys yelling at the tv audience about how we need rain. Yes it's dry. Yes, I stopped watering my lawn last summer when the city told us to. Yes, my back yard is an arid plain of brown dirt now because of it. Okay, I'm doing my part, tell me something new.

Another issue I'm annoyed about is the local government's planning. Raleigh and the surrounding area's population has been rapidly increasing for over a decade. The city hasn't been doing anything to expand our sources of water. The best solution they could come up with is to pump less water from our main supply lake into a creek. Wow! Genius! They don't recycle water. They aren't trying to come up with new sources. They just make life a little bit worse on the citizens by asking people not to water lawns, plants, or gardens, and giving out $1000 fines if they find you're washing your car.

So anyway, I keep hearing about people buying rainwater collection barrels from the city in Cary and other places for about $40. They've shown lots pictures on the news, and I thought I could build one and I might even be able to water some plants this year. So I drew up a 1 page set of plans and headed off to Lowes. Before gathering materials, I wanted to see if they had any ready-made collectors. They did. Turns out this $55 model is almost exactly what I planned to make, short of an fullness indicator on the outside. So I weighed my options and decided to buy it.

Setup was simple. Attaching the gutter downspout wasn't exactly what they intended though. Right now, I'm threading the downspout right into the barrel, instead of using the filter on the lid. Problem is the filter is really small, and I'd need some sort of adapter to connect it to anything. I'll have to figure that out later. So now I'm hoping for rain to try out my new gadget.

Posted by Wayne at 12:29 PM | Permalink

Since we bought the house in Fall 2004, I've been talking about installing recessed lighting in our living room downstairs. Finally, on Sunday I decided the time had come, and we took a trip to Home Depot and bought four straight down lights and four eyeball lights, 100 feet of Romex electrical line, some wiring nuts, and eight light bulbs. It's annoying, the light fixture kits only cost a dollar or two more than the light bulbs do. Hopefully both will last a long time.

With all the supplies in hand, we planned where to install the lights and cut the first hole in the ceiling. Then I realized a problem. The space between the ceiling was different than what I was used to in my parent's house in Tennessee. In their house, the upstairs floor was supported by a 2x6, and then there was a gap below, followed by a 2x4 supporting the ceiling. In our house, there was only one huge 2x10 that supported both the floor and ceiling. This meant I couldn't just pass the wiring through a gap that I'd imagined should be there. That brought work to a halt for the night, as I planned what else to do.

I had several ideas, some better than others. I thought we could pull up the carpet and flooring up stairs, and access the space to drill holes through the joists to run the wiring. That would require a lot of work. I thought we might be able to pass the wires through the ceiling box between the living and dining rooms, but that didn't work out either. Then I read a nice page about installing speaker wire into a house, and they showed tips on how to work around joists in the walls or ceiling. This usually involved sawing a small hole in the sheetrock, notching the joist, running the wire, then repairing the hole. It sounded like my best option. Then I had a realization. We have crown molding all around the ceilings downstairs. I could remove that, and cut a narrow hole in the sheetrock that would be covered by the crown molding, repair the hole, then replace the crown molding. This way, people would never even see the evidence of a hole.

So over the course of the next few days, I carefully removed the crown molding and made those holes. Then I ran the wiring to a twin set of light switches already there. One switch turned a receptacle on and off, and the other did nothing. That always confused me. Why install a switch if it doesn't do anything:? But anyway, this worked out great for the way I planned to control the lights. I ended up using all 100 feet of the wire, so my estimate was spot-on. I wired the lights and tested them out before clamping them into the ceiling. Everything worked. I was so excited that I woke up Erika (past her bedtime) to come see everything working. She gave a sleepy smlie and seemed happy with everything.

So now we have new lights in the room, and we're able to move the floor lamps somewhere else. I'm also happy with the way everything works. The grou outside corner eyeball lights are controlled by one switch, and the four inside straight-down lights would be controlled by the other switch. When we want lots of light in the room, we turn everything on. The inside four lights give plenty of light for reading papers or working on things in the room. The outside four eyeball lights are turned away from the center of the room, so they work to accent the bookcases and fireplace. They're also great for when we're watching tv after dark, and we don't want light glaring in our eyes or the tv screen. Hooray!

Posted by Wayne at 02:31 PM | Permalink

I love Craigslist.

You may have heard that I've been looking for a good used pin-select weight machine for our workout room since around April. I've tried to buy several on Ebay since then, but I hadn't been successful. Each time I found a good one on Ebay, somebody would snipe it away from me, or the seller had set way too high a reserve price, and the bidding wouldn't make it up there. Frustrating. Anyway, since April, I've studied up on all the different models to see what might fit in our room, and what has the features that we'd be looking for. I first saw a WeiderPro 9940, which was a perfect size and had everything we wanted. Then I found the next-up model, a Weider Pro Powerstack which lets users lift more weight. Unfortunately, these two models didn't often go up for sale on Ebay, and were even less likely to be available within driving distance from our house - a must to keep from paying severa hundred dollars in frieght shipping charges.

Enter Craigslist. This is a totally free website that lets people list items for sale or trade and post pictures. I found the PowerStack listed for sale in Durham. The price was fair, and still available for sale. So Saturday after installing the dishwasher, we drove out there with some cash to takea look at it. The machine was in great shape, and we decided to buy it. The sellers helped us take it apart and pack all the pieces into our car. We rode a little lower than normal on the way home, but everything fit. Erika helped me carry all the parts inside, and I cleaned the dust off and put it together in the workout room upstairs. Some time around 1:00 am everything was together and I tried it out. It worked beautifully!

Next time you're in the market for a good bargain, give Craigslist a shot. It worked for me.

Posted by Wayne at 02:15 PM | Permalink

In our continuing quest to update appliances in our kitchen, we got a new dishwasher. This one's a Whirlpool with stainless steel and black finish. We got a pretty good price, and by installing it ourselves, we saved around $140. In my opinion, an hour or two on a Saturday is better than paying somebody that much to do something that's pretty simple. Anyway, we're very happy with it so far, and it gets our dishes clean!

Posted by Wayne at 02:00 PM | Permalink

We finally bought a grill. I shopped around a bit to see what was available, and I settled on a gas grill at Lowes. It's looks pretty good, 42,000 total BTU, lots of space to cook over the 3 main burners, side burner on the left for a pot. The first night I cooked some steaks for dinner. A cool thing about grills is that when the power goes out, you can still cook food. We don't often lose power in Raleigh, but it's nice to have that option for when we do.

Posted by Wayne at 11:03 AM | Permalink

Hooray! This is the aforementioned microwave we ordered. I picked it up from Lowes yesterday evening - which was an experience in itself, and installed it last night. While waiting about 25 minutes for someone to bring the microwave to me, I noticed Lowes has a "customer service" sign in 5 languages: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Russian. I'm guessing on those last two, since I'm not a linguist. So finally, "John the loader" was able to wheel the microwave up to the front, and I sign my name and I'm off.

The old microwave was a pain in the butt to remove. It has an interesting/annoying design. There were no markings or manuals to help, but apparently I had to remove certain key screws from around and under the old microwave to let it slide forward and out of its mounting cage - which was also the outer shell of the unit. Once this was out, I was able to remove the screws from the inside of the cage and remove it from the cabniet. It was a mess. when it was finally out I saw some really old wallpaper.

Installing the new one was much easier. First you draw a vertical centerline on the wall in the opening, then attach the mounting plate to the back wall. Luckily the studs were easy to access. Next drill two holes in the upper cabinet and lift the new microwave into place. The mounting plate holds most of the weight of the microwave, and the top screws keep it in place.

I think it looks great.

Posted by Wayne at 12:26 PM | Permalink

So one of our goals for the house has been to update several of the kitchen appliances. The old ones were original to the house, circa 1980s. The old oven still worked, but we've never been happy with it. We both liked the flat-top style, and Erika loves the new stainless steel finish that's pretty popular now. So we found a pretty good deal on this one last weekend at Best Buy. They delivered it Monday morning as promised, and they made the top level at Erika's request. However, the delivery guys didn't raise it up to the counter height, and they didn't position the power cord to let it be pushed back all the way. Thankfully, all that's pretty easy to do and I was able to take care of it myself. There's a screw leg on each corner to adjust the height. So far we like it, and it passes the cookie-baking test. We also ordered a matching microwave from Lowes and it should be here later in the week.

Posted by Wayne at 08:34 PM | Permalink

Finally!
About 3 weeks ago, we ordered a new bed from a Dormia retail store in the mall. We were tired of squeezing into our old one, and we wanted something bigger. We're both tall people (over 6 feet) so we got a "California King" size bed. If you didn't know and you're interested, this CK size is slightly narrower and slightly longer than a normal king size bed. We also opted for a memory foam style mattress - I'll have to see how that works out.

To make an arduously long story short, Dormia gave us lots of problems with delivery.
They'd promise a day, then cancel, then again, then we had to wait... Erika threatened to cancel the order if they didn't get it to us by Saturday... then it came on Friday. We ended up getting two free memory foam pillows since they gave us so much trouble. In summary, think of their "promised" delivery dates as estimates, and if you do have trouble, be prepared to make numerous phone calls to get it straigtened out.

So anyway, they delivered it today. It was the funniest thing. The mattress comes shipped in box the size you'd use to store an artificial Christmas tree. Inside that, the mattress is rolled up like a burrito. Then they unroll it and remove the vacuum-sealed bag. In a few minutes the mattress expands to the size you'd expect. Very weird. I'm sure it's great for reducing shipping costs. Think how many of these they could fit into a delivery tuck! As usual, I took some pictures and posted them for your viewing pleasure.

If you're wondering, all King or California King size beds use a foundation or box springs that comes in two pieces. It almost looks like two twin size beds beneath the mattress. The reason for this is that you couldn't fit a one-piece king size foundation through doorways and corridors in many houses.

Posted by Wayne at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This actually happened a while ago, but I hadn't posted the pictures until now. My folks gave us a Homedepot gift card for Christmas, so we ran out and bought a new digital thermostat for our house. We thought this would be infinitely better than the old one (we weren't even able to tell what temp it was set to) and it might also save a little money in heating/cooling costs.

First, I took the faceplate off the old thermostat:

Then I disconnected and labeled all these wires.

Then I hooked the wires to the new thermostat, and called their tech support, since the install guide didn't have information on some of the wires we have. Turns out my guesses were right. So far we love it. This new one has a backlit touchscreen control and even shows the humidity in the house. We have it set to an "EPA approved" energy saving program that turns the heat up and down throughout the day to save money.

Posted by Wayne at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We stayed home and painted the kitchen on Monday. I say "stayed home" as if we laid out since technically the university was closed, but graduate students always end up feeling guilty when they aren't at work. I think this was worth it though. Erika had wanted to paint it red for a long time, and we just haven't had the time to do it. As usual, we posted several pictures to check out. Here's a quick before and after:

Before painting:

After painting:

Posted by Wayne at 02:32 PM | Permalink

We're still playing entry catchup. Last weekend we put up and trimmed the Christmas tree. I expected it might look a little bare, but all the ornaments filled it out pretty well. I took this picture with the new camera, you can click to zoom way in and check out the detail.

Posted by Wayne at 07:19 PM | Permalink

Over the weekend, Erika transformed the ficus in the living room into a candy tree for Halloween.

Posted by Wayne at 09:05 PM | Permalink

I'm mad.
Last night, someone broke into my car and tried to steal my stereo, right in front of my house. They didn't know how to pull it out, so they only succeeded in breaking the non-removable faceplate. They got into the car by prying my driver's window outward enough to reach in (maybe with a wire) and unlock the door. When they failed at removing the stereo, they just left the car door open about an inch, so all the water from last night's rain soaked the driver's seat too.

So hooray. Now I have:
1) A screwed up window which I'll have to take the door apart to fix.
2) A broken stereo.
3) A growing concern about my neighborhood.
4) Still a huge deadline Monday which I'm behind now, since I had to wait on the police this morning.

Here's what I think happend. I had to go into the office last night to work from 6pm-1:40am. My car was parked in one of our two marked spots with an NCSU student parking tag on the windshield. Thursday and Friday this week are NCSU Fall Break. I think the criminal saw an empty parking spot beside my car and thought we were away on Fall Break, so there would be a better chance to break into my car.

So now I'm pissed off, and I'm thinking of what I could do to either secure my car better or try to catch a criminal if it happened again.
Here's some first-draft ideas:
1) Hook up a surveilance camera from inside the house watching the cars and recording movement.
- That might not be able to ID the person well enough, and wouldn't prevent the crime.
2) Get a car alarm
- My car's pretty old, it might not be worth the expense.
3) Make it look like I have a car alarm. I could build a tiny circuit to make an LED blink on the dashboard, or something similar.
- Might not trick anyone
4) Set a trap in the car with pepper spray/electric shock, etc and an alarm to go off if someone tries to pull out a stereo again.
- Could be dangerous for us driving the car if it went off by accident. Also it might be illegal.

I don't think i'll go for #4, but wouldn't it be great to catch a criminal like that? The trouble with lots of those are we'd have to be home to catch the guy. We like to take trips, so that's not always so likely.

I'll let you know if the police catch anyone. Apparently another car close by was broken into similarly last night.

Posted by Wayne at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two nights ago we had some pretty heavy rain during a thunderstorm. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that I had just seeded some new grass close to the house. So during the rain, I hear an odd noise. I look out the window and I see that water is streaming straight down from the roof. So we basically have a two-story waterfall from the roof. This sucks for several reasons, but it basically screwed up the grass I'd set out within about 5 feet of the house, by washing the seed and dirt away.

So I call the home owners association and they agreed to take a look at it. Two days later, I'm curilous if they did anything about it. I brought out the ladder and climbed up to the roof. I don't think they'd come out yet, and I saw there were clumps of leaves and roof gravel clogging both the downspouts. As long as I was up there, I decided to clean them out. And yes, I was careful. Now it should be safe to re-do that grass. Hooray for 22-ft ladders!

Posted by Wayne at 08:26 PM | Permalink

Last Saturday our couch was delivered! Shelton's Furniture delivery guys brought it about 5:30 pm. We had been scheduled for a 4pm delivery and they were running late. That meant we had to miss the Jeopardy show taping at the RBC Center, oh well. The couch is nice, and it even pulls out into a queen bed. Amazingly, it's not too uncomfortable. Ashley uses something like a trampoline tarp under the mattress, so you don't feel the typical metal bar across your back. Definately an upgrade from the black metal frame futon that had been our main couch previously. The futon has moved upstairs into the workout room. We still have room for the loveseat the G's Pfeiler gave us too.

Posted by Wayne at 07:55 PM | Permalink

It's very nice to have a day off once in a while. I think it helps people to be more productive at work when they get time to rest and do non-occupational stuff occasionally.

So Erika and I ran out to Lowes and got some stuff for the house. We came back and built a new raised bed on the back fence line with landscaping timbers. I made a nice brick wall style pattern at the corners, and locked them together and into the ground with 12-inch galvanized spikes. A sledge hammer would have helped a bit too. Erika planted some cool-weather vegetables and flowers in the raised bed.

Next we set up a new sprinkler to water the grass in the back yard. This is something that's bugged me for a while. We have tons of mosquitos that love to hop on me everytime I'd go out back to water the grass with the handheld sprayer. This sucked and made me itchy. So now I can turn on the faucet in the morning, eat breakfast, and then turn it off, all mosquito-free! It works pretty well too. I set out a bit of slow-release fertilizer in preparation for fall over seeding.

Posted by Wayne at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're back online.
Last Thursday, the wonderful workers of Progress Energy (local power company) decided to do some utility work behind one of the houses on our row. In the process, they succeeded in screwing up our cable line in two ways. First, they somehow severed the line. Second, they crossed the cable line with a live power line which basically melted the cable line lose to the junction box.

So two days with no internet later, a TWC service guy came out and ran a temporary line to replace the screwed up one. This is basically good, except the temporary line will have to be replaced with a burried one at some point in about two weeks, right under the grass I'm trying to grow in the back yard. Oh well.

Posted by Wayne at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Erika's green thumb is doing well, and she has 2 cucumbers to show for it.

I also finished uploading the rest of my Vail, CO pictures, and I included a bunch that Ariel took too.

Posted by Wayne at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We went to Umstead park with Annie again this morning and took a different trail. Didn't bring the camera, so no pictures this time. We did however spot a copperhead snake in the creek. Luckily, this was before were about to let Annie romp around in the water.
Ater that, we came back and Erika finished painting the bathoom. It looks really good. The "Cloudy Day" is very close to Carolina Blue, so that's kind of funny. I think it looks great. Check out the new pictures.

Posted by Wayne at 11:32 PM | Permalink

Erika got the itch to do some more painting, and decided to tackle the upstairs bathrooms. She started today with the guest bathroom. Since the paint she's using is a light blue (Behr "Cloudy Day") over a pueblo color, she had to prime everything first. The walls in this bathroom look pretty rough, almost like there had been wall paper on there that was half-torn away when somebody decided to change it. The old pueblo color was pretty glossy, and it really showed all these flaws. The new paint Erika chose is closer to a matte, so hopefully all the flaws won't show as much. And I know... conventional wisdom says use glossy paint in bathrooms, but this stuff is suppoesed to be fine in there too. We'll post some pictures of how it looks.

Posted by Wayne at 10:13 PM | Permalink

We ran out to Home Depot today and got a string trimmer to cut the grass in the back yard. I found a small corded electric one for $20. With as small as our back yard is, and the proximiy to an outlet on the house, I decided that's all we need. I tried it out, and it works pretty well, but I can see how I might need a nicer one once we get a house with a bigger yard. So how many names are there for string trimmers anyway? When I was a kid, we called it a weed whacker, and I've seen weed eater too. That's all for now.

Posted by Wayne at 11:40 PM | Permalink

We had planned to go to a free concert downtown tonight, but a thunderstorm blew in and cancelled that. While we were shutting the windows and planning what to do for dinner, the power started blinking on and off. After a minute of that it went dark and stayed dark.
So then I realized another benefit of laptop computers. When the power goes out, we can still watch about 2 hours or a dvd or something. So I called up my Sifl & Olly playlist and we watched 5 or 6 episodes before the laptop's batteries ran down. Dinner plans got modified to accomodate for the lack of power too.
Then Annie needed a walk, and while were were out, we saw about half the neighborhood had power. Unfortunately, we were in the unlucky half. But then, suddenly the Progress Energy guys got something right, and everything lit back up just a little before 8:30.

Posted by Wayne at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Everything's growing nicely in the backyard. Erika's raised bed has been doing well, we just put up a trellis for the peas to grow on. And the grass has been filling in really well in the latest section.

Posted by Wayne at 07:55 PM | Permalink

I posted some more pictures of the fence after the tree was removed. Check it out and compare the before and after.

Posted by Wayne at 11:27 PM | Permalink

I added some new pictures today. So we had a tree that was growing through the fence in the back corner of the backyard behind the shed. It looks like it'd been there, growing, for quite a few years. It had grown through a space between two boards in the fence, and had actually pushed one of the boards off the fence, pulling the nails out. After that, it grew more branches, and it actually started to push the fence apart at the top. Anyway, it had to go. So I cut it off at the fence top and hauled off the limbs. Next I pulled the last couple of nails out that were holding that section of fence up, and got better access to the trunk, and I sawed that off as low as I could. I started putting the fence back together, and realized that I had to cut out part of the stump to even do that. I ended up using a large drill bit to take out a chunk of the stump. After that it was pretty easy to put everything back together with some screws. By this time it was dark, so you'll have to wait on pictures of the finished product.

We also hung up the hummingbird feeder that Erika's folks gave us recently.

Then I posted some pictures of Erika's raised bed, and the grass sprouting from about a week ago. That's all for now.

Posted by Wayne at 11:18 PM | Permalink

So I have a big math exam Thursday, and I've been studying for that. Wish me luck. Erika's raised bed has begun to sprout. The mesclun is popping up really well, and we think a few pea plants are too.

The new section of grass close to the house is doing really well, I think due to the warmer weather. The stuff that sprouted last week is probably 1.5 inches tall in most spots. A funny thing seemed to happen too. I think I put down either too much seed, or too much top cover. As the grass is sprouting and growing, it's pushing sections of soil upward, so they look like they're floating about an inch off the rest of the ground. I've been breaking those up so the grass below can get some light. I might post a picture to show how one looks while it's floating :)

Posted by Wayne at 11:04 PM | Permalink

So tonight, when Erika and I got home, I took Annie outside and I noticed the new grass plot has begun to sprout. It looks pretty good too, lots of sprouts. This was definately the quickest I've had seed sprout (8 days), probably since it's much warmer outside now, and maybe my technique is improving. So that's cool. I'll put some pictures on, once it's tall enough to see.

Posted by Wayne at 10:38 PM | Permalink

We built a small raised bed this weekend, about 4 feet square, 8 inches high. It's beside the shed in the back yard, where the old tree used to be. Erika's already planted a few seeds to get it going. We'll put some pictures of it on here soon. I used cedar boards screwed into four 1" square posts driven into the ground. The posts are made of that gray recycled plastic material some people use to make decks. Supposedly, these materials are safer to use if we plan to grow vegetables or anything we'll eat in there. Pressure treated wood is supposed to leach semi-dangerous chemicals into the soil, at least according to the gardening book we have :)

Posted by Wayne at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I realized I've been talking about the new grass without showing any pictures, so I posted a few. Here's a picture of the new grass behind the patio. And here's a picture of the new plot we worked on, fenced in by chicken wire.

Posted by Wayne at 07:24 PM | Permalink

So after we took the bushes and tree out last weekend, I put up some chicken wire around that area to keep Annie out since it's pretty muddy. A funny thing about chicken wire, Home Depot calls it "poultry wire". I guess they don't want to leave out geese and ducks.

Anyway, that's been working, Annie's stayed out, and another reason for the fence is since we planned to seed more grass in that area. So tonight we finished breaking up the dirt, mixed in 2 inches of peat moss everywhere, raked everything flat, spread some fertilizer, spread a lot of creeping red fescue grass seed, then another half inch of peat moss.

The last section I did really showed how much the peat moss helps. I had spread it too thin by their recommendations, and some patches ended up with bare dirt after watering over a few weeks time. Well, almost no grass sprouted in the areas without the peat moss. This section has more peat moss and is also more heavily seeded, so I'm hoping for really good results in "2 to 6 weeks".

Posted by Wayne at 09:16 PM | Permalink

I worked on the tree some more Sunday morning, and finally got it out. Here's a during picture that shows when we got the two bushes out (They're in the wheel barrow in the foreground) and I had started to trench around the tree and saw through the roots. Even Annie wanted to help me dig a little, and we finally got the tree out. After that, Erika helped me lug the tree trunk and stump off to the woods, and I filled the hole in. Here's the finished picture. Note the change in shadows to get an idea how long this all took.

Posted by Wayne at 10:20 PM | Permalink

Here's a pretty good before picture: old tree and bushes, with a few differences. The tree was cut back to fence-top level and the left branch closest to the house was cut off close to the ground, so it didn't have any leaves. The bushes had been cut back a lot so they only had a few leaves left, and looked really bad. I'll post some more pictures along the way.

Posted by Wayne at 10:56 AM | Permalink

I worked in the back yard today. Those two sickly bushes are now gone, and the mangled tree is halfway gone. The tree has a lot more roots than I hoped it would. This is all in preparation for the raised bed garden Erika is looking forward to, and some more grass. The second plot of grass is begining to look better than the original one, so I was able to take down the extra metal fencing around it. Annie should be able to walk around on it without too much damage. We got some more grass seed and peat moss for this last section too. I've been really pleased how it's been working in the other two sections.

Posted by Wayne at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you haven't heard, I'm trying to seed a lawn in the fenced-in part of our back yard. When we moved in, there wasn't anything but a couple of old bushes and lots of leaves and dirt around the patio. Well, after some grass advice from Tom, we ran out to Lowes and got some creeping red fescue seed, lawn starter fertilizer, and a couple large bags of peat moss. I started with a small patch in the back corner and after it sprouted I worked on the rest of the space behind the patio. This second patch took longer to sprout, almost a month, but it finally did today!

Since Annie also uses the backyard for her business, I had to do something to keep her out of the usually damp, sometimes muddy freshly seeded plots of ground. I put together a short fence with several planks of wood, but after a couple weeks Annie learned she could just jump over it. And then we learned that she really liked digging in this dirt also. So I used the parts from the second dog kennel we got with the house to augment the wooden fence, and that's worked fine.

I'm not sure how long it takes grass to fill in well, but hopefully by summer sometime we'll have a much nicer-looking back yard.

Posted by Wayne at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)