Good Neighbours?

25 October 2017

We took Mum to the airport on Wednesday for her return flight, and arrived back at the house after lunch, to find that the neighbour in the top field had taken exception to our new sheep fence, cut it in half and thrown it down the bank.  We went to discuss this, and were informed that they owned the top and bank of the terrace, we owned from the bottom.  As usual, the only way find this stuff out is to put up fences and see who gets annoyed!

So, to protect our newly purchased cabbage plants, we spent the afternoon reinstalling the fence, at the bottom of the bank this time.

 The method involves Dave climbing precariously up on the end of the bendy ladder, while I try to hold the pole straight and stay well clear of the sledgehammer at the same time

 This was a bit of a compromise with the neighbour - sort of halfway up the bank - the olive tree to the right is definitely one of ours, so the fence had to go above it. The bank was thick with brambles, so most of our time was chainsawing and secateuring our way through it.  Probably pretty sheep-proof as it was, just there.

 Finishing off - joining the cut sections.

 Thru' the wire - some little plantings I'd done a few days before - in the grass are some spurs from a big prickly cactus that I thought might help with the sheep-proofing.  The neighbour didn't notice or didn't mind when he strimmed through here.

 And on this little shelf, which has really nice soil, I had planted one of my precious caper seedlings, brought back from Tinos with great care.  I didn't want to move it again, and it didn't quite get trodden on while we were fence-fixing, so I left it where it was.

 We finished just at dusk, but I had bought a droopy bougainvillea on the way back from the airport earlier in the day, and wanted to plant it without delay, so that too was done.

Quite a tiring day, in the end, but the bougainvillea looked brighter the next morning, and had kept its flowers, which was a result.