Winter is setting in. The mountains to the south already have white caps. The time for back-yard projects is almost finished until spring. But because on Saturday morning we happened to notice that there are some of those little wooden stakes with the orange plastic flagging tied to the top standing here and there in the otherwise empty field behind our house, and because this must mean that someone is ready to develop that ground into another sub-division, we decided it was a great weekend to finish putting up our back fence.
We built the side fence, the one that separates our back yard from the next-door neighbors’ back yard about two months ago. Then I moved the gate that they put in the front, to the back. I built a wider (double) gate in the front so I can park my little trailer behind the fence at the side of the house. All we needed to do finish enclosing the back yard was to build the back section. I had already bought the posts and cement. We only needed the lumber.
Saturday turned out to be a good time for this. We even had an unexpected check in the mail that more than covered the expense! Isn’t God awesome? So we put up our posts after lunch, it was warm enough to work outside after lunch... and then we headed down to Lowe’s. The price on the dog-eared cedar fencing had come down since the last time I’d bought some, about 40 cents a board. Not bad when you need 110 of them. That saved me $44.oo off what I’d have had to pay had we done this earlier on.
Saturday night fell with only about half of those being put up. Sunday morning I went back out before church and was able to finish it, and just in time. It rained pretty good after that and turned the ground to mud. But at last we have a fully fenced back yard. It looks bigger somehow. Might have something to do with not being able to see the huge field beyond and feeling like we only have a tiny piece of ground in comparison.
It also feels like a metaphor. In the old house we never did have a fully fenced back yard. I had given considerable thought to how and where to put fences and gates, but we never did get to build them. In that house we were taken advantage of. Several times I lost items of some value to alley trolls (thieves) who would steal things from us right out of our (exposed) back yard. That at least is not going to happen here. It also reminds me that in this house, our money is our own. We have built a new boundary in our financial lives. It has been a hard lesson, but this person is no longer accepting gifts with strings attached. If it is a ‘gift’ it is given freely. No strings. If it is not a gift, then it must be payment for some service or other good. And the terms of that negotiation had better be clearly stated, clearly understood and perfectly acceptable to both parties. To often you don’t get what you thought were agreeing to when the condition are vague.
The trouble some people have is that like the little children on the play-ground, when a game is not going their way, they want to continuously change the rules so that they can turn it around to their favor... you know the kind. Some of those kids never grew up and they are still playing that same game. They don’t want clear contracts, because they can’t modify them when things turn out differently than what they thought it would.
No comments:
Post a Comment