The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

This is a timeless proverb which simply means that someone thinks he would be better in any other situation than where he currently is.

But sometimes this saying is also true in the most literal sense.

A lone young Plumeria tree, a companion plant and some unknown weeds growing side by side.

The grass on the side of the fence where the animals graze are almost non-existent. With the ruminants' voracious appetite for grass and weeds, the enclosed areas seem like they have been meticulously mowed.

Wild grass overwhelming the young palms and other ornamental plants.

On the other side however, wild grasses and weeds are madly growing, competing with the plants for any available space and nutrients in the ground. In some areas they are even taller than the ornamental plants we transplanted a few months ago.

There used to be a dirt road beside the row of plants, now almost covered with grass just after a few days of rain.

Even the dirt paths are under siege. If not cleared of vegetation, they will soon disappear under a new growth of different wild grasses and weeds. And now that the drought is easing its stranglehold over the land, more wild grasses will soon awake from their slumber.

Maybe it's time for the animals to "jump the fence"... literally.

A simple facelift

Good heavens, no not on me! Although not blessed with good looks, I can live with my God-given face. I must admit though, a little snip here and a little tug there would really make a lot of difference. But...

I'm talking about the garden and farm entrance.

You know when something itches and you ignore it? All the more it gets itchy until you scratch it to get relief. That's how I felt about the bare walls surrounding the entrance to the farm (or garden). I just can't take my mind off of it. Although it looks much better now than before, a little more facelift would make it look even better. So I asked Dad to estimate the cost, materials plus labor, to have the walls around the entry way plastered and thus covering those ugly stacks of cinder blocks.

The previous look of the entrance to the farm. The name of the farm painted on the gate is covered for a little privacy.

Now work is in progress to cover and smoothen the rough surface of the walls and planter boxes near the gate and parking areas. And so it goes, another facelift to make the entrance to the garden (or farm) softer and more inviting. Just a thin coat of plaster will do the trick.

The refined look of the wall on the left side of the entrance to the garden after a fresh coat of plaster was applied. The plaster was still wet and they were about to work on the planter box when this picture was taken.

Eventually, my goal is to have a decorative stone veneer (faux or real) installed, that is if there's a budget left.

Through the narrow gate

The farm's concrete front wall was completed last December of 2009. Provisions for a few guest parking spaces were made by positioning the the gate and portions of the wall on its left and right sides a few meters deeper inside the farm. But the terrain of the farm slopes downward starting at the boundary of the farm and the public road. So the parking spaces were also on a decline making it a tad difficult to park.

Top pictures: the entrance after the wall was first built. Bottom pictures: the new look of the entrance area.

To solve the problem, the parking areas were backfilled until the surfaces were level with the public road. Some trees were also removed and others were trimmed to allow easy access to the parking spaces. They also made rooms for plants to grow in.

The entrance to the farm with gates closed. I erased the name of the farm painted on the gate for a little privacy. The writings on the wall means "Post no bills".

Now, the entrance to the farm is more defined. With a little more landscaping it would even look better. Eventually (budget permitting) that part of the wall will be plastered and painted, the surface paved and the gates replaced to give the area a refined and finished look.

P.S.:
I've asked Dad to estimate how much it would cost to have the walls around the parking spaces plastered. Depending on the cost, maybe we could have that task done someday soon.

Be careful what you wish for...

Last May of 2009, I stayed at the farm on a short vacation. That gave me the chance to inspect some areas which I have not seen before.

Upon reaching the easternmost edge of the farm and admiring the view of the plains beyond and the river below, how I wished there was a direct access to the river, even if it means jumping down a cliff just to get there.

View of the river and the 'ledge' as seen from the edge of the farm.

Now there is this not so narrow strip of land, which I call the "ledge", that runs parallel to the river down below and the farm above. Problem is, this desirable piece of real estate belonged to two different owners, with an invisible boundary running somewhere in the middle.

We took chance and talked to the owner of the lot on the left of the boundary to see if he is amenable to sell a small parcel of his property. After agreeing on the right price, a piece of the "ledge" a few meters wide was ceded to the farm. This small piece of lot now sits in the middle of the two properties. And that was the highlight of my vacation!

The strip of lot outside the fence and down below used to belong to our neighbor. It is now part of the farm and leads down to the 'ledge'.

After enclosing the farm with a fence, the only way to get to the "ledge" is to build a ladder, create a stairway, or a climb down a rope. None of these implements are in place yet so getting down the ledge is a challenge. Jumping is not an option either since that would result to broken bones and severe bruises. Well, at least the farm is now connected to the river's edge.

Continuation of the picture above, now also part of the farm.

Not satisfied with this sliver of lot a few meters wide, I still wished we could have a bigger area. If only...

Then one day in October last year, after the fence has been installed, the previous owner of our piece of the "ledge" offered to sell the rest of his to us. Gladly and without hesitation, we took the offer. All of a sudden the area of our "ledge" got substantially bigger. Also, access got safer and easier since now we can hike down to it.

Continuation of the picture above, now part of the farm. The land from here down to the 'ledge' is now part of the farm.

So the next time you wish for something, remember the rest of the wise saying because...

...you might get it!

Now how I wish we could get the right side too...

Milestone #1 - The farm wall

A milestone has been reached!

One major project is finally complete. The farm is now fully enclosed on all sides, concrete blocks were used in front and cyclone wires (chain links) were used on the rest of the perimeter. This will give the premises a little more of privacy and security it needs, a far cry from its previous state of unrestricted access.

Construction of the concrete wall began late October. When facing the farm, the wall was built from left to right. Below are a few pictures of the wall in its final stage of construction.

The leftmost edge of the farm. In the picture above, there is a vacant lot which is not part of the farm so the wall was built around it. There is another area (not seen) wherein they had to build around another neighbor's property.

The area where some people are gathered (far right) is the main entrance to the farm.

The gaps between the walls will be filled with concrete posts for additional support. The wall on the left side of the main gate was pushed in to make room for guest parking spaces.

The wall on the right side of the main gate was also pushed in for more parking spaces. The mound of rice husks on the right are used for soil amendments for the plants.

A worker continues to build the wall up to the desired height of eight feet.

The wall goes all the way to the rightmost edge of the farm.

For additional privacy the wall was also extended a little further down on the right side.

Installation of the cyclone wire on the left, back and right sides of the farm began in the middle of August and ran until late October. A few problems were encountered but none too serious to derail the task.

Part of the fence on the left side.

Part of the fence at the back, facing the river.

Part of the fence on the right side.

My original plan was to have the entire wall (front and back) plastered simply for aesthetic reasons. But I was told it will cost a hefty sum of money to accomplish this finished look. So for now I have decided to let go of this desire (at least for the time being) and instead pour my meager financial resource into more important and essential projects.

Signed, sealed and delivered

In my "A penny for your thoughts" entry, I mentioned that it's cheaper for us to make our own hollow blocks instead of buying from the store. Well a short time later, we found out that this is not exactly true. Add the cost of raw materials and the cost of labor and the savings is not worth the effort.


Mounds of sand (in front of an abandoned house) for the fence.

Also there were other aggravating factors that made us re-evaluate this [project within a] project.

• The churn out was not fast enough to meet the demand. Because they could only make so much in a day, it was dragging down the pace of construction.
  
  
• The weather was also slowing down production. After forming a block, it needs a few good days to cure. But because of the unpredictable weather (on a rainy season), there were days when they needed to halt production.
  
  
• The fact that there were only two or three workers in a day was also a problem. Unless they can master the art of multitasking (or grow extra pair of arms), it's impossible to make a block and build a wall at the same time. So switching to one task means they had to stop the other. Now that was really slowing them down.

After these realizations, there was no doubt. A few days later, deliveries of ready-made hollow blocks began to arrive.

Good fences make good neighbors

As simple as the farm fence may seem, it is useful in so many ways.

The animals are now secure. Before the fence, they would graze anywhere they see vegetation growing. And if they go way too far, sometimes they get lost and could not find their way back. Good thing not one has 'mysteriously' vanished yet although a few have returned with visible signs of abuse. The new fence also saves time and effort since it has become easier to gather them at sundown.



The neighbors' crops are now safe. Used to be the animals would sometimes go to the neighbors' fields, gobbling up and damaging their crops. If no one is on guard to ward them off, they could really inflict a heavy toll on the plants. Now our animals are no longer a threat to them.



Those who used to cross the farm as a shortcut to where they want to go will find that they need to walk further and farther since now they have to go around the entire length of the property. Our adjacent neighbors are also happy with the new fence since the number of trespassers on their properties have also gone down.


The fishpond is part of the neighbor's property so the fence had to go around it.

The delineation between properties is now clearly visible and unmistakable. Before only barb wires mounted on wooden posts, a couple or so feet high, define the boundaries. One problem with this is that boundaries can easily be changed simply by moving the posts. Also, people and animals can effortlessly cross by going over, under or between the wires.



Construction of the front fence is still in progress. Still, security has significantly improved in the farm. People are now using the gate when they visit.

Construction update #3 --- the fence

Invigorated by fresh infusion of funds, more needed materials were purchased to continue with the fencing project. They were ordered in Manila and had them delivered to the farm. They found out that these materials are cheaper in Manila and even if you add the delivery cost it would still come out cheaper than just buying them locally.

But for some "acts of men" reasons, it took over half a day longer for the construction materials to get delivered.

The delivery van left Manila early in the evening thinking that the night drive will be smooth. Indeed, everything went smooth until later on when they encountered some unexpected hurdles on their long journey to the farm.

First, they got stuck on a highway traffic. There was an accident involving a semi which caused traffic on both directions to back up for several kilometers.

After idling for several hours, they finally got moving until daytime arrived. And with the rising sun came a few more hurdles. This time they were stopped on three different occasions by some 'good' men of L.T.O. (Land Transportation Office) who were stationed on strategic sections of the highway. In all instances they concocted some bogus violations in an apparent attempt to extract some grease money. The threat equates to "either pay or have your van and deliveries impounded". Christmas must be drawing near. Oh well, may they burn in .... (you know where). Now!

After all these wild encounters with local vultures, snakes and crocodiles, at last all the materials for the fence have been delivered to the site. This should be enough to finally finish both the left and right sides.

After that, they will begin making hollow/concrete blocks (see "A penny for your thoughts"). This will take some time since by their estimate, it would need at least 20,000 blocks to construct the front fence. Yes, the front fence will not be made of cyclone wires this time. It will be a solid, 2.5 meter (8.2 feet) tall concrete block wall.

The art of fencing

	Chain-link, interlink, chain-wire, cyclone, hurricane or whatever name one might call it, it's still a fence, the same kind of fence. That's what I've learned when we started fencing in the farm. I didn't know that this flat and uninteresting tangle of wires goes by so many names. All I knew was 'chain-link', period. Why am I ranting about the different names of one kind of fence, you may ask. Simply because in the beginning it confused me a lot and most of all because I need to vent out my ire about this fence. Why confusing? Depending on who I talk to, it goes by different names. Talking to my mom, one day she'd call it inter-link, the next cyclone. Talking to my dad, he'd call it cyclone, the next interlink. Wait a minute, are we talking chain-link here? Why am I irked? Because of miscommunication or the lack of it. Years ago, a roll of this fence yields a dimension of 6ftx10m. So when I was handed the price quote, it was based on this figure. Yesterday, when they started to install the wires, they got a huge surprise. Each roll is 4 meters short in length. Apparently, that's the new standard. Grrrrrr! So now they're several meters short of finishing the left side of the farm. And we need to recalculate the cost of fencing the right side plus the missing portion on the left side.

Construction update #2 --- the fence

After fixing the hassle of going under budget because of a misquoted pipe posts, all the materials have been ordered.

In a matter of few days, all fence materials are in except for the chain-link (interlink). But that can wait since they have to erect all the posts first. Then they need to let the concrete that holds the posts upright to cure for several days. It sounds easy right? Well, if you're a carabao then its not.

A truckful of gravel and sand was delivered but the truck had brake problems and since the driveway slopes downward, the driver was a little afraid of losing control and risk damaging the truck or any nearby structures. The easy solution was to unload the gravel and sand at the entrance by the gate of the farm. Now there's a huge mound of earth blocking the driveway which needed to be carted to the construction site.

They had to find a way to get the huge mound of earth out of the driveway as soon as possible since not only is it on the driveway but the gates could not be closed either. They had to look for mechanical equipments to do the hauling but it's the middle of the harvest season so they could not find available equipment to borrow much less rent.

The only quick solution was to manually put the gravel and sand in sacks and load the sacks on a cart to be pulled by a carabao to where they need to go. And this they did for almost the whole day, going back and forth until the mountain of gravel was moved out of the driveway.


NOTE: Topography of the farm.

Poor beast of burden, she had to pull a heavy load from one end of the farm all the way up to the other end and down to the ledge. Hopefully she's okay since she may be on the family way. We'll see in a couple of months of she is indeed carrying a baby.

Midnight dream

Around past midnight today, as I was about to be transported into dreamland, a sweet, melodious tone broke the silence that has finally descended on my room. My half-shut eyes were pried open and my mind awakened by the alarm of an incoming text message.

The message was from my dear mother. "Oh no, not another problem", so I thought before I could even begin to read the message.

Rewind to four days ago.

Whenever I read a text message that goes something like "your dad needs to talk to you", it translates to only one thing: a problem. And that's the kind of message I got four days ago. As quickly as I could, I composed myself, sat on a chair (just in case my knees would start to wobble) and prepared for the worst. Then I called home.

It turns out that the money I wired a week ago to purchase the materials needed to build the fence on the left side of the farm was not enough. The quote they previously got was wrong on one of the materials. Consequently, the budget was now short.... waaayyyyy short!

Rather than halt the construction and wait, I breathed in as much air as I could and coughed out the required amount (really, if only its that easy). I ran to the nearest money transfer shop (you know the ones that charge an arm and a leg?) and sent the money. Crisis averted.

Fast forward to early this morning. It was my mom updating me that they have the money, and that they went to some nursery to buy a few more plants.

Now if only I could get my sleep back...