The fence building begins

We finally got the start of the fence up this weekend. It has required a ton of planning time and of course some unexpected bumps along the way but it made me so happy to see it finally taking shape! It's nice I have a handy hubby too. I pretty much sat back and watched him work with the occasional verbal guidance from me and help holding this piece of wood or that. Sweet job right?

 Posts are in the ground. After some research we decided to use pea gravel instead of concrete to anchor the posts. Pea gravel helps the water to drain away from the post so it will last longer and according to some forums we read will be just as sturdy as concrete. Hopefully it's true :)

 Cameron's job wasn't all bad because he got some new tools out of the deal. One was a Kreg Jig. We definitely think it was worth it.

He also picked up this angle grinder from the pawn shop. It worked beautifully for cutting the cattle panels.

We didn't really realize how sloped our little garden spot still was until we started putting up the panels even though it totally looks level. It's a good thing because it will drain well. However, it forced us to do a step down with the panels because I don't want a 20" gap between the wood and the ground of the lower panels and a 3" gap on the other side if that make sense. We did opt to keep the wood off the ground by a few inches so it doesn't rot as much. I will be adding chicken wire at the bottom up to the wood and burying it a foot to keep out rabbits, moles, ground hogs... and any other animals that are looking for a snack. Hopefully all this work will be worth it :)

  (Ignore the skewing of the camera. The posts are straight and it is level. Promise!)

All the wood is Cedar. One of the biggest reasons I garden is so I don't have to eat chemicals on or in my food. So untreated cedar was the only way to go even though it's pricy! I don't think I'm even going to stain them because of the chemicals in that even though it would look pretty.

p.s. I drafted this post a while ago and forgot to post it. We are almost done with the fence now. Just a few things left to do. I'll be sharing pictures soon!