Fence & deck

Among the many changes in our first year at Terribly Happy were modifications to the deer fence and the back deck. The first was a necessity for successful food-growing; the second improved our mental health!

When we moved in, the northern half of the four-acre property—the orchard—was surrounded by an eight-foot deer fence. It wasn’t electrified, but it did have barbed wire in its upper part.

The main access to the orchard from the house side of the property was a ponderous, old white gate.

As we undertook expansion of Beth’s kitchen garden and establishment of Richard’s forest garden (see separate posts), both of which were outside the existing deer fence, we faced a decision: Do we erect separate fences around each planting that we want to protect from the abundant deer, or do we fence the entire 4-acre property? We settled on the latter choice, and are terribly happy that we did.

The fencing crew started by taking out the east-west fence that separated the orchard from the rest of the property; this included the white gate and another, smaller, pedestrian gate.

Then they enclosed the southern two acres, reusing the fencing and pedestrian gate they had removed and completing the job with new materials.

They put in vehicle gates at each end of our U-shaped drive, plus a pedestrian gate near the mailbox.

Now, though deer patrol the yards of many of our neighbors, we never have deer problems. Even when we forget to close the gate at night (very rare), there’s no damage. They seemed to have learned to direct their attention elsewhere.

Shortly after the fencing job, the same company expanded our back deck so that it would be usable for dining and relaxing. Here’s what the deck area looked like just before we moved in:

We doubled the size by adding a section that sticks out towards the forest garden,

giving us great views of our place as we dine (or wine).