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I ripped down the fence that keeps my neighbor and I away from each other today with Amy (okay, she did most of the work, and I “supervised.”) It’s amazing how rotten wood can get, and it’s amazing how rusty nails can get.

Here’s the fence closest to the neighbor’s sliding glass door. Note the missing pieces - victims to the fence-jumping guys who wanted to get somewhere quickly and assumed that ripping slats off was easier than trying to go over such a rickety structure. (FWIW, they were probably smart in that regard.)

There were some pieces of wood nailed into the mortar in the bricks. Amy used her handy “Wonder Bar” to get the post disconnected from the wall.

It’s all down! About 2 hours worth of work (and only one snarking incident!) Not bad.

The old fence is now laying on the ground. You can see in this photo how rotten the wood is. We took out (or nailed down) all the old rusty nails from this fence, which was the hardest part of the demolition process.

This coming week, Amy intends to stain some 4×4 posts, dig 3 post holes, and use concrete to set them into the ground. I’ll help with that, along with ripping up all the brick along the fence, leveling the area, creating a new planting bed, and setting in some sort of “keeping my dirt (which is higher up than my neighbor’s dirt) in place while allowing for proper drainage” barrier between the two yards. Next weekend, we plan on putting up the long pieces of fencing, and (god willing) the slats on the neighbor’s side. Later on, we can put slats on my side.

Oh, and I decided to take the plunge and invest in some hockey gear. Look for me being all Bambi-on-ice at a rink near you soon!

We went to Pemaquid Point last Sunday. Maggie joined us for lunch at a picnic table, and watched lots of people and other dogs wander by.

She loves the ocean air! So many good smells, so good to be a dog outside…

Please help find Latoyia Figueroa!

This post lifted word-for-word from blackfeminism.org (and seen in other iterations on many other blog sites):

She isn’t white. She isn’t rich. She is a mother. She is also pregnant. And she’s missing, and has been for the last 8 days.

Latoyia is is 24 years old, 5′ 0″ tall, with long, dark brown hair and brown eyes.

There is a $10,000 reward for her return. You can donate to the fund via Amazon, or PayPal (go to All Spin Zone and look in the right rail for a link to the PayPal pay page).

If you’re a cynic (and I am), you may prefer to contribute to the fund by mail. Send a check payable to “Latoyia Figueroa Fund,” and mail it to:

Citizens Crime Commission
1218 Chestnut Street, Suite 406
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Technorati: Latoyia Figueroa

Amy’s folks threw their annual lobster bake this past weekend at their house on the shore of the Damariscotta River in mid-coast Maine. We went, took the dog (who had a whole load of issues of her own to deal with), hung out with my parents (who came from Minnesota), hung out with friends, ate a lot of good food, and generally enjoyed ourselves.

I put together a small slideshow of photos from the Lobster Bake over on my Flickr site.

My favorite photo of Maggie Jane from the weekend:

New layout! I was getting tired of the default template that comes with WP, so I uploaded the MX4 theme and poked around a bit. Let me know what you think…. Not sure if I like the serif-y font, but I’m willing to give it a whirl (and besides, that’s easy to change.)