GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS

MENDING FENCES

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen ground swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing;
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
Butat Spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each,
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance
" Stay where you are until our backs are turned ! "
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more :
There where it is we do not need the wall :
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him
He only says, " Good fences make good neighbors. "
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head :
"Why do they make good neighbors? "
Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows. "
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down, " I could say " Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly,
and I'd rather he said it for himself.
I see him there bringing a stone
grasped firmly by the top in each hand
like an old-stone savage armed he moves
in darkness it seems to me
Not of words only and the shade of trees
He will not go behind his father's saying
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, " Good fences make good neighbors. "

-Robert Frost

Robert Frost didn't dwell in the city which is probably why he didn't like fences. I had never lived in a house surrounded by a fence before moving to the city . Our first home didn't have one either until one Spring, just as the tulips and daffodils were blooming in my front yard , a huge German Shepherd came rushing in and mowed them down.

Even though I was seething, I said to the dog owner, as politely as I could muster, that I worked hard to keep a nice garden and I would appreciate it if he would keep his dog in check. He grew angry and ordered the dog to " get her. " I ran in the house and shouted out the window that I was calling the police. " I don't care, " he retorted, " I've only got six months to live, " to which I replied , " If you don't get off my property NOW I'm going to shorten that sentence. And that is why I have never regretted having my front garden fenced in.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by good neighbors but for reasons of privacy, dogs, and security we find a fence a good thing to have. When we had to take down a rickety old wooden fence between my neighbor Ceci and I we put up a cedar one with a decorative lattice top. To soften the fence we planted Sweet Autumn Clematis a few years ago. The beautiful white clouds of star-like flowers and the fragrance is something we look forward to every Autumn.

And that's just one good reason why I agree with Robert Frost's neighbor that " good fences make good neighbors. "

Visit Gardening Gone Wild and see what other garden bloggers are saying about their walls and fences in their workshop this month.



Written by Carolyngail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago
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