Don's Fence

Last Spring, I spent a good bit of time with my friend, local Organic Grower, Don Reese, helping him to build a fence around his produce garden at his EverGreen Organics Farm, here, just West of Siler City.

BACKGROUND OF A GOOD FRIENDSHIP
Don has been a good friend for a long time, and we have worked on several projects together in the past, most notably, what I like to call, 'The Great Wall of Pittboro', a 300 ft (?) long wooden gravel-dust barrier, for my employer at the time. So Don and I are veteran fence builders (and he has brought me in on a couple of jobs since then, including helping to build a studio at home for his partner, Gourd Artist, Carol Tinsky).

DANCING 'PARTNERS'
And finally, Don and I co-organized a series of Ballroom Dance Classes for Beginners, which we held for several seasons at the beloved Mina Beana's Cafe, before their closing in the summer of 2009 (?). Don and I dreamed the classes up during our lunch breaks, while working on 'the wall', when we learned that we shared a common interest in partner dancing. Don and Carol did a wonderful job of teaching the classes, and I did my best to support them and the cafe in this endeavor, and continue recriuting more inteprid couples, who made alot of progress over the course of the series, including yours truly.

THE CHALLENGE
But while Don does love to dance, his real passion is growing healthful organic produce. He believes in  it, religiously, and loves it with each and every one of his taste buds. Unfortunately, as Don would point out, so do his neighborhood deer, out there in that beautific, glady glen, in the midst of which he has established EverGreen Organic.

And these deer are not the kind to give up easy, Don knows well. No quite to the contrary, they seem to enjoy a challenge, any chance to show off their athleticism.
Well, a challenge they've got, because Don Reese is serious about his fence building. Actually, he is mostly serious about his produce, but to the deers demise, Don has 50+ years of experience putting up all manor of structure in the natural environment. You see, Don, in a previous life, was a big time Builder. He ran crews of 100 guys, in the Baltimore Area, laying down asphalt, putting up entire subdevisions.
But by and by, he became utterly disillusioned with the contracting business, and decided that he would rather persue his life-long passion of organic farming, culled, in part perhaps, from a subscription to Mother Earth News.
Yet, Don did bring several choice tools and skills with from a lifetime in the construction business...

SMALL GUNS
First, the little guns, Don's practical whit. Don is quick on his feet, spry, and independant minded. A pistolero, that one, so to speak.

THE BIG GUNS
But, that there pistol ain't the only gun Don owns....No. Don also brought with him major skills with a front-end loader, which deftly he operates like a second set of hands.
So, as a hired hand, I have to say, I was pretty fortunate that we had this kind of equipment at Don's service.
As I said earlier, Don is serious about his fencing. And there was a whole lot of post holes, and trenching, which were work enough with this mamoth work horse at our side. I hate to imagine having done with out it.