It should do for now

 Beloved and I have a brief Friends Meeting every morning -- about 6:30 A.M., because we are old and tend to wake up early. It lasts fifteen to twenty minutes, which is to say, it's a silent meditation that runs out when the coffee in our mugs does.

In the middle of our "sit," as I call it (she doesn't), there was a thump. Some time later, Beloved looked out the kitchen window and said, "There's a van sitting in the garden."

As I was dressing to go have a look, there came a knock at the door, and a mom, with a sheepish looking teenage son in tow, offered Beloved an apology and a piece of paper with contact information and a promise to replace the fence.

In town, or out on the main roads, things are often done differently than that, I know, but one wants to be well regarded by the neighborhood out here in the anti-government boonies, so we offered them the run of the place for fence building and went about our own business, which was that our almost-son-in-law was bringing over our daughter's ashes for a little sad ceremony.

Later, after the totaled van was towed away, I went to have a look at the scene.

How was the boy not injured? This was considerable force.

The fence was gone. The van had apparently run over and uprooted one of the Jeffery pines that I'd planted twenty-eight years ago as a barrier, smashed the other pine into the telephone pole, bounced off the Cortland apple, and plowed through the newly planted sunchokes, ending up halfway to the center-pivot irrigation pole.

Within a day the lad's dad pulled up with a pickup truck full of supplies, and supervised the construction of the new fence by the quite skilled and robust teenager. It went well.

This is a great improvement over what we had before; if anything it is a bit of overkill, as we don't have large stock animals. My fence was ugly as heck but duck proof at the bottom (this one will need something extra at the bottom). Also it was somewhat deer proof at the top (it will need something there as well). Not one to complain in such a case, I praised them for their efforts, and they went away, taking the cleared brush, old fencing and uprooted pine with them.

Also missing (because undoubtedly destroyed) was the board I had painted in white and red diagonal stripes, to let folks know that this is the end of the street and that they might hurt themselves if they proceed farther in this direction.

Rummaging around for something to meet the occasion, I chose to go with painted DVDs suspended from intersections of wire. It should do for now.

Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing. -- Chomei, Hojoki.