Mending Fences

It is spring.

The season for mending fences.

Recently, I heard someone say “mend fences” when they meant “make up after a disagreement”.

It doesn’t mean that. It means restoring and securing your boundaries when they’ve been compromised.

Keeping things out, keeping things in, marking the path by which one might go around instead.

Horses in, shame and regret out. Dogs in, doomsday scenarios out. Laughter in, chicken-eaters out.

Walking the fence is good exercise, physical and mental, and is best done regularly.

Fences need mending when storms break branches, when deer panic, when the grass is greener on the other side. When time goes by.

Broken fences add a layer of worry to everything. And god forbid something gets through where you were fixin to.

The other day I tried to climb a fence and the rail didn’t hold me. It’s still broken .The dog could walk right through it now. That she doesn’t is more good luck than I deserve and I don’t wanna use it up on a broken fence.

And is it really so wrong to want shiny matching gates if you can pull it off?