Windy Cities

There's an article in the journalstar today about wind turbines. Apparently Rock Port, MO wants to be known for something other than being the "Fireworks Capitol of the Midwest". They are going to be the first town/city to be solely wind powered. $10 million bucks and 4 turbines is all it took.

This is very encouraging to me. It makes sense that if Rock Port could make a success of it, then small town Nebraska might follow suit. Putting the benefit of using renewable energy aside, it has to be much more efficient to have a wind turbine next to your town than to push electricity hundreds and thousands of miles along power lines just to connect all those little towns in BFE up to the grid. Not to mention the benefit for those people of not having to worry as much about being without power for months after an ice storm. Granted this couldn't be a cure-all. Towns along major bird migratory paths wouldn't want them. All the same - it seems like a step in the right direction.

Alternative Fencing Materials

So I've been thinking a lot about putting in a new fence. Currently we have 3 sections of fence that border our backyard. The south border is a hodgepodge of metal chain-link like materials intermingled with trees, shrubs and stumps. It may or may-not be on our property. The west border is our neighbors fence, which consists of the typical rounded-top boards that are weathered and tend to sway considerably in the wind. The north border consists of a short section of rounded boards that conncet the neighbors fence to our house. This section is ours for sure and is completely rotted out and in desparate need of replacing.


So what to do:
The short section in the north needs replacing almost immeadiately and the long section to the south should probably follow soon after.
Do I do both sides at once or just try it out with the north section first?
Do I want match the neighbor's fence or try something different?
If I do something different - do I tie it into the neighbors or do I fence all three sides and have two parallel fences to the west?


So many decisions. I'll keep you posted on the progress. One thing I know for sure is that I am not going to do a fence like the one in the picture below. I saw this on a site visit for work. We did a drainage plan for a city park and this fence belongs to one of neighbors whose lot backs up to the playground.




A big prize goes to the person who can guess what the fence is made out of!