Chloë Learns About Fencing

En route to Headquarters.

My worries about development along my primary fetch corridor, a.k.a. Chloë’s Lane, have thus far proven unfounded. Still, when a chain link fence suddenly appeared around the perimeter of the parking lot that doubles as the entrance and staging area for my lane, I was justifiably concerned.

It turned out to be another false alarm, however. Several of the historic buildings in the park have been painted this summer, and it was the Headquarters Building’s turn. Before work even started, the painting contractor put a fence up around the building and its small parking lot. For a couple of weeks, Mike, Heather and I had to walk around the perimeter of the fence to get to the head of Chloë’s Lane. This wasn’t too hard for Mike and Heather, who just had to trample through some weeds or push a low-hanging alder branch out of the way to get through. But for little old me, it was a slog through heavy brush. I wanted a better way.

Fenced out.

After a couple of days of frustration, I decided it was a lot easier to cut through the job site by squeezing myself under the fence. That way I could lounge on the building’s parched lawn if I wanted, or merely take a shortcut across the parking lot to the other side of the fence, where Mike could show me where to scoot under the fence again, ready for playing fetch on Chloë’s Lane.

Fenced in.

While the fencing didn’t deter us, it kept most other people and dogs out. We saw just a few people the whole time the fence was up, most of them wandering up our trail from below and in need of directions when they were surprised to come across a fence in the middle of a forest.

We never saw any painters, only their progress, their equipment and their garbage, and all of them disappeared one day along with the fence. The building looks a lot better now, but nothing was done about the front porch, and the lawn will need until spring to recover. Traffic on Chloë’s Lane is already back to normal.

Fence gone.