How ingenious is this?!! Love it! The upside of fences is that they do clearly define boundaries that help us respect each other’s spaces. The downside? Wood engineered isolation from our neighbors. These guys have figured out how to celebrate both! And actually see each other fully, (unlike Tim and Wilson’s top of the head conversations over their obstructive fence on the TV show, “Tool Time!”) Between garage door openers that allow us to cruise seamlessly into our garages and instantly shut the world out from unwanted interactions, and homes purposely built with no functional front porches, we can do life without our neighbors. But at what cost? Loneliness. Isolation. Distrust. Never discovering the joy of belonging. My neighborhood is not like that though! Sooo much activity and interactions taking place! Kids playing in the cul-de-sac. Adults gathering to compare notes on parenting. Food and recipes exchanged. Cups of sugar borrowed. Wrongly delivered mail swapped. Excited planning for the next party on the street! Ed and I are lucky! Having been here for 30 years, we’ve watched multiple generations grow up around us. And each one has been enchanting. Just when we think the parking on the street will clear up with an exodus to college, the next grouping of kids move into the driver’s license era, and lo and behold, packed parking again! But… it is a welcome sign of passage. God, thank You for wisely planting us on Paonia so many years ago. Fences haven’t kept us apart. Warm hearts and intentionality have bridged those potential obstructions. Ed, Roo and I are much blessed! “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!”