Split-Rail Fence

I thought I'd take a picture of the fence around our front lawn. The rough split rails are made by cutting logs into 12-18 foot lengths. The logs are then split lengthwise into rails.. The posts are set into the ground and have mortises (holes) for the ends of the rails to fit in. This type of fence has been around for centuries and I like its rustic style. This shows a section of the fence by the driveway. Several sections of this fence burned when the Glass Fire burned up the front lawn, but they were relatively easy to replace. The bare spots in the lawn are the roots of trees, cut down long before we moved here, which grew close to the surface because of the rocky soil and also caught fire. The half buried roots smoldered for days....

Our Berkeley house was built in 1907, before the advent of garages. Cars were rare and any shelters built for them were far too small for modern cars. We had a shed that must have been added after the house was built so we had a driveway which we could park in but we preferred to park on the street in front of the house. When we moved here, we were happy to have a garage with room enough (barely) for both our cars. The doors that opened from a remote control in our car was an added luxury. The problem comes when the power company turns off the power. The doors can be opened manually but they are heavy and difficult to close again. 

Both of our garage doors stopped working last week. We are down to one car,  and we parked it in the driveway last week. I was reminded of having to scrape the ice off the windscreen in the morning this week as the temperatures have fallen below freezing at night. The guy came this morning, put in new much quieter rails and motor on the side we park our car on. He repaired the other side and put in a new opening device on the wall inside the garage with a light that goes on automatically and a battery backup in case the power goes out. 

...which it will. Tomorrow. We got a notice from the power company a couple of weeks ago saying they would be turning off the power tomorrow so they could replace the pole at the bottom of our lawn. I don't know if we'll be able to use our battery back-up. They gave instructions not to use a generator because it might injure the workers, but no mention was made for users of solar power. 

I'm making a stew that takes three days. The meat, veggies and spices are all in the pot in the fridge overnight. Tomorrow it is supposed to simmer for five hours. The stove is gas so I hope  I can light it with a match and cook our dinner.