When we designed our fence around the land, we had to ask ourselves what kind of perimeter do we want. Our first realization was that we aren’t into feeling imprisoned on our own land, so big solid walls were out.

So we decided to go in the opposite direction. We wanted a fence, but one that might blend in with the plants as much as possible while still keeping unwanted people out.

And given that we didn’t really want to spend a lot of money on it, we ended up with a simple steel fence with bars that are reasonably non-imposing visually. We also spaced them as far apart as we could while still preventing a rather small teenager from slipping through. (Making the fence less visually obstructive and cheaper at the same time.)

After we built it we tested it to see if our dogs can pass through, and they definitely can. (Without difficulty in some places.)

So in order to fix that without adding a lot more visually obstructive material, I recently came up with the idea of welding very thin rebar on the lower section to block the dogs. It is actually thin enough that a strong human can bend it, but it does no good since the thicker (and stronger) bars are close enough together to prevent a human from getting through.

First we tested it on the new gate, and we thought it turned out well. So today they finished on the entire front of the land.

You have to look pretty hard to see the smaller rebar and it only covers the bottom half anyway. (Hopefully the dogs can’t jump 2 meters into the air and slip through the fence at the same time.) Here is a close-up:

Pretty cheap and almost invisible fix. I like it.