The Honest Courtesan

When I started planning the paddock extension, I knew I’d need some short cut around the house to avoid having to walk all the way down to the gate.  I could’ve put in a small gate, but I realized a stile would do the job just as well, so I threw one together out of concrete blocks we had lying around.  I can get over it easily, even while carrying a small load (such as the fencing-tool bucket), but it’s both too narrow and too steep for a llama, pony, or pig.  The dogs and cats can either pass over or through the space between the post and the corner of the house, and it’s actually much sturdier than it looks, especially considering that I just threw it together in under 20 minutes from stuff I didn’t have to buy.  Jae has griped about the way it looks, but it’s a pasture, for goodness’ sake, not an ornamental garden; besides, I’ve already told her that if she’d like to rebuild it more neatly later, perhaps with some of the scrap bricks we’ve found in great abundance along the southern border of the property, she’s more than welcome to do so.  She’s quite good at things like that, but for right now I’d rather use her talents to finish up the atrium and do a little bit of more visible landscaping before moving on to beautifying things that already work, even if they don’t look all that great.