We have a gate!

Matt and I spent the day, surprise surprise, working on the garden again.. This time, it was the gate we were concentrating on. We did a lot of measuring, planning, and plain old staring at the hole where the gate would go. We finally decided on a mostly solid gate with vertical slats, two horizontal, and one diagonal support. After measuring a number of times, we figure out that we could fit 11 boards with even gaps of 3/8 inch (not exactly sure how we lucked out there, but pheeew)

Here we are trying out the spacing design.

And here are the first few boards. We used 4x4s to help keep the tops and bottoms level (held steady by some lovely weed and bug killer)

Then, after we had all the slats down, we flipped it over and put on a diagonal piece to prevent "gate sag" which is, apparently, a thing. Matt's lovely new miter saw did the trick beautifully and what I thought might be a three try endeavor involving bad cuts and a few tears went off without a hitch.

Then we added the hinges to the gate and headed to the yard. We propped the whole thing up on a 2x4 that we leveled and then screwed the hinges to the post. After that, we added the latch. Here it is closed.

And here's an open shot. The amazing thing is that it's so level that you can open it to any angle and it will just hang there happily, no self closing at all!

We also finished putting up the rest of the boards for the fence. Next steps, finish stapling, cut the posts to the right height and add caps, and finishing filling in the trench and landscaping. We're getting so close!