Why we love that Jim guy....

Mid-afternoon yesterday I got a call from Jim on my cell. "It's Christmastime!" he chimed. When Jim calls that means he's got extra building materials that he wants to go away. In that he's renovating a gorgeous (and huge) house in German Village on Schiller Park, we generally rush over to claim whatever he is discarding, haul it back to our house and marvel over our good fortune that he's working on his similar-era house at the same time as we are attempting to reclaim our "bungalow". Tonight's bounty included about a dozen 16' long polonia (sp?) planks that were used for exterior trim and fascia boards on his manse. And several dozen tongue-and-groove double-sided fence planks, a few fence posts and an old fence gate. We have a brand new fence on the side of the yard we share with the condos (completely finished with decorative caps as of last night). We removed the lower fence at the back of the yard to make way for our succession of dumpsters (it made its way into one of them). The fence with the other neighbor in the duplex is a stockade fence that is inexplicably over 8' tall (we call it the king kong fence) and will one day be replaced, but is sufficient for now. We estimate that Jim's donation should get us our rear fence back when we're done with the rest of the house. And we will have the most interesting amalgamation of fencing on the block.