Then, eight feet in from the buckthorn, I planted an inner perimeter line of Texas red cedars eight feet apart all around the line. Didn't cost me a cent, as I just dug out seedlings under the larger cedars already in the yard and went from yard to yard offering to dig up all of their little cedars. The seedlings varied in height from six inches or so to two feet tall.
After they were all planted, I went out to the open range on Fort Hood after a major field exercise and policed up about 50 rolls of concertina wire. I unrolled the concertina wire over the seedlings and carefully monitored their growth over the next five years.
Now, the buckthorn is growing along the inside of the fenceline, backed up by some very nasty 20-foot tall red cedars, with their branches interlaced through growth.
Inside that cedar hedge, at a varying height of between two and five feet, is a coil of very sharp, very rusty concertina razor wire.
My late wife wanted bunkers and machine gun nests, but I had to draw the line somewhere. [smile]
When the doorbell rings, either my present wife or I will look out the small kitchen window that flanks the front door and porch. If it's someone we don't recognize, we retrieve the pistol (for me) and the shotgun (for her) and open up the window to ask them their business.
Should they try to break in the steel door, they're going to have a little problem because, whenever one of us is in the house, the two deadbolts are thrown (2.5 inches of deadbolt into the doorframe which is a treated 4x4) and the bar is across the middle of the door (a 2x4 in the manner somewhat akin to what you see across castle gates held in steel braces with 2-inch bolts securing it to the 4x4 door frame).
The windows are all covered with painted treated wooden lattice .. easy enough to kick out if you have to escape a fire, but delaying and noisy enough to discourage break-ins .. and, underneath the paneling below the kitchen window is a 4'x4' piece of 3/8-inch steel plating from a salvage yard, in case of gunfire into the kitchen when we're asking them their business.
We live well out in the sticks, away from the main road .. a lot of privacy, but we're pretty much on our own. My wife, who is from England, took to the property and the Texas way of life with guns like a duck to water.
In short, the stupid laws they have in old England won’t be passed in Texas :)
How does anybody make through to your doorbell?
You need a few German Shepherd dogs to patrol inside the compound.