As it cooled down a little, we finally made some more progress with the barbed wire fence.  Haven't seen any cows in a while, but you never know when they'll come through again.
Now we're halfway up the lot on the South side:

We set the left post (an abandoned real estate sign post) in concrete and then decided to add the landscape post since we needed something to attach the come-along to stretch the wire, we needed a post to tie the California Pepper to and to stabilize the fence post.
The warped pole on top has been laying around for years – I knew it would come in handy one day.

In spring we planted several of the $4 Home Depot trees and two of the Peppers are behind the gray water ditch.  Here are some PICS of mature California Peppers.   Hope ours make it through the caliche so they don't blow over.
We still haven't waterproofed the ditch and that's why there's no water in the pond. It's been amazing to see how the water doesn't drain down (caliche), but after doing laundry the dirt is wet 10 ft away from the ditch.