Wasilla, Alaska ? Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is making good on a threat to build a fence around her Wasilla home to keep her new neighbor — an author who is writing a book about her — from peering in.

Palin, wearing running shorts, a T-shirt and visor, joked with a reporter outside the gate of her lakeside home Thursday about having to build a fence to protect her family’s privacy. But she declined to comment further, saying she was busy babysitting her nephews.

Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, took to Facebook on Monday to “welcome” author Joe McGinniss, who’d previously written a critical magazine article on Palin. She said he was renting a house next door “for the next five months or so” and wondered what he’d gather “while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole?”

She said work would begin on a “tall fence tomorrow.”