April 19, 2008
eighbor's are worth their weight in gold if they are good neighbors, but are
not worth the stuff in the bottom of the chicken house under the roosts if they
are not. Unfortunately I have one of the chicken roost variety and we were
warned about her before we even moved in years ago. Her husband and kids are
nice. Just not her.
I have tried to be nice to this woman multiple times and I hope she reads this. I would like to know why she is so unhappy in life. I have never seen her happy once in the 3 years I have been here. I have talked to her 5 times ever and the first time was OK, the next two times were me coming in when she was already mad about something and I did not know it when I came upon her. A few days ago I said hello (twice) as her dog was out of control, and she failed to say hello in return, just caught the dog and hit it (good way to get your dog to want to come to you next time) and stormed off.
Usually when she is mad over something, she jumps up and down like a mad wet hen. If I did not think I would possibly die from laughing at the caricature she becomes when she is flapping her arms like that, I would laugh until my sides ached.. I cannot believe a person gets so out of control like that, instead of talking calmly and coming to a resolution. Instead she always voices sueing people or shooting something as a threat. I got a call from her this morning in another complaint which I had nothing to do with. Apparently her garbage in the back of a trailer was all strewn about and my dogs are all chained or in the house at night unless the coyotes are howling. She says it is too early for bears, but there was a report of one not far from here yesterday or the day before from the rancher not far from here.
I cannot wait until I can put up the fence on the side of the property between us and plant the tallest hedge of something. (Or they move!). But I am sure she will whine about that as well. She will more than likely complain about the smell of the lilacs which I will probably plant as a hedge. Maybe she is one of those people who are just happy when they are being miserable.
Good fences make good neighbors, but apparently not in this woman's case. It is too bad as I would have enjoyed being friends with her at one time.
by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."