An exhausting long weekend of yard work and a little bicycling.
I took Friday afternoon off from work to get an early start to the spreading of five cubic yards of mulch that had been plopped in our driveway earlier in the week. We've been weeding and trimming and planting and mulching in an effort to keep from having the ugliest most weediest and neglected yard in the neighborhood. Since we haven't been using pesticides, we are blessed with all sorts of larvae and an unusually diverse flora in our grass.
Saturday while Cindy was working, Quinn and I worked in the yard. He ran the weed whacker and the mower and helped me spread mulch and trim trees and shrubs. He worked really hard all day. Abbey was off having a roller-skating nightmare, but that's her story so I won't tell it here.
This is sort of funny, but sort of not: Quinn and I were sawing some of the lower branches from a huge pine tree in the back corner of our yard when our neighbor with whom we share the short property boundary came out, quite upset. I had recognized that some of those lower limbs extended over his property and his garden, but was only trimming the lowest branches that were reaching the ground, and I didn't think it would have a large visual or shading effect on his yard or ours. The area under that tree was getting brushy and weedy, and I actually thought that, given their well-manicured lawn, they would appreciate our efforts to clean up our part of that back corner. Of course, their dogs have been digging holes in our yard under the pine tree and under our apple tree. And pooping there. Anyway, Quinn was doing the sawing when the neighbor came out and asked that we please not trim any more. He was polite, in a law-enforcement sort of way, but notably upset at the "ruin" of his garden. Before the weekend was done, he and his wife had substantially extended the flower bed in that corner and planted quite a number of arborvitae and other smaller shrubs in an effort to regain the "loss of privacy." Truthfully, I felt really bad about it, and it caused me quite a bit of stress all weekend. But I was also quite surprised that opening up about three feet of space under a single tree, giving them some additional view of our bushy back yard, was so devastating. To see a picture of part of the tree, check out this picture from a previous post. The tree that Quinn and I trimmed is the big pine to the left of the apple tree on the far left edge of the picture. It's quite astounding to me that they were so upset by this, particularly considering that they allow their dogs to poo and dig holes in the back corner of our yard. We made an attempt to smooth things over by going and talking with them this afternoon as they worked on their garden. They were civil, but didn't make much effort to conceal their irritation at being forced to plant a large number of new trees and shrubs. Since we could be neighbors for years to come, I'll do my best as we work in that back corner to try fill in our side with shrubs or bunch grasses that will help restore their privacy.
On Saturday we took a much needed break (mostly) from yard work and went for an exhausting tandem ride. We've had so much going on, and such poorly timed thunderstorms, that we've not had the Burleys out many times this year. The Eastern Tandem Rally isn't much more than a month away, so we've got to get our butts broken in. We made the ride down to Mason with one stop at the park for a little playground time and a stop for ice cream at Dairy Hill. The weather was ridiculously perfectly warm and sunny, and only a little windy. We had a good time, and the various modifications we've made to the Burleys seem to be working very well. We logged about 36 miles that day, and were gone for a total of four hours.
This morning, we finally let Abbey go to the grocery store by herself. She's been bugging us to let her try it for months. Maybe years. She road off on her bike with a few dollars and my cell phone in her backpack. It's only about a half-mile ride, all within our residential neighborhood. It went fine. After about a half-hour, she returned with a jug of juice in her backpack. Maybe it will be useful for us to have her able to run to the store for the occasional box of cereal or missing ingredient, but most likely the novelty will soon wear off.
I'd hoped to get in another short tandem ride today, but we spent the rest of the day working in the yard, moving mulch, weeding, and trimming. And worrying about those neighbors. At least the weather was nice.
The kids had piano lessons this evening. I took them to the lessons while Cindy went for a run. Quinn must have been tired: all through his lesson he kept getting overwhelmed by huge and uncontrollable yawns. He's awfully cute, but terribly, terribly ornery.
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They say that fences make good neighbors.
ReplyDeleteIt's a funny thing about trees and property lines. If a tree is growing in Bob's yard, but has branches overhanging Sally's yard, and Sally doesn't like it, she can't remove Bob's tree, but she generally has the right to cut off the branches at the property line, even though it may make Bob's tree a little lopsided. Tough luck, Bob. But the point is that she can control what of Bob's is in her yard.
But if Bob removes the sections of branches that are in his yard, or removes the whole tree, the branches in Sally's yard will obviously be gone. So does Bob seemingly have the right to control what is in Sally's yard? But if not, isn't Sally then controlling what's in Bob's yard?
Not exactly Perry Mason material. More like Ozzie and Harriot.
David removed, limb by limb, an entire mulberry that was growing in our neighbors' yard but mostly overhanging ours. I think it took a good part of a year. First he asked the neighbors if they were might consider removing it (it's invasive, it drops mulberries on our deck) but they said no, they liked the privacy. These are people who never spend any time in their yard, by the way. So David started first with the limbs that overhung our property line. When those were gone, there was barely half a tree. So while they were away on vacation, he climbed over the fence and cut the rest down. They never said anything. But the lovely dogwood that was right next to it on their property has really flourished now! (I hope they don't discover this blog. . . .)
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