Tag Archives: neighbors

I love my town … part, whatever.

 

Our town’s FB page has been filled with blog fodder lately.

Here are a few of the best…

 

 

Name That Scat?

You can’t get quality posts like this in the city.

No sir.

 

 

Damn, I wonder if that drone crackpot who wrapped himself in tinfoil lives close by?

No anal probes needed here.

 

 

This is utterly fabulous.

No joke.

 

 

Good thing the husband didn’t see this.

Free is a four letter word as far as I’m concerned.

 

 

 

Christ…

I hope not.

 

 

Our townspeople are so helpful.

Because you can never be too prepared for Zombies.

 

 

Toilet paper…

What’s that?

 

 

The Easter Bunny was spotted last month, although I’m not sure why he needed a cannon.

 

 

Thankfully this person lives on the other side of town because while tire planters are never a good idea….

Hot pink tire planters would strain even Mr. Rogers’ love for his neighbors.

You can’t pick your neighbors…

 

But you can bitch about them on your blog, and that’s something.

When we lived down south we had a rental property next door. It was a revolving door of nightmarish neighbors, each one worst than the last. For 17 years we physically cringed when the moving van pulled up to unload the next batch of morons.

You think I’m kidding when I say morons?

One guy came over and asked my husband how to change a light bulb.

 

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One never mowed the lawn.

One had wild parties every night (and never invited us, which is the definition of rude).

One brought cockroaches to the cul de sac.

One had to be evicted (she may or may not have been a hooker, tough call).

One shot pigeons for fun and left their rotting carcasses in the back yard.

One ran an errand for his wife and never came back.

One painted the house’s exterior trim Pepto Bismol pink.

Yes, in retrospect it sounds entertaining. But trust me, it was anything but.

So when we moved back to Maine and chose to live in the country far away from the morons? When we picked a house where you can barely see your neighbors?

 

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Anyway….

Life was good. Until a dumb ass neighbor moved in to the house behind us.

Have you ever Google Earthed yourself?

This is a shot of our place.

 

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With a giant blue dot for what must have been me with my laptop out on the deck.

We own a smidge over 3 acres and as you can see, mow most of it. Our property line ends a few dozen feet into the woods and the adjoining property runs down to the river. Sadly, it was all one massive piece 2 years before we moved here. Wish we had found it before it was split up… but if wishes came true? I’d be 5’9″, 120 lbs and have a summer home in Tuscany.

The previous owners of our home lived here for 2 years while they built a larger house on the water. They were great…. but moved away after 10 years. Now we have a college frat boy/trust fund baby whose daddy bought him the house (for $750,000), gave him a prosperous business, which he then sold for a fortune and “retired” at 35. He spends all his time playing with numerous expensive toys and traveling on daddy’s dime. Must be nice.

But the reason for this bitchy post?

One of his toys is a giant motor home….. that he parks on the outermost limit of his property so he won’t have to see the damn thing.

 

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That’s us in blue, with our little 3 acres. We own a narrow patch of the woods past the fields….. his house is on the upper left of the picture.

He had all that wooded land in between….

 

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But he parked the stupid thing 2 inches from our property line.

 

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You can’t pick your neighbors… but you can certainly waste 478 words bitching about them.

 

 

A little catch up… the baby barn, a sunrise and some deer.

 

Now that the Virginia vacation saga is finally over, it’s time to clear out the photo files.

If you remember… before we left for the Cape Cod vacation in November, the husband was desperately trying to finish the remodel on our baby barn from Hell before the snow started flying.

 

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He started putting the siding on….

 

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Which was a nightmare of non squared corners and uneven ground.

 

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Yeah, there was a lot of that.

His answer? Plant a shrub in front of it.

 

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He was still using his 1950’s power tools and probably wishing for a larger wheelbarrow.

 

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Siding around the window resulted in some very colorful language.

 

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As did turning the 3rd corner where things didn’t exactly line up.

Unfortunately that’s as far as he got before the weather turned….

And now I have to stare at this split personality horror show until spring.

 

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In other news, our neighbor and her daughter fed our deer while we were gone.

 

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She sent me this picture while we were in Williamsburg, and wanted me to know the child took her responsibility seriously.

And for that she was rewarded.

 

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Flowers for mom and a thank you deer for her daughter.

 

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That little guy cost me a fortune but he was hand made and too damned cute to resist. Look at those feet!

 

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It snowed right after we got back.

 

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But the white stuff sure does make a nice contrast for the sunrise.

 

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We were happy to see our resident buck was still around.

 

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He’s an impressive fellow….

 

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And clearly his women agree.

 

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He’s got quite a little harem going.

 

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With 4 fawns that we know of.

Funny thing is….. as much as I love to travel, it’s sights like these that always make me glad to be home again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spreading a little sunshine….

 

Which is definitely better than spreading the other thing that’s going around.

I stopped at the grocery store the other day to pick up some milk for our neighbor, a lovely senior lady whose family is out of town. She was nervous about going shopping and I was happy to help.

Along with the milk?

 

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I brought her a bouquet of flowers to add a little cheer to her self imposed quarantine.

We all need that nowadays.

 

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Got one for myself as well.

Wish I’d thought to arrange her batch before I delivered them…. they were exactly the same, but needed a little tweaking.

Oh well, they made her smile.

And that’s really all that matters.

 

We interrupt your normally scheduled program…

 

So I hope you’ve been enjoying my White Mountain vacation series. I know I tend to go a little overboard with the pictures, but what can I say?

 

 

I’ll have you know it took me an entire week to wade through the 1704 shots I’d taken and distill it down to a reasonable essence.

Alright… yes.

The essence is going to run halfway through December, but just think how long it would have gone on if I hadn’t distilled.

 

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Sorry, that was harsh.

Khaled had me feeling a little street.

Anyhoo… the reason for this post?

Remember when I told you we were going to have to cram a few vacations in before the end of the year because the husband wasn’t retiring? Well, good news! We just finished vacation week number two and are probably on the road returning from Cape Cod as you read this.

 

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Yup.

That means another tsunami of photographs from our coastal Massachusetts adventures.

 

 

Nope.

Sorry, I can’t.

Hard to believe that in all the years I’ve lived in New England, I’ve never visited that region…. and though we’re going off season, I’m sure we had a blast. My plan was to hop the car ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard as well but we’ll play that by ear as I don’t know their winter schedule.

So sit back and enjoy the (virtual) ride.

 

 

Because you followed me, silly.

Now pay the price and enjoy the modern version of your 1950’s neighbor’s slide show.

 

 

 

A visitor and a test drive.

 

As the husband was laying tar paper on the roof of the baby barn the other day, our farming neighbor dropped by to say hello on one of his toys.

 

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Clearly my husband is not the only one who likes old and rusty things.

 

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I have to laugh at how comfortable the husband looked up on the roof.

Give him a beer and a snack and he could happily watch the game from there.

 

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Neighbor’s 2 year old son is a cutie and loves going for a ride with dad.

That being said…

 

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You know husband had to take a ride himself.

 

 

 

And I can only hope our neighbor never wants to sell the damn thing…

 

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Because you know where it would probably end up.

 

Colors and critters.

 

Looking across the street to our neighbor’s organic vegetable farm is always interesting.

 

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But this time of year, it’s downright beautiful.

 

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Who knew artichokes could be so pretty?

And when our neighbor has wood chips delivered….

 

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HE HAS WOODCHIPS DELIVERED.

 

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When you’re a farmer’s child?

You don’t need no stinkin’ sandbox.

 

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On the critter front,

 

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We’re down to one lone woodchuck.

 

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He’s still fat…

 

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And still clumsy…

 

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And still hangs out on our deck once in a while. But it’s autumn, and all his brothers and sisters are finding dens and getting ready for winter. I doubt even this one will be here much longer.

Sigh…

 

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Autumn also means the deer are changing into their darker winter coats. One summer coated hold out is on the right for comparison.

 

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A murder of crows have now discovered our bird bath.

Why are they called a murder?

The Oxford English Dictionary suggests this is an allusion to the crow’s traditional association with violent death or its harsh and raucous cry.  If you’ve ever heard dozens of agitated crows in full cry, it really does sound as if they’re yelling bloody murder.

As long as they don’t murder me in my sleep, I don’t care what you call them.

 

 

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Uh oh.

 

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And finally, we have a new skunk in town.

 

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I admit I never really paid attention to skunk tails before, but we’ve had so many different families this year I’ve gotten to recognize them by their individual patterns.

This is Tippy.

 

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Brilliantly named for the white tip on her tail.

Is she really a she?

I neither know, nor care to get close enough to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never let it be said….

 

We have boring neighbors.

Looking out the window last week I saw this:

 

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Thinking I was sober…

I found another window to be sure.

 

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Okay, still there.

 

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Yes, there really was a T Rex walking up our neighbor’s driveway.

Why?

Maybe he was on his way to the store….

 

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Maybe he was just out strolling with a friend.

 

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Although what the hell that neon green thing was supposed to be has yet to be determined.

 

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Never a dull moment as Casa River.