Let me be by myself in the evening breeze

[austin_dern]

So we've been debating when and just how to put up a fence. There's one unfenced neighbor's yard and it's rather a mess, between the estimated 620 cars they have and pile of dead grass and dead appliances and a swampy puddle that appeared in March of last year and only just finished evaporating three weeks ago. We've given up on the neighbors cleaning up their act and would settle for just not seeing it anymore. But there's always complications, including how to fit a fence around a border-straddling tree and that the landscaping of our yard seems like it probably goes past the property line, but it would look weird and be troublesome if we fenced at the line instead of at the edge of the landscaping, and while the absentee landlord next door might bring action if we fenced along the de facto line he probably has no idea where the de jure line is, and so on.

Then we saw a truck rolling in with fencing materials. The other two sides of their yard are already fenced off. So we got freshly offended: they're putting up a fence to wall us off? Us, with the backyard bunny_hugger tends so very well?

And no, they weren't. They were repairing their back fence. Which was dilapidated, sure, but not even in the top ten list of things on the outside of the house that need fixing up. So we got freshly offended that they weren't fencing us off. Also that they were leaving their yard just like it was.

So, you know, things have been a bit touchy around our corner of the world. Although we did have the comedy of hearing the fence-menders asking if the house had an external electric socket (it doesn't) and then cobbling together enough extension cords to reach to some power source. Still.

Trivia: Paterson, New Jersey, had about fifty people living in the area when the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacturers incorporated the planned industrial city in 1792. The population grew to five hundred by 1796, but shrank back to fifty after the cotten mill failed in 1797. Source: New Jersey: America's Main Road, John T Cunningham.

Currently Reading: Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated The Modern World, Gregory Woods.

PS: Reading the Comics, June 25, 2016: Busy Week Edition,as there's suddenly a rush to get comics in for some reason.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Admittedly it's sad to think one must be fenced... my mom always was averse to fences.. but then again, there are times and places where they are beneficial... such as 1) they do make it less likely for 'junk' to to wind up in the yard.. 2) they do deter trespassers who can steal bikes (if you lock the fence.. alas, ours was not locked) .. 3) they do make it quite difficult for dog-walkers to choose your yard as a toilet.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

We don't need to deter much theft or anything, although I admit a rabbit statue was swiped from the house a couple years ago. That one was in the front yard, though. But stuff like bicycles we keep in the garage, which you have to break into the house to get. I suppose someone could swipe the patio furniture but good luck doing that.

In this case, the proposed fence would mostly make it so we didn't have to see the neighbor's many, many, broken-down cars and the swamp that develops when we get rain. It's sad to have to put one up; we've been on good terms with all the last decade's worth of residents there and it is otherwise nice having the space opened up. Especially since the dying tree was cut down.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

ohhhhh..... tiz more to preserve the view and sanctity of one's own sanity at the castle... got it... eeeeep.. yeah, alas sorry to hear it.. Things do seem to come in cycles and it sounds like it's time to take matters into one's own paws on the panorama...

And yeah, heh... the thing with my bikes, I really had them in a far too tempting position... at least I wasn't very bonded to them (and one was even broken)... and that really is all they took...

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, our hypothetical fence here is more about not having to see so much of the neighbors as anything else. A different set of renters next-door and we'd never think of it.