Fenced In

I am resigning myself that my "neighbor" is going to put up a six-foot cedar privacy fence on the property line. I say "neighbor" because they don't actually live there, he's "fixing" up the house for sale in a couple of years. And I say "fixing", because it looks worse than when he started.

This is the same guy that yelled at me for introducing myself and politely letting him know that he was bulldozing a protected native growth area. Sorry for trying to save the guy a major fine. My heart races just thinking about it.

It breaks my heart, this fence of his. It will block a third of my view of the woods behind me. He's going to take out three flowering plum trees to do it, as well. But, there's nothing I can do about it. They're from suburbia, and they think in terms of boxed-in spaces and resale value. They don't realize that they're spending all this money, and it's not going to increase the value, but rather decrease it. Nobody around here wants fences unless you're keeping in animals, and even then they're not privacy fences. But, you can't reason with selfish people bent solely on profit.

So, I'm trying very hard to think of this as an opportunity. We don't have a gas-powered line trimmer, so we won't be able to cut the grass along the fence. I'm thinking a hedge of filberts, elderberry, currants, and a few pie cherries would screen the ugliness of the fence. Maybe I could put up a greenhouse now, as well, but I'm not altogether certain where the septic drainfield is over there.

All I can do is laugh when they're yard is overrun with rabbits, racoons, opossum, rats, moles and mice, since they'll be fencing out the predators. It'll serve them right.