Neighbors

We tore down our back fence the other day because last winter it blew over and we have just had it propped up with boards for the last year.  (It looks kind of ghetto)

The guys that is doing it is a friend of ours from the Sundeck.  He and Stony were talking about it and he casually said, "I'd be happy to come help you fix it when the Deck closes.  I'll call you."  Which was really nice of him, but we never really expected him to show up.  (Partly because of who he is and partly becuase we have had 3 or 4 other people say that to us and no one has ever come...even when we called them.)  But last week, Nick called and said, "I'm leaving Estes.  I'll be at your house in an hour."  And sure enough, he was.

The interesting thing about tearing down the fence in the back is how much it opens up the yard.  Not only opens up the yard, but tears down the privacy of the neighbors.  We have never talked to our neighbors in the back.  We don't mean to be unfriendly, it just didn't happen when we moved in and we have never made and effort to get to know them.  But now that the fence is down they have been out there several times talking to Stony.  The man has come out twice.  The lady has come out at least 3 or 4 times.  Today she came out and asked Stony to dig up her rose bush so she could transplant it and then she just chatted and then started working on her garden as Stony was working on ours.  

It was kind of cool.  Now that there is not a fence there, there is a lot more conversation, openness and friendliness.  Parts of me would love to keep it that way.  We might consider it if it weren't for Brodiss.  He stays in the chainlink yard we have for him when the privacy fence is up.  But now that it is down, he sees a whole other world outside his and thinks he needs to go explore.  Just this morning he jumped his fence to go investigate our other neighbor's yard.  (Stupid dog!)  So for his sake, we need to put the back fence back up.  Plus the neighbors in the back have a big dog and he doesn't like our dogs at all.  Since the fence has been down he has been coming over to our chainlink yard for the dogs and trying to intimidate them.  Stony prefers it too actually.  He doesn't like the neigbors watching everything we do...I don't blame him I guess. 

So for now we will enjoy the openness of our yard and cultivate at least a decent aquaintanship with our bakyard negihbors.  And then in a few weeks, we will enjoy the privacy again of our own fencened in yard, and we will enjoy our dogs staying put. ;)