{"id":760,"date":"2007-07-23T07:06:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-23T12:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=760"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:38:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:38:02","slug":"good-fences-make-bad-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=760","title":{"rendered":"Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the most part, we’ve enjoyed our neighbors over the years and had good relations with them. But there’s always the exception. Like the septuagenarian widow next door who from the moment we moved in 12 years ago has viewed us at best as a modern-day reincarnation of the Adams Family<\/a> and at worst as a clan of pesky rodents dead set on ruining her pristine, picture-perfect Southern Living<\/a> <\/em>magazine house and showcase yard.<\/p>\n

Over the years, she’s accused us of various neighborly transgressions including damaging her sprinkler heads while mowing the property line (she actually has one sprinkler head on<\/em> our property, and it’s never been damaged), mowing too far onto her property, not caring about or keeping a showcase lawn like hers (guilty!), our boys pelting her house with rotten apples when we first moved in 1995 (they were 6,4, and 2 at the time) and leaving a back patio light on which keeps her awake at night.<\/p>\n

But the greatest transgression of all, according to her, has been our cracking and\/or chewing of the slats on the wooden fence which separates our properties. I should clarify that by saying cracking allegedly from back yard soccer matches, chewing by Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog, not me or the boys.<\/p>\n

We’ve tried to be nice and neighborly, responding to her occasional requests for help in lifting something heavy and delivering the usual sugar cookies at Christmas. But lately the boys haven’t been able to mow without being accosted by her with some critique or lecture on the finer points of mowing the property line.<\/p>\n

To make matters more interesting, she recently came to us and asked for cash to help replace her fence. She had calculated the number of slats that she said we had cracked or chewed and said that she planned to replace the entire fence which borders our properties. We wondered about her calculations, but figured that our presence had resulted in some fence damage over the years, so we forked over the cash no questions asked in the interest of good neighborly relations.<\/p>\n

The fence was replaced, and a few days later when Number Three Son fired up the lawn mower, the phone rang. It was our neighbor asking that we not mow within 6 inches or so of her new fence. We’ve known for years that her property line extends about that distance into our yard past the fence. But since we put up a smaller fence to hem in Gracie, we’ve always mowed that small section to save her and her lawn crew the trouble of coming through our fence and onto our property to take care of such a small and trivial portion of the yard.<\/p>\n

Not anymore. Now we must be “on call” on the days that her lawn crew arrives to make sure that Gracie is put up so that they came come onto our property to get to her six inches of lawn. “Good fences make good neighbors?” I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

Saturday, I let Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog outside to enjoy the balmy, low-humidity day. I looked out one time and she was basking in the sun and catching a few rays when suddenly the call of nature hit her full force. She wandered over to the fence, onto those six inches of grass, and sniffed about carefully. After picking out just the right spot, she squatted down low and took care of her business.<\/p>\n

Was I wrong to scream “You go girl!” at the top of my lungs? I’m just asking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the most part, we’ve enjoyed our neighbors over the years and had good relations with them. But there’s always the exception. Like the septuagenarian widow next door who from the moment we moved in 12…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,20,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-huntsville","category-southern-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9562,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions\/9562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}