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Our next-neighbor to the south is a woman who I'll call Sue. She lives there with her adopted teenage daughter. Sue is one of those people who complains about everything, and to make her even more enjoyable, she has a whiny voice to go with her sour attitude. It's been apparent since we moved here 8 years ago that Sue doesn't approve of us. (I doubt she approves of anything in the world, to be honest.) She complains to other neighbors about our yard, our vehicles, our bird feeders, etc. The first few years after we moved here, LOML and I were both making an effort to be good neighbors (I've even done a few handyman things at her house for her), but these days we just try to ignore her. Sue is one of those people who is afraid of everything. (She wears a mask when driving in her car alone or when walking around the block, if that tells you anything.) Sue hasn't had much to say to me ever since she slammed her car into the back of my Ranger pickup that was parked on the street a few years ago. I'm sure she blames me for the fact that it was parked on the street. (Parked legally, I might add.) I surely had nothing to do with the fact that she was speeding and not watching where she was driving. (She claims she sneezed, but I suspect she was on her phone.)
When we moved here, there was a fig tree growing in our back yard, between our house and Sue's. LOML and I are not fans of figs, but Sue and her daughter like them, and for the first few years we lived here they would ask every summer if they could have some figs, and we were glad to have them come over and pick as many as they wanted. Well, two years ago the tree pretty much died. The main trunk had no new growth, no leaves, no fruit, no nothing. The only sign of life was the dozens of suckers growing from the roots near the trunk. I could tell from the old stumps around the base of the tree that it had been cut completely back in the past, and had obviously grown new trunks that began producing fruit again. So last winter, I cut all the suckers off and removed nearly all of the old trunk, hoping it would start developing into a viable tree again.
I didn't pay much attention to the tree over the summer, but by this fall, it was just a forest of suckers again, with no growth at all from the old stump. So last Sunday I decided to trim back all the suckers again, leaving just a few in hopes one of them would eventually turn into a tree. In the process of doing this, I tossed one of the trimmed suckers over the fence into our front yard. It landed crooked, and the thick end of the sucker (maybe 1" in diameter) ended up tapping the stucco on the side of Sue's house. Not hit...tapped. But I knew it would have made a noise inside Sue's house, so it was no surprise to see her cautiously poke her head around the corner of her house to investigate a couple of minutes later.
Before she even saw me, I spoke up to let her know I was there, and it was me who had caused the noise she'd heard. I explained that the tree had died, and that I was trying to get it going again so it would produce fruit. In her typical disapproving, whiny tone, she pointed out that the previous owners of our house did a good job of nurturing the tree. I finally said "Well, it is what it is, Sue" and she scoffed and walked back into her house.
Mid-afternoon yesterday, I was again in our back yard, attaching some steel brackets to the cinder block wall between our two back yards. (We have a grape trellis that was sagging and it needed to be attached to the wall.) I was using a 12v impact driver to drive the first of four screws, and right on cue, Sue came trotting out to her back yard to investigate the noise. I again made my presence known, and she asked "Are you using tools out here? I thought I heard a power saw." I showed her my little impact driver and said "Yes, that was me." Obviously annoyed, she asked "Well, how long are you going to be doing that?" I said "About five minutes. I'm driving four screws." Before she could respond I added "I'd be happy to do it at another time if want...say...late at night. Of course it would have to be after midnight, but I'll gladly do it then if you'd prefer." As she rolled her eyes and stormed back into her house, I said "Really, Sue. I'm serious." (And I really was serious.)
LOML and I don't really care what Sue thinks of us, and at this point I'm very tempted to set up a couple thousand watts of PA speakers in my back yard (pointed at her house, of course) and start blasting a mix of death metal and vulgar hip-hop rap music. It'd just be the neighborly thing to do.
When we moved here, there was a fig tree growing in our back yard, between our house and Sue's. LOML and I are not fans of figs, but Sue and her daughter like them, and for the first few years we lived here they would ask every summer if they could have some figs, and we were glad to have them come over and pick as many as they wanted. Well, two years ago the tree pretty much died. The main trunk had no new growth, no leaves, no fruit, no nothing. The only sign of life was the dozens of suckers growing from the roots near the trunk. I could tell from the old stumps around the base of the tree that it had been cut completely back in the past, and had obviously grown new trunks that began producing fruit again. So last winter, I cut all the suckers off and removed nearly all of the old trunk, hoping it would start developing into a viable tree again.
I didn't pay much attention to the tree over the summer, but by this fall, it was just a forest of suckers again, with no growth at all from the old stump. So last Sunday I decided to trim back all the suckers again, leaving just a few in hopes one of them would eventually turn into a tree. In the process of doing this, I tossed one of the trimmed suckers over the fence into our front yard. It landed crooked, and the thick end of the sucker (maybe 1" in diameter) ended up tapping the stucco on the side of Sue's house. Not hit...tapped. But I knew it would have made a noise inside Sue's house, so it was no surprise to see her cautiously poke her head around the corner of her house to investigate a couple of minutes later.
Before she even saw me, I spoke up to let her know I was there, and it was me who had caused the noise she'd heard. I explained that the tree had died, and that I was trying to get it going again so it would produce fruit. In her typical disapproving, whiny tone, she pointed out that the previous owners of our house did a good job of nurturing the tree. I finally said "Well, it is what it is, Sue" and she scoffed and walked back into her house.
Mid-afternoon yesterday, I was again in our back yard, attaching some steel brackets to the cinder block wall between our two back yards. (We have a grape trellis that was sagging and it needed to be attached to the wall.) I was using a 12v impact driver to drive the first of four screws, and right on cue, Sue came trotting out to her back yard to investigate the noise. I again made my presence known, and she asked "Are you using tools out here? I thought I heard a power saw." I showed her my little impact driver and said "Yes, that was me." Obviously annoyed, she asked "Well, how long are you going to be doing that?" I said "About five minutes. I'm driving four screws." Before she could respond I added "I'd be happy to do it at another time if want...say...late at night. Of course it would have to be after midnight, but I'll gladly do it then if you'd prefer." As she rolled her eyes and stormed back into her house, I said "Really, Sue. I'm serious." (And I really was serious.)
LOML and I don't really care what Sue thinks of us, and at this point I'm very tempted to set up a couple thousand watts of PA speakers in my back yard (pointed at her house, of course) and start blasting a mix of death metal and vulgar hip-hop rap music. It'd just be the neighborly thing to do.