Country Neighbors

Last week was a week full of neighbor obstacles and antics. I don't know how I even wind up encountering neighbors, when we have acres of land around us to buffer them out, but they seem to find us somehow.
We began the week by accidentally finding our that whenever we leave weird large objects at the end of our drive with a "Free" sign"--the magical place these items get "repurposed" to, is our neighbors clutter filled mountain lot. Great. I really didn't want to know that our old tires, tables and gasoline jugs have simply relocated themselves to enjoy an endless life as lawn ornaments up the road.

A few days go by and I encountered a different neighbor upon our property. An older gentleman that I have met before, as I have reluctantly given him permission to walk his dogs regularly on our private property. He told me he appreciated the access to our private trail, and I responded kindly-- stating it was all good, as long as his dogs were not making 'those holes'.

Now the mystery holes, are a scourge upon our land. Our property runs along a river, and at the lowest point, we painstakingly removed trees, stumps, moved rocks and brought up buckets of sand. All for the sole purpose of building ourselves a bench and open BBQ area near the water. Over the past two years, at regular intervals, I would go down to our picnic spot and find massive holes dug into the sand around the grill and surrounding areas. Dirt would be everywhere, scattered about amongst 5 to 10 ugly crevasses. I would curse the weird animal making these pits, but nevertheless would get the wheelbarrow and fill them up again with dirt, raking the area smooth afterwards. But alas! The holes always return! As the dirt is rock hard by the riverbed, this project takes about two hours to complete and I break quite a sweat. I then cover the soil with curry powder, Listerine and pepper flakes to discourage the digger. This works, up until the rain washes away my weird pepper souffle.

So imagine my surprise when the old neighbor admitted, that yes--his dog enjoys digging those holes. He assumed the river magically filled them up again. I was speechless and perplexed--I didn't even explain that I was the "magic river" filling the holes again and again. Apparently creating a moonscape on your neighbors property is simply a matter of differing perspective..