My next door neighbors (actually, the only ones we have within 300 yards of our house) let their two dogs out this morning, while they were out spreading mulch. These are the neighbors who drop off free range eggs for us. Usually, they let their dogs out into the fenced in area surrounding their pool, but this time, they were allowed to roam free.
I don’t care if they come into our yard. One’s a three year old female English bulldog, and the other is a three month old male, perhaps a border collie mix. Both are super friendly. The bulldog is laid back; the puppy is rambunctious, but a bit of a wuss. We were going to put our dog on his tie-out by the deck and patio, when the other two zipped around the corner, ran across the patio, and up onto the deck, to check out our dog. That’s when the problem began.
Gigi (the bulldog) snapped at Ben. Ben sunk his teeth onto the top of her neck, behind one of her ears. Fortunately, he grabbed her by one of her neck folds, but the commotion was enough to bring Jeff around to see what was going on. Ben would not let go, despite our commands, a dump of cold water over his head, and my best attempts to pry his jaws loose. Jeff was finally able to pry Ben’s jaws loose, and we dragged Ben back in the house. All the while, Mead, the puppy, was beside himself, and was getting in the way more than anything. He left an “excitement” dump on our deck. Oh, well; we have to clean it before we redo the waterseal/stain on it.
The good news is that Gigi sustained no injuries — at least not any that drew blood. Jeff assured us she was okay, expressed his hope that it wouldn’t cause any problems between us (hell, I was hoping the same thing), and five minutes later brought us two dozen of his free range eggs.
He saw our new vegetable garden in progress, so we traded info on what we each grow. Told him I’d be more than happy to trade produce for eggs. Zucchini is off the table, though, because they are generally up to their eyeballs in it, too, when we are. We sort of joked about setting up a table on our property line, in the shade, and plopping our excess produce on it, with a “take whatever you want” policy. As it turns out, the previous owners had a kitchen garden exactly where we’re putting ours, but didn’t bother keeping up with it, and turned it back into lawn. This is a good sign, because it means I selected the right placement for it.
The other thing I’ve never seen before today is Jeff’s F-250, parked at the end of my driveway, backed in next to my car, so he could unload his mulch. The end of our driveway is perhaps a foot from the property line. He’s been in and out of there a few times today. He never asked permission, and I don’t care, as long as he doesn’t scratch my car’s paint job, dent my doors, or bumper, or whatever.
FWIW, this is the sort of laid back give and take thing that makes for good neighbors. My new ones are just as nice as my old ones.
We went out to TSC again to pick up some more fencing, and a couple of other things, then, on our way back, swung by our old local lawn & garden center. There, I picked up some six-packs of peppers, a bhut jolokia, one slightly less hot, some herbs, and a wisteria. Jeff saw me unloading my wisteria, when his dogs barked at me, I waved to them, and he waved back. Yeah. Good neighbor. Very good neighbor.
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