You & your neighbours

As I sip my root beer from a mug olga, I think about my neighbors. Im surrounded by Amish and English farmers and a couple of terrified suburban transplants who thought a home in the country would be neat but are now often praying that more homes be built, so they would have some more civiliazation about them(EFF em)
As faar as the farmers go,. We know each other by our animals mostly. everybody has poultry , so the sounds that roosters make drives the Ruburbians nutsy, (i love that ability to annoy them). i have nothing to do with the ruburbians because we had a bunch of them come to our farm and demand that we keep our flies away from their properties.
Now , please believe me,we dont have any more flies than anywhere else that has some livestock , like a horse farm . Its just that we have sheep and a few cattle. Sheep dont make messes, they poop little M&Ms (mostly chocky).
The cattle poop in wet piles but we have many acres and few cattle so the poop generally dries quickly ANYWAY,. so this committee of ruburbites comes up to our place and starts telling my wife, that "our" flies make it difficult for them to enjoy their patios and if we dont do something about it they would report us because these flies were stinging their kids and they carry diseases.

i showed theses people the fly control gizmos we use and how few flies were really around. I added that we have our flies genetically altered so that they dont sting and they are identified
So if they caught some flies pleaase bring them to me and Id try to run a pCR tto identify whose flies they were (I was talking right out of my ass on this,).
One lady and her husband actually brought me a bottle of "flies". I dont know how they gottem without major hospitalization, since tthey brought me a jar of hornets, these buggers live in burrows aand like open grass areasSo we had a quick lesson in insect identification and they still went away unsatisfied. Her husband later came up and started to chew me out vigorously and Ernie(my main dog) became "Interested" in who this dude was that was hasslin the boss. ernie stood between me and the guy and gave one of those dominance low growls while looking the guy in the eyes.the guy blinked and got back in his car and threatened to call the dog warden for having a vicious dog.

I tell this story to my other farmer neighbors. One of whom owns a huge Poland China pig as a pet . Sometimes in the spring and summer the pig sits in the road in the cool but sunny days to catch some beneficial rays. hes a cool pig , the only thing is , hes a pig , and he likes foodstuffs like snickers and reeses peanut butter cups. These , I feel are no good for the animal and I tell the neighbor that hes killin his pig and that we kind of like the pig. There is always a side benefit , in that nobody goes tearing up that road more than once once.Now the pig has had one or two close calls and, Id hate to be anybody who hurts the pig by vehicle or any other means because my neighbor'd kill em.

The Amish are great, they often have dinners at each others houses and theyre all around us. Sometimes when they go to a Sunday dinner at one or tthe others houses wed get a basket of fried chicken or some snitz pie (which is a dried -apple pie, very good)
The reason we get the treats is that I own, sort of an Amish interchange, 5 roads come together right at my farm and we made a path so the Amish kids can cross our fields going to school so they dont have to walk out on the roads. Also, once and a while, if the Amish have a party wherein they would do a little drinkee, sometimes they wouldnt tie off their horses and buggies too well. a horse, if he sees that thhe reigns are dropped ,will begin to walk off, even with an empty buggy. so many times, during a party, a buggy or two would show up and come right up our lane and the horse up front would pull the buggyall over the plaace , until they walked perpendiculaarly right upto one of our wooden wooden fences just like it were a parking lot at Wal Mart. Theyd stand there for a wile and then , if we dont catch em, theyd just get bored and walk off to the next farm over. So, in order to stymie all these runaway buggies and losing them, the Amish do write their names and addresses on the inside of their wooden glove box lids on the buggies "dash board" Usually, when this happens,Ill ride over to one of their houses and pick up one of the numerous giggling kids and have them drive the buggy back to the proper party.

I can honestly say, that, even with the jerk off ruburbanites, we like most all of our neighbors and we even used to have one who actually played Santa each year . Hed drive his wife and he on their John Deere and , dressed as Santa and Mrs Claus, theyd come over the fields and visit everybody duriing Christmas eve eve. It was a warm feeling time , even though Im kind of a mess over the holidays , I liked this. It was a private neighborly celebrattion for the younger kids We now take care of Mr Clause cause his wife died and hes alone. His two kids live in , like Colorado or arizona and they only can visit for Christmas every other year.
Lastly We have a neighbor whose got more money than God and even though very wealthy he is a great guy , he has a huge stash of very pricey antique cars. Hes loaded an heir of a family fortune, but a truly nice guy In fact, the whole family is nice .For a major hobby, They raise very nice warm blood horses and get into wagon "dress up" teams for point to point shows that are held at various Dupont farms and in the Maryland Piedmont.
They will be in wagon team competition at the Pa farm show next week so we will help lock and load all the dressage crap and we go and cheer them on, and they always have a nice couple of dinners whhether they win or lose. The guy also has a cannon and caisson wich Ive had more fun firing at picnics.

I just hope that we dont have much more development around us. Even though most of us own thhe lands adjoining each otther, the Amish are known to move into aan area and then , because of some congenital wanderlust , they decide that they may want to move to Wisconsin or Iowa, even though the soil in Chester and Lancaster County is just about te best on earth.

farmerman

What a wonderful post from your bit of the planet! I love reading your stories! Have you ever considered an ongoing "farmerman's life ... as it unfolds" thread? One that you could write in, whenever the spirit moved you? I'd read it, for sure! Terrific stuff!

Great stuff farmerman!

Farmerman--

Glad that you've survived the holidays, tale-telling capacity enhanced rather than diminished.

Hold your dominion.

Noddy there were some periods of depression but the family kept me always working, and I had a client who demanded a lot of useless crap , so I traded depression for irascibility. So as Kicking bear said ,"Good trade"

I cant write a damn on subjects Id like. I feel comfortable writing in response to a thread that asks something to which I can relate . Im trying to write some doggeral about the many crosses I see on the highways , and I have too many conflicting ideas so theres no flow, its crap. So I have some instructive stuff that I was PMed and ive recently completed reading steven kings "on witing'. as I suspected , writing with aa conversational tone is always better than using words that our english comp profs always stressed (at least mine, who was Mark van Doren).
He stressed lots of syllables per word and write to impress. I think I want to lose that false wisdom. Mark van Doren wrote ok for him, but rereading SEA OF CORTEZ, I was surprised at how such workingmans language told a story. I Think Ive gotta learn that and also Ive gotta learn to stop the malaprops and random direction that my thoughts lead me, like Brownian movement except with English.
The guy I used to like to read was an old abuzzer who wote "Thoughts while mowing" I thin k his name was Morganwood. Also blatham is purposely self effacing and so reserved that, whether hes tying to r not, his wit comes through.
(If he reads this he will, no doubt be unable to wear a hat for months0 but hes a damn good writer. Setanta writes well in a scholarly fashion but Im trying to develop a communication style like we would be talking on the street. but, I think my writing is kind of simplistic and somewhat manic. Id appreciate any harsh criticism so I can work on short fiction.

Noddy-are you starting to feel like youre coming out of a 10 hour valium induced sleep now that its twelfth night? I am. Thats how depressed I can get
PS , I cant hold my dominion and type at the same time.

farmerman

I'm not Noddy, but if she was here she's suggest you hold your dominion, I'm sure. So that's my suggestion, too.

Whatever the reason, by the way, you write very, very well!

I agree.

farmerman, that was a hell of a story. I just read it all to my husband, who came down here to my basement office to see why I was laughing so hard. He just went back up the stairs snickering and mumbling under his breath about hornets in a jar.

Your writing often reminds me of Keillor without his inevitable moral at the end of the story. And that is high praise, because Keillor is my favorite author.

I'll hold your dominion for you. You just keep typing.

farmerman--

Prose will evolve, providing you keep bombarding all twenty-six letters of the alphabet with your brain waves and the wind from your typing fingers.
Keep working on those roadside shrines. I have three between the house and the grocery store and all of them were decorated with plastic greenery for the holidays. Two had elaborate sprays and the third had a rakish holly leaf hooked over one arm of the cross.

Keep in mind that because of your own lifeline that those roadside crosses will be covered with velcro and you're going to have to be ruthless about yanking some of the extraneous material that has fluttered up from your unconscious and stuck to your subject material.

Honor Ms. Reagan: "Just Say No." If necessary put the digression on a bit of note paper and slip in your "Future Projects" file.

By the time the first week in January is nearly over I feel an enormous sense of relief--and a bit of triumph at having survived another holiday season.

Some peoples' interior landscapes have more dramatic scenery than others.

Hold your dominion.

terrific writing, Farmerman.

thanks she-
Noddy, I know of what you speak. Its kinda like being an alcoholism counselor. I feel that youve hadto have walked in the deep shadows before you can give any directions on where to walk in the light.

Im looking forward to thhe most trivial of enterprises, like watching tthe brightening winter sunrises, waiting for seed catalogs in the first weeks of January, Hockey games, tthe damn temps gotta go down enough so we can safely go ice fishing. I now look forward to walks in the deep woods in snow and tracking animals . I hope, as I slip into geezerhood, I dont turn into Scrooge but, as it is appaearing, Im well on the way-even though the entire family is composed of Christmas nutjobs. Our house looks like a giftshop and all this crap has gotta get put away in the attic for another year' archeological dig for ornaments and green and red chochkies

Oh farmerman, I love the scene you set there just now, about your neighbours.

Love it in that its good writing, for sure, but also just in the yearning it awakens ... I hope your way of life will indeed be spared from further Ruburbians and their ****. Its all gone here - thats why its so beautiful to read your story.

Gotta head for Pa. some time. Some Rust Belt city with rural Amish country around - thats where I'd like to settle, later, when I'm over 40 or something - where I'd settle if I didnt need a job (not likely to find a job like mine in a Rust Belt town. Which dont exist anymore in Holland anyway either). As far as possible from the postmodern nonsense and all those .. people. And then write. <nods>

Oh, that's a cutie, Region! No, Pilli is a Podenco from Spain. They are very social and quiet dogs. Our neighbours got her from an animal shelter. She lived as a stray dog in Malaga. She's a good little furry neighbour!

Farmerman--

I strive for self-contained Scroogedom.

I hate my neighbors. They are all selfish a**holes.

Case (s) in point:

1)
When we had that blizzard snowstorm that dumped 3 years worth of snow on us in one day, I was out shoveling the driveway. We have a small metal shovel because I can't lift a big one. So it takes sooooo long to shovel when you're using a teaspoon. Anyway, 3 of my neighbors are out snowblowing their driveways, the sidewalks, one is doing the freaking street in front of their house...no one offered to let me borrow the snowblower or snowblow it for me. Little ol' me (I am 5'3 and 118 lbs) shoveling like a maniac....and then one guy who was loading his snowblower into a truck for his friend has the balls to say "hey you can come do mine when you're done!" F*cker....

2)
We have to do some things in my neigherhood that most neighborhoods may have but don't enforce. Like keeping the lawn trimmed to a certain length and not allowing ANY of your vehicle to hang over the sidewalk when parked in the driveway. Well, we have a very old driveway that I don't think was ever actually meant for cars (since pulling it up puts the mirror about 1/2 inch from the house). We had lived in the house for about 1-2 months and my hubby had pulled the car in off the road and it was hanging 3 inches over the sidewalk. We came out and one of our neighbors had called the cops and we got a ticket. $35 Apparently, someone had called us in.

3)
Later in summer, we found a citation in our mailbox for not having our back yard mowed down enough. $275 if we didn't have it down to 2 inches by a certain date. Who sees the back yard? Neighbors. Someone called us in on that too.

4)
Then a month later our landlady called and told us the back yard needed to be cleaned up (branches, leaves) because the lady next door was complaining.


No one can actually SAY anything to us...no, just call the police or our landlord.

It isn't like we have a jungle or anything. We don't have crap all over our lawn, old cars in the yard...heck, we don't even have an old toilet flower-pot in our front yard. What is it with our neighbors??? We are hardly ever home so it isn't like we bug them.....a**holes.

I would practice my calligraphy and put signs on all the sides facing the neighbors.

"I am required by law to announce that I have a criminal record involving unpredictable acts of violence and antisocial behavior, with my newest medications Im feeling much better now, and Id appreciate your continued cooperation" a**joles would be an optional complementary closing.

oooo, that is a good idea.....

farmerman, I really enjoyed reading your tale. I didn't know the Amish ever had a little drinkee. You've taught me something.

Kristie, your situation sounds totally ridiculous - my sympathies.

We're not quite as rural as farmerman but we're fairly rural for being in a metropolitan area. Our neighborhood is changing dramatically though. Our village was started by some folks who wanted to escape from the city so they built nice but modest homes on large lots (1 to 5 acres) in the forest. All was well until about three years ago when the developers discovered our little jewel of an area and started buying up houses, taking down all the trees and building McMansions as close to the footprint as the building setbacks would allow. Before we could blink three times a significant amount of forest was gone and the newcomers can watch each other pee in their giant houses. In my neighborhood alone we have 4 new houses that contain upwards of 6,000 sq feet and a new one of 8,000 sq ft on the way. All of these new dwelling house two people each with sometimes a small dog. It makes me ill. Most of them could easily house a family of 4 in their garage.

So we have nothing in common with the new people and us oldtimers get palpitations whenever we see a for sale sign. We get along pretty well with everyone around us but our houses are far enough apart that we don't have to watch each other pee.

Sorry, girl, I've not much practice in answering longer posts piece by piece. Next time I'll try to do it in color instead of italics.