I’m neighbored out. It’s amazing how we can live in the middle of nowhere on a little farm and still, there’s neighborhood drama. I feel like it’s been going on all spring, too, culminating in one specific neighbor popping by last weekend to pontificate about a situation she’s in which led to her talking crap about some other neighbors who are good people which led to me calling her out on being poorly behaved (Robert says I should have kept my mouth shut but there’s a moment when silence is the same as lying and I couldn’t tolerate her thinking that I agreed with her) which led to her screaming at me at the top of her lungs and coming completely unhinged which led to her telling me she would see me in court.
HOLD ON.
What???!!???? Gold star for bad behavior and bullying, neighbor lady, and thank you for making me LAUGH aloud as you drove away!!! Too ridiculous!
I’m not interested in being enemies with this woman but I sure as heck don’t want to be friends. I can practice civility but I can’t have any of this individual in my life. And that’s ok. But it raises the question: what do we do when the lives of others begin to spin out and crash into our own lives? What do we do when others splash unsavory details all over our tranquility? What do we do with the neighborhood-arse? Every neighborhood has an arse, every office has a jerk, every swimming pool has had a turd floating in it. I know the answer is not to move again, to a bigger farm or ranch that has a wider buffer zone between my neighbors and I…or maybe that is the answer? The fact is no matter where we go we’re going to have to live with others to some degree. The only thing I can think to do is take my lessons as I can from the people I have to share this canyon with — some lessons will be full of joy and others will be hard knocks. And more importantly, I think I’ll strive to be a good neighbor to my neighbors. Lord knows, one rotten egg is more than enough rotten eggs in this community.
If you’re reading this rant-of-exhaustion of mine this morning, I suppose I just want people to know that despite the fact I have created a beautiful sanctuary for myself to live and work within, there are still human generated disruptions in my life and I know there are for you, too. We’ll all get through it in good time. In the meanwhile, sow flowers, tug weeds.
ON THE TOPIC OF GROWING THINGS:
My gardens are coming up so beautifully here. I managed to get the last of everything planted over the weekend and chased the garden planting with an intense two days of shrub, tree and rose planting. Everything is in the ground now drinking up water and sunshine and getting taller every day. Each morning when I survey my cultivated dominion I’m amazed at how quickly things grow. I wish there was a way to measure growth of adults. So much of how we grow and change once we are physically mature humans is invisible!
ON THE TOPIC OF GARDENING FAILURES:
I confess to being in extreme dahlia distress. I’m in the depths of despair! I think all my dahlia bulbs are duds. I don’t know what I’ll do without them. My dahlia grove brought me a lot of joy and beauty last summer. I might have to go to the plant nursery one last time to see if I can remedy the situation but I think all may be lost.
How do your gardens grow?
Just a thought – If the neighbor left in a state of anger there’s a good chance she won’t be back for a long time – if ever. LOL
Finger’s crossed, right?
The psrts of your garden in these photos are lovely. Looks like it’s going to be a full harvest.
Happy summer, sweetie!
THIS WE PRAY!!!
Everything is growing so nicely this year — this is the third year for this garden and I have a lot of perennials and roses and grapes and berries finally beginning to boom — I always feel the 3rd year is the first big show year after developing a garden.
Happy summer, darlin’!
nodding my head in agreement and clapping hard in sincere applause for this post!! i must agree with you about silence being akin to lying.
i hope you find some dahlias to console your spirit!!
….and, believe-you-me, digging in my garden dirt is how i find some sweet heaven-sent solace. [all i have right now above-ground is a few tiny pea sprouts and some tiny kale and some tiny radish plants.]
xx
My dahlias…I keep trying to remember if they had a really long, slowwwwwwww start last year and I simply cannot recall! Fingers crossed!
Oh this stuff is tough! I’m going to say one simple thing that works SO well for me, that my little brother told me when I was going through a situation with a work neighbour – a situation that should have been minor but tugged quite astonishingly and violently for a bit at my soul and my very sense of self. My bro said: “Sis, if you stop for every dog that barks you’ll never do anything.” Basic advice, but it works for me! It stops me taking things so personally somehow. Hope it helps you too (and no offence to dogs and their often righteous barking, of course!) Garden on, dude 🙂 xxx
She didn’t really upset me…I was more gobsmacked than anything.
Love your brother’s advice!
Ha haaaaaa. Court?! What TV land is this.
My garden grows slow and patchy thus far. It’s the driest spring in Saskatoon’s records! You’ve had a lot more garden/irrigation experience so I’d love your advice – how often do you water during germination?
I know! TV land!!! GUFFAW!!!
Water every day, sometimes morning and night depending on the wind and sun. Keep those seeds wet, after they sprout keep on keeping them wet! You can back off on the water once there’s enough foliage to keep root bases in some shadow coverage. For water conservation consider putting in a drip and mister system. Pretty easy to set up…just takes some elbow grease. My mum has been telling me every time she looks at the sky in Saskatoon she prays for rain. I hope you get some soon. What a heartache for farmers.
That neighbour is an energy sucker, those people just want to suck your beautiful energy and if you are unhappy about it, they win, just ignore (I know it is hard to do) but if you don’t they win…you’re too nice to lovely to beautiful…may be she is jealous of all this…your garden is beautiful, your jewelry, yours horses, your farm your everything…yes, she came because she is jealous! it is her problem not yours. It is still annoying…have a wonderful gorgeous summer, beautiful soul that you are!!!
Oh, it’s just how she is…just kinda nuts…she treated me how she treats everyone so at least she’s consistent!!!
I relate to this post so much! Eight years ago we moved to a farm in Ontario. It would have originally been a 100 acre corner, but years and years ago (when this kind of thing was still possible), all the lots up the side road were severed. When we bought the place, there were only two other houses around, and though we knew that all the lots could fill in eventually, we figured it was still way better than living next to hog barns or chicken barns or sprayed fields or whatever. Fast forward to now, and almost all of the lots have houses now, and by the end of this year they all will. Amazingly, most of my neighbours are fine and quiet, and aside from the odd garbage fire (why do people think it’s okay to burn plastic?!), all is well. All, that is, except for one neighbour, who happens to be the closest to us, and since he and his family moved here 5-ish years ago, he hasn’t stopped driving skid steers around his tiny 3 acre lot. Last year he dug a pond, which was exciting, and I spoke with them and heard their plan and it seemed like there was an end in sight to all the ‘landscaping’. Then, just last week, I watched as he filled the pond in. What the hell? That really sent me into a tailspin. Their place looks like the trenches in a world war. And the noise…. Now I’m trying to decide whether I should just be thankful that the skid steering usually only lasts for 30 min or an hour every night (there have been years where it’s gone on for much longer) or if I should say something to him, somewhere along the lines of, hey, what happened to your pond, and also, are you ever going to stop this extremely annoying and disruptive driving of heavy machinery? There is also an atv involved sometimes. One of the huge reasons I love the country is the peace and quiet. I don’t want combustion engines constantly running 500 metres from my house. Anyways, I nearly lost it earlier this week, but have since calmed down somewhat, and am now unsure just what I’ll do. Reading this post really helped, because you can bet I think of moving away, to somewhere more remote, even though almost everything else about this place is perfect. But it’s true, there are neighbours everywhere, and honestly, it’s just nice to know that I’m not alone in my experience of frustrating neighbours! So thanks for this post! (Phew, that was a long comment. Obviously I really needed to vent!)
Whew!
I’m glad I could provide a place for a few of you to vent. Keep to the high road! Plant beautiful trees and flowering shrubs. Do your best to block the chaos with beauty.
I have a saying in my life, everybody’s gotta have a Frank, you know one of those who is always causing drama!! Doing the right thing can never be wrong!!!
Isn’t it just wonderful to grow your own food, I don’t think I could exist if I didn’t grow my own!! Yours looks so beautiful, and your help isn’t bad either!!!
I feel like my Frank quota has been filled for the next few decades.
It’s the best!!! I’m enjoying my gardens so much this year. This is year three for many of my perennials, fruit trees and roses and they’re all going BIG for me!
Sometimes we get to a place where something needs to be said. Where you don’t have to accept her putting what she thinks on you and wanting you to agree with her. It seems to get easier as I get older but it is still hard, as I want to keep the peace. Glad you laughed as she drove away; I mean, what else can you do?
Gardening. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Don’t set the plants out, better set the plants out. Why are some of my starts growing but others failing? Start over. New soil. Winds. I call this gardening under duress. Someone thought I said, under a dress. Ha Ha But I love it, and it works out and the eatin’ is sooo good. I love wandering in the garden, thinking, I really did this!
Oh man…my garden just suffered 3 days of gale force wind. Everything looks windburned and I fear my Chinese spinach row isn’t going to make it (too bad, it’s beautiful). Isn’t that the way of it though. Gardeners are the kings and queens of adaptation!
So sorry to hear about your ill mannered neighbor Jillian, I couldn’t have held my tongue either, she was out of line coming to your property and spewing garbage! I also can totally relate to Aimee – why is it so hard to find your personal paradise and not have anyone try to wreck it?! I bought my house 20 years ago with woods on one side and a wide empty lot attached to the house on the other side, so I felt I’d found the perfect 110 year old home to renovate and create my garden paradise. Then one day a few years ago I came home from work and the woods were GONE, next thing you know a house is there and really horrible people moved in, I won’t bother you w/ details, but luckily I bought the 25′ lot between our yards and built a fence immediately! Now on the other side, the old woman sold the house, and the new owners are building basically another house “addition” so I now have construction noises for this huge tall house right next to mine with windows looking down on my back yard and I’m just sick over it. Add to that the workmen are actively rude to me for no reason – I’ve never spoken to these people or done anything to provoke them. Privacy is gone, all I’m doing is trying to figure out what to plant to block the view – wouldn’t you know I cut down a huge branch a couple years ago that would’ve totally protected my privacy. Anyway, I can’t afford to move and I love my gardens, so I’m trying to deal with it, ugh! You’d THINK that people would be glad to have a quiet neighbor who only beautifies the neighborhood and keeps to herself and even picks up their garbage when I walk my dog, but NOOOO…
I think it’s safe to say that you Jillian, and the people you attract to your blog are like fireflies in the world – we just keep on shining our lights even though the world tries to quench it, because that is all we know how to do!
BTW, I’ve never had luck with dahlias, and I LOVE gladiolus, so I plant tons of those over a few weeks time every year now so I always have blooms for bouquets until Fall. My favorites so far this year are my irises, they’re simply spectacular. And there’s tons of cherries getting ripe, can’t wait. We’ve had a lot of rain here in the northeast, so also the woods behind my house (which ARE mine) are filled with wild phlox – purples and pinks and whites all over below the green canopy, simply magical! Good luck to all here in your gardening/getting along ventures this summer!
P.S. More pics of Ernest please 🙂
I’m alright with my neighbors popping by but all my other neighbors are decent people, this neighbor is a snake and I am filled with distrust when I have to interact with her. Anyway, we all survived the situation.
I am so sorry to hear about your loss of privacy! That’s hard. Maybe just start doing something outrageous in your backyard like barbecuing naked to rap music and see if they plant a hedge row to block the sight (this could backfire…they might like it).
I love gladiolus, too! They remind me of Saskatchewan. My grandmother grew them and I remember her picking them for church (where she played the pump organ!!!). I bet she misses fresh flowers in the summer, or maybe she doesn’t. She kinda hated the farm.
Enjoy your cherries, your phlox, all the beautiful magical things that you DO have!