Mayhem in Wareham

Admittedly, nowhere as newsworthy as Toronto going boom, we had our own little fracas in Wareham today.
It all began when our neighbours across the road, who've been dividing their time between living here and living in Italy, decided to move back to Canada full time. Today all their goods and chattels were scheduled to finally arrive.
Well, the big truck showed up an hour before the arranged time, for starters, and had difficulty in simply managing to drive down the road. I was getting my cup of coffee, and heard the big truck snorting out the kitchen window, and watched as he did inexplicable back and forthings in the crossroad. Then he drove past the house and out of sight, but not out of hearing. When I went back to my studio, I could still hear big truck sounds for quite some time.
I finally decided it was time to put out the garbage, and check up. The big truck was backed into the drive across the road, and unloading was happening with the hastily rounded up crew of friend-and-family movers.

Then I noticed Larry, my neighbour, photographing the truck. I made a bit of a joke, and he pointed out where the truck had managed to dig up his lawn and crush part of his rock garden, in its attempts to wriggle its back end into the drive.

However, it got quite exciting when the driver tried to leave! For some reason he tried to drive straight out and then turn at a 90 degree angle. (Don't ask me why, makes no sense at all!) This meant he drove right onto Larry's lawn again, in an as yet, untouched spot. And discovered there really wasn't room for maneouvering.




We now had a truck fairly wedged from one side of the road to the other.




Which was bad enough, then the driver, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, decided that by simply turning left, somehow the entire truck was just going to follow the cab, and they'd drive off down the road. Except we've had an unparalled amount of rain in the last week or so, and the ground is very soft. And the road we live on was built up some time in the past, and our yards slope down. So all the truck could do was work its way deeper and deeper into Larry's lawn. (All the while subdividing the hamlet into Wareham East and Wareham West.) On our side, we had a small tractor and his trailer load of equipment, and an OPP guy sadly watching the whole affair. On the west side were Larry's vehicles, which he'd moved out of harm's way as much as possible, and a few other trucks that had hoped to drive east down our road, and lots of neighbours' feet.

Eventually, the cavalry came in the form of a heavy duty tow truck. He attached a chain and quick as a wink pulled the stupid truck free. (Of course, then there was a lot of wrangling about whether the truck driver was going to pay or not, as all the Warehamites looked on in bemusement.)


However, it didn't quite come to blows. Though Larry's lawn may never be the same again...

Signs of Spring, no, really!

Not that long ago at all, Monday or Tuesday?, we were having snow flurries. Wednesday started grey and cold, and then miraculously the sun came out, and it felt warmer, and more hopeful.
Yesterday morning was still too chilly to be out and not be stomping about, keeping the blood flowing. But yesterday afternoon was glorious.





My crocus-popsicles turn out to not be totally dead after all! Okay, I’ve missed their lead up into blooming, and they’re far more fragile this year than they should be, and why do I seem to plant crocii all the time, and never have any more crocii?










And the new rhubarb that we put in last fall seems to be looking lively.












And in the forest garden, the bloodroot is poking up, and wild leeks and the troutlilies.





















And next door, Larry is digging through his buried treasures, and so far we’ve heard the big tractor, the lawn mower, and what sounded like a chain saw. He’s now happily starting his ‘bare earth’ policy, and buzz-cutting the property.

Yup. Spring.

OHMIGAWD!

Larry has a hot tub!!!!

That's what he was trying to bring in the other day. The mystery toolbin or
wood storage is actually a hot tub.

I just peered out the back door because there's the annoying buzz/din of a
solar radio not quite tuned in vibrating through my office wall, and there
was the grey bin thing not moved inside or anywhere else, and there was the
naked upper portions of Larry, peacefully steeping and reading a book!!!

(My god and brrr! It's about 8 celsius out! He may be warm where he's in
the water, but all that exposed flesh above.....? Brrrrr!)

At least he may not be out there too long, because the radio noise is
really very bothersome...
As long as he remembers to turn it off or take it in with him!

v

The Larry Report

Actually, it was far quieter next door this summer. Less yarkie dogs
yarking, less Lawnmower Man chewing up lost civilisations.... I think they
went up to their trailer or cottage or whatever near Wiarton or Walkerton or
somewhere 'W'-y a lot.

Though he's had a sudden burst of end of summer energy. (Much like Charv on
his winter-fattening killing spree!)(Well, okay, not "much like".)

There was the House Tweaking van and sign, as all their woodworky bits got
repainted from the greenish of old to a dark brown. A little metal toolshed
seems to have bloomed in the back 40. The little wood Mennonite-made
toolshed from last spring has suddenly been stained dark brown. (KInd of
ugly. Neither a thick enough coat, not a thin enough coat, and kind of makes
me think of that Goodwill Brown that all furniture items had been painted
when you got them from Goodwill. That you then had to strip back off.)

Now, today, they've been trying to back a truck and trailer around the side
yard, which is far less possible now that he's filled it with little bricks
paths and gazebos and tree benches and stuff.... And it looks like they've
offloaded some kind of grey storage bin/box/toolsheddy thing. Not sure if
it's maybe to be a woodshed by the back door? Though they have a backdoor on
the otherside, which has a more level access, rather than down and around
the slope. Far easier to get wood to.

Or maybe it's a wee outbuilding for the Yarkies for winter? Larry did go
all crazy putting in a more permanent fence around their dog-run. (Once
David Rankine's little nature garden with wild sassafrass and wild ginseng
and native flowers.) I know that one of the Yarkies had a reputation for
being able to escape their old compound.

Admittedly, we've had our house-battening moments too. Darrell caulked the
roof of the Wendy-house. And we've had firewood delivered, wettish wood, so
Darrell's been shifting the remains of our dry stock forward so the newer
wood can be stacked at the 'back of the line'.
I dug my potatoes. (No way near Grondzilla-sized!) A lot of Barbie-doll
potatoes, and a small bunch of decent sized ones, and some in between.

Mostly it's being so wet that any outside job keeps being postponed. And
because it's cooler, even a dry bright day doesn't really dry things up
much. It's far easier to dig potatoes when you're not trying to dig in a
soggy mudpit.

I still have dyeing paraphanalia scattered around to gather up too. And
gardening bits and pieces. Essentilly, I still need some good old summer
weather!

v

Ah, Spring!

It must be. Larry’s Levellers have just arrived.

Larry is our neighbour. Or, ‘The Lawnmower Man’ as I [fondly?] call him. He’s not an awful kind of guy. On the whole he’s pretty quiet (except for an occasional karaoke moment!), and it does turn out he has a bit of a sense of humour, and he appears to be decent enough.
But he has this ‘thing’ about his relationship with Nature.

When Larry and family bought the church next door, (of which we are the church shed), it had been owned by Celtic artist, David Rankine. (If you’ve seen my baby web page, I used some of his artwork to create the background paper.) David had spent a lot of time on the yard to the church. The previous owners, our original neighbours, had done the renovation from church to home, and had made a fair dint in getting the yard to match. David polished it up. There were rock gardens blooming with flowers and herbs. The boundaries of the yard were thick with peonies and yellow loosestrife and day lilies. (And we had an impressive count of cardinals and hummingbirds and other exciting species.)

Sadly, when Larry arrived, he kind of chopped it all down. And chopped it again. And again. There have been days when he’s mowed twice! Over the same area! Now if that’s not excessive, I’m not sure what is.

He’s weedwhacked, and trimmered, and sawn, and mowed, and mulched, and uprooted… To his credit, he’s also planted. But I’m not sure what all he put it, though I saw the pots, and so far nothing recognizable or even tangible seems to have happened.
Perhaps, if I saw his plan? I’m assuming there’s some goal in mind… Except I don’t really see him gardening. He’s not someone who waters or weeds or deadheads or admires. Mowing seems to be his thing. Yet we have a short growing season, and in the later part of summer, it’s very dry here. If he was hoping for that putting green lawn, it isn’t going to happen.

And instead, my heart breaks for all the lovely day lilies, which are so beautifully established on that front slope up to the road. And I yearn for all the lovely cedary visual barrier between the two properties. If nothing else it meant that the ‘yarkie’ dogs would only yark when they heard us, not also when they saw us.

Larry did, at least, put a little wooden tool shed in between the two yards, and it’s not extraordinarily ugly. So that’s somewhat helpful. And when my withy fence gets a bit more established, and second bit gets built, it will help distract the eye from the four or five wheelbarrows behind the shed.

But here I am, hankering after every living, growing and flowering thing, checking them faithfully day after day, and Larry, I guess, sees no charm in them at all. The grass is always greener….?

the sky is falling! the sky is falling!

So, there we were, in the wasteland that is summer television, watching a dvd of Pirates of the Caribbean…
And we got to the spot where the maid servant fills the warming pan with hot coals and sticks it under the covers next to the tender feet of her young Mistress Elizabeth. And I exchange glances with my Spousal Object, and we both mutter a comment or two, along the lines of: “it’s Jamaica, who needs to warm the bed?” and “and you wouldn’t put it in the bed with someone, and you wouldn’t leave it there, you’d swoosh it about to warm the linens, not leave it to scorch them”….

And then we carry on watching. And was it just incredible suspension of disbelief? I sniffed. Sniffed again. I was sure I could smell burning…. He leaps up and heads down to check the shop. I wander to the kitchen. Then back to the door onto the deck. I sniff again. And again. And then notice the soft white fallout. And my black cat lying comfortably on the deck. Going grey. With ashes….

Yup, it’s just Larry the Lawnmower man next door, finding more forest to burn. I’m surprised he has anything left over there to chop and burn. He’s cleared out so much that you’d never believe it was a landscaped wooded lot before he got his hands on it. Sigh.

Sorry, Chicken Little, it’s just Larry again.