It's spring finally! My baby chickens have arrived....so far no crowing...only time will tell if there is a “oops” rooster again! Thought a spring update on the craziness was due!
The barn is up! No, I have not painted "Cock a doodle doo" on the roof....but it's always an option. We planted six spruce trees on the inside of our fence to block our view of their trash. I did not get a privacy fence. We could only go 6 feet high because of zoning and I have two that fly to the top of my five foot gate with ease. So I put up a six foot welded wire fence. If they can’t see a spot to land on the top…they don’t seem to want to fly over!
The two weeks ago the fun began again. We hired someone to run a pipe underground from the new barn gutters so we could drain all the water to the large trench we created that goes downhill. This is the same trench that she accused of running raw sewage through last fall. The next day (while the trench for the pipe was still open) she confronted my DH in the yard. She told him that she had called the town because now we had standing water everywhere. (At the time it was 40 degrees out...daytime high). And that her cancer was back and if she was bitten by one insect she would die. True or not DH told her that we would welcome the town and that we had applied for all the permits required for us to do the work. DH is so reasonable. The town never came out to visit.
Then yesterday the fun REALLY began. The posts for the new fenced in area extending to about 60 or so feet from her garage were put in. After dinner I heard someone POUNDING on my front door. By the time I got up to answer it, she was gone, yelling at DH in the driveway. I took a deep calming breath and went outside. I will not be intimidated by her anymore.
Then she screamed at me that I was torturing her on purpose by putting my chickens closer to her house. She said I was an evil, vindictive person who was torturing an old lady with cancer. I explained that after losing both my parents to cancer in the same year I was now doing things for me…things to make me happy. Being able to see my chickens from my kitchen window makes me happy and that is why I expanded my pen.
She screamed that my fence was seven feet instead of 10 feet like the town required, but that she hadn't called...she had just "let us get away with it". In fact this was why she had gotten the boundary line survey. There is a 8 foot long section of the fence that is a tad too close if we accept where she says the property line is....out of over 150 feet! I told her to sue me...call the town...whatever, I didn't care. Then she said she was going to fence her whole property in with a chain link fence and let her dogs run everywhere. "I don't care," I replied. "But a chain link fence isn't really going to do much to help with the noise is it?"
When the conversation got to this point…where she was screaming crazy nonsense and no longer listening I told her to tell her twenty-year old daughter to stop calling my DH and asking him for money for her boyfriend's lawyer (the kid is in jail for many, many things). That I would like her to tell her daughter to leave us alone, STOP CALLING...we were NOT giving her any money. She did stop screaming for a moment...I don't think she was happy that we knew about the boyfriend. Then I told her to just put up her fence like she has been threatening to since last October and LEAVE US ALONE.
I could go on and on and on...but needless to say I feel much better having finally told her that all of the things she had done to me over the past 10 years had HURT ME. I didn’t get into specifics…just told her how her behavior made me feel. I wasn't going to let her hurt me anymore...and I told her we were going to do whatever we wanted to with our property. JUST LEAVE US ALONE! Then I walked away as she screamed who knows what at me...in my own yard. I don't think anyone ever tells her no. After I left my reasonable DH told her that under the law we had a "Right to Farm" and since she lived next to a farm she should expect farming activities to take place. He then told her that of course we felt bad that her cancer was back. And I do...I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
So now fast forward to this morning. The new goat pen is done...goat arrival TBD….still have to finish the shelter. My new chicken area is up! My chickens were happily scratching away at the dirt this morning and running in between the freshly planted spruce trees. And she had a fencing contractor walking up and down the property line with her. After he left she took every trash can and piece of gardening equipment, wheelbarrow, and kitty litter box she had and placed them in a row along the property line where the new run is.
But I can't really see it now because of the trees. Then she spent an hour or so walking up and down entire the property line with her GSD. My chickens didn't seem to notice...they were too busy digging in the fresh dirt. They aren't afraid of her anymore either!
