Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.

Spring has finally come to town - and of course we have zipped from the mid thirties to the 70s, par for the course around here. I'm not swapping out my clothes quite yet, next weekend if the temps remain stable I'll do it. I did thin down the winter stuff though to get a jump on things. I took Molly for her first walk of the season at Friendship Park, it's funny how fast they regress. When we got out of the car her tail was firmly tucked, she approached the path in a crouch, flinching when I stepped on a branch. But with in half an hour she remembered, tail up and trotting right along. We've been out in the yard quite a bit, doing some more clearing out in the woods where we spend a great deal of time these days. There's plenty of stumps for me to sit on and read while they sniff and dig holes pursuing imaginary prey. Our backyard is still a bit uncomfortable, our neighbors next door stopped talking to us because of all things - a ditch. Last year we had heavy rain and the ditch that runs in front of the houses also goes to a French drain that keeps our basement from flooding. With the constant rain we had  it ran in the front of the neighbor's - the neighbor announced to us it was coming from our septic system. David and I went to look, there were frogs in it and no smell, so we told him it was most likely just from the rain, if it continued after things dried up, we would address it.  I did a dye test just in case and David scoped it - it was coming from the French drain. In the meantime the neighbor sent a sample to the water company - David asked if he'd told them where he got it and he said he did - but when he gave us our copy it stated "from neighbor's leaking septic system". Sigh. David called and spoke to the company, when they were told it was from a ditch they said the fecal levels were actually low. Since we had had about enough of this nonsense David dug up the drain on that side of the house and cemented it off so if we do have heavy rains the one furthest away from their house will drain.  David called him and left a message - and that was that, he and his wife are never EVER speaking to us again. I actually didn't realize this for a month or two, one day I waved and - I kid you not - he turned his back and marched into his house like an irate 5 year old. Part of it is funny, I have to say there are times when I go out with the dogs just to see what he'll do. If his dogs sneak over here he frantically starts calling them, one day they got loose in our yard and I grabbed them since I didn't want them to get lost - that was a bit of a kerfuffle for him! He had to come over to retrieve them since standing on the property line and yelling at them (while trying to not to look at me) was not working, since they were dancing around me and my two. He came over, got them and left - no thank you or anything! Since we only saw them to occasionally talk to with the rare dinner it's not like we lost real friends. But it's just annoying since the second we come out he starts skulking around his yard and makes a show of how he's not talking to us. Honestly, it's a bit weird. Oh well, nothing I can do about it. Work continues - I've been pretty much on my own for awhile so I'm just getting into the rhythm of things. I go for a week of training over my birthday in NJ but David and I will celebrate when I get back. I ordered a new ereader, that's all I really wanted. I have to Kobo Vox which is more like a tablet - I really want a new reader. So I got the Aura HD. I do use my ereader constantly, since I've gotten it I read every day. The shawl is coming along, I'm halfway done with the border, then I'm done and on to the next project! Which will be socks - I was putting some yarn away and I have so much sock yarn I can't even talk about it.