Who are The People In Your Neighborhood?

When we moved to this house it was cold, snowed alot and rained even more. There was no neighborhood welcoming committee. This little rural village is inhabited by mostly older folk. My daughter overheard at the post office the other day that the lady two houses down will be turning 98 this week. I am thinking maybe we will bake something and send it over. As the warm weather has been creeping in the neighbors have been creeping out. Those we have not seen we now see. We have even had the chance to meet a few. Across the road in another huge old farm house, white with red trim and tin red roof, is an aged couple. Peggy met us over the fence last week. They are not full time residents. They are in the process of selling their city house so they can live full time out here. She is 73 and thinks it is time she retired. She has noticed the hard work we have put into cleaning up the place. Although she did not actually gossip she made a point of making sure we knew how shabby the former owners of house kept things. Oh, yes, we know! We have been digging out and cleaning up every day that the weather permits. She turned up her nose as she spoke of the former goats and sheep and, at one time, miniature horses, the dogs and cats and who knows what else that lived in our pastures. I loved the look on her face when it fell as I said we would be getting a few chickens and a couple milk goats. She recovered quickly, smiled and made some comment about baby goats being cute. She ended the conversation abruptly and returned to bossing her husband around who was mulching her flower beds. I am sure we were a topic of conversation -us and our damned goats we would be getting. The little house on the opposite side of our property is owned by a younger single woman. We have not met her. We have met her father who comes over and cuts the grass and keeps the bushes trimmed neatly. I pointed out we had been clearing along the fence line because the fence had to be replaced. I didn't want any confrontation about us cutting 'their' trees so I asked politely if there was anything on that side of the fence we should be careful of in the carrying out of repairs to our fence. Tommy told me to cut it all down! lol He also complimented me on the way everything was looking. He then proceeded to peg my accent. "There's an old gal I see. She is fron Macon. You sound just like her." Hahahaha! This just makes me laugh so hard. Yes, I am from Georgia and I hope to keep my accent! The whole neighborhood has noticed the woman who works most of the day outside cutting and trimming and cleaning. I can only imagine what those coversations must be like. I am sure they think we should have left the overgrowth of trees and bushes or at least ripped down the rotted discolored boards of the fence. Well, we can't do everything at once. It goes in stages. A little further down the road is a little house with property that runs adjacent to the back field and butts up to our property that runs a good distance down behind several smaller houses. We met these neighbors back in late February when we had one day of descent weather and decided to ride our fence line to take account of the work we needed to prepare for. As we approached the farthest fence, we saw a man on a bobcat clearing fallen trees and brush and junk that someone had stacked up in the tree line. A woman was out there with him doing only what can be described as 'supervising'. Let's call the neighbors over there Willie and Ray. Willie had a can of beer in her hand. I couldn't make out the brand but it looked like maybe it was a Schlitz. She was shouting at the dog running around her feet. As we neared the fence she came over and waved in a friendly way so we stopped the tractor and said hello. Introductions were made and soon her husband crawled off his machine and came over too. We had to continually repeat ourselves as Ray couldn't quite hear us. I am not sure if he had a hearing problem or if he too had been having a beer or twelve that affected his hearing or wether the natural shouting voice of his wife made our normal voices sound like whispers. We stood maybe five feet apart and found ourselves shouting to be heard. We were asked about the old grape vines. Yes, we are letting them grow. We won't cut them down. Yes, the old cemetery is ours. Yes, we intend to have a new fence put up. No, you may not go over with a metal detector and dig up anything you find! She was telling me she wanted to dig up whomever was in our graveyard! I politely said that anyone found digging in our graveyard would find themselves faced with a shot gun or the sherriff and maybe both. She seemed to take this in stride but her next breath was telling me how she wanted to dig in our cemetery. So next their dog is yapping and chasing another dog. Willie turns around and shouts, "Shut up, asshole." Take your own advice, Willie, flashes across my mind but did not make it to my tongue. The next thing out of her mouth caused Steven and I to laugh uncontrollably when we departed their company. She turns to us and says, "Yes, I drink beer. He does, too," indicating her husband, "and our dog is gay. He likes the dog down the street." I looked at Steven, he looked at me, we both looked at our neighbors who never missed a beat and told us about the man who owned the dog their dog is enamored with. "He has a shotgun and sometimes he comes out and shoots at stray cats." Then she says, "The neighborhood knows everything about you. We even know what you paid for your house." Ha, I think not. The sell price and what the realtor put in his ad in the local paper are two hugely different things. "We saw you move in. We even talked about you. Everyone knows everything." Well, now isn't that nice? We live in one of the oldest and largest houses, on the highest point in the village, and everyone is watching us and knows 'everything' about us. I am thinking we should go up to the attic at night, turn on the lights and do weird things up there. Now that would give them something to talk about!