Thanks Mr. Frost

(nothing to do with Trump World – just my world!)

Thanks Mr. Frost

Thanks to you Mr.Robert Frost. Today I had our yard surveyed. I paid to have someone tell me to the tiniest inch where the property lines were. They used high tech metal detectors to find fifty year old pins buried in the ground.   They used high tech sights to hone in on the actual line of property. The placed stakes and flags: HERE IS THE PROPERTY LINE!!!!

We have two neighbors. On one side, a young couple with a child and a dog, friends. Their fence (to hold the dog) hooks to ours; we have temporarily ceded some of our property to them (to avoid digging post holes into buried cables.) We are happy and they are happy.

On the other side, the neighbors that required a survey. They hate us, they hate our dogs, they hate, hate, hate. To avoid interaction we built a fence, six feet high, picketed across: they don’t need to see us, nor we them. But good fences haven’t made good neighbors.

After the fence went up came the questions: it’s on OUR property, your fence is on OUR property!! We fought over cutting grass, we killed all the weeds on the other side of the fence (that’s OUR property); good fences didn’t make good neighbors. So today, we surveyed – and the fence is on OUR property (though the corner is pretty close.) The stakes and flags meant to reassure – they will most likely inflame.

We will border the “line” with steel garden border; we will place bushes between our fence and our property line; we will build another barrier to hold out the hate. If good stakes, and steel, and bushes, and fences won’t make good neighbors, perhaps nothing will. But we will try – because good fences should make good neighbors.

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns. View all posts by Marty Dahlman