THE YARD FREAKS

I post this here today because I can so relate and solely for the humor aspect of it all. Yes, Brent and I are extremely particular about our yard. Our neighbors tease us about it, everyone teases us about it. Brent is way more particular than I am but he has taught me to be more aware of the yard and its appearence. He used to do landscaping as a young teenager and I believe that is where his expectations of what a front yard is supposed to look like came from. Brent is so particular in fact, that one time while we were away on vacation, our three sets of neighbors around our house decided to ban together and mow a huge smiley face in our front yard. When I say mow, I mean mmmooowww....! They mowed it down to like golf course length. In fact, I have a photo to prove just how visible the smiley face was. (shown below) We pulled up from the airport that night around 10pm and Brent noticed it right away. I could barely even see it because it was so dark but he spotted as soon as we rounded the corner on our street. It was hysterical. I was laughing for days about it. Brent was more in shock than anything. Which...in turn...made it even more funny. The neighbors were waiting up to see his reaction.

About two or three weeks later, we decided to pay our neighbors back by lining their home with caution tape. You know - the yellow police caution tape??? They were gone for the evening and we wrapped their entire house in it. Trees and all. We then had another neighbor lie down in their driveway and we took chalk and outlined the shape of his body on the cement in their driveway. As they pulled up later that evening, it looked as though a murder had taken place or something. Might I add that we got this wonderful idea from my own Father. (Thanks Dad!) Yes, he and my stepMom had played this same prank on one of their own friends once as he came home from a blind date. WRONG - that is just WRONG! Ha ha! I can't remember if he ever got a 2nd date with that gal or not. :)

Either way, I post this because the video you are about to watch below reminded me so much of how particular we are with our yard. The video is something you just need to watch first. After you've viewed it, I'll explain more below.

(First, you might want to scroll to the bottom of this blog page and hit "pause" on the music playlist so that it isn't playing songs while you are trying to hear this video.)

Last summer, I was sitting at my desk - typing away on the computer just as I am now. I noticed an elderly woman out walking a very large dog. She didn't see me - but I saw her. Low and behold, right in front of my face, I watched her allow her BIG dog to walk right up into the middle of my yard and take a nice "movement" where my children would be frolicking hours later. I noticed that she didn't have a bag to clean up this large "movment." I then noticed that once the dog finished his movement, they began to walk away. No bag, no cleaning it up, nothing. I find nothing more rude when you live in a residential neighborhood than allowing your pet to "move" in anothers yard and then not clean it up. Call me crazy - but I find it particulary disturbing to know that my child will be out playing in that at some point and then tracking it back into my home. I then, will be the one cleaning up that "movement" from my carpet, shoes, etc.

As the elderly woman began to walk away....I pondered saying something. I almost talked myself out of it. I keep saying "Angie, she is older - just let it go." However, the thought of me having to go out there and remove this huge mound was more than my very weak stomach could handle. As my husband tells me a lot, some people have a tendency to mistake my niceness for "weakness." So...I apologize now if your outlook of me changes when I confess this.

I unlocked my front door, walked out onto my porch, and kindly asked the elderly woman if she was going to be coming back to clean that mound up out of my front yard. She was clearly caught off guard, not expecting my audience during her and her pets dirty deed. She was visually startled by my presence and even more embarassed to say the least. When she told me that she couldn't clean up the "movement" because she didn't have a paper towel or a baggie on her, my next words to her were...."Stay right there."

I then turned back around - walked into my entry way and straight thru to my kitchen. I grabbed her a hand full of paper towels and a plastic target bag from my pantry. I proceeded back out my front door and out onto my front lawn. The elderly woman and her pet met me half way. I kindly said..."Here you go."

This gal removed her dogs "movement" from my yard and took the "movement" with the two of them in the beautiful white plastic target bag I had given her. Thank goodness for tar-jay!

To this day, I've never even seen that woman walk in our neighborhood again. I tell you this story not to be "difficult" or non-understanding but to remind some of the pet owners out there to follow thru with cleaning up after their animals. For those of us who aren't animal owners, we aren't fond of having our 3 year olds come trapsing back into the house after they have stepped, jumped, and rolled in dog fieces. For those who are pet owners, I don't think most are fond of that thought either. For any of you, like the little elderly lady, who apparently had missed that memo, I thought I'd send it on out.

For those who think I was too hard on the elderly lady and that I should've been easier on her....I figured you might enjoy these photos:

These are two pictures of what our front yard looks like at this moment....

We had quite a bit of snow and ice here the other day. Apparently, someone was going to fast down our road, slid, and ended up running straight thru our front yard and hitting our tree. Of all yards...

Maybe I'll be nicer to the elderly lady if she ever comes back. What is worse??? A "movement" or huge tire tracks that will take months to go away???

Oh and for the record...Brent is still breathing but he was about to have a coronary for a few days after waking up and seeing those tire tracks thru our front yard. He is surviving but is still in shock!

PS...No one ever came by and confessed their yard job to us. :)