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My neighbor has become a pest

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I think my elderly neighbor Sofie is getting worse in her stalking ways.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find a camera in my home that she’s placed there to watch me.

I mean, she knows every time I step outside my door – whether I go out the front of the back she’s there, seemingly waiting for me!

Honestly! She’s part of the reason why I’m not getting my garden work done.

All of our backyards are fairly open with short chain link fences between them. I don’t mind this so much and I don’t mind my neighbors being outdoors using their yards at the same time I am … but Sofie … Sofie literally follows me around. I’ll be in one portion of my backyard trying to work at something and she’ll be opposite me on her side of the fence digging in the earth or spraying her plants with water. I move, she moves.

When she finally does tire she’s sit on her steps and watch me work. If she only watched me work in my garden I wouldn’t be too upset … but no, she has to ask questions. Usually it’s the same ones over and over.

Trouble is I can’t usually hear her since the traffic at the front of the house is so loud and she’s talking low. She knows I can’t hear her too. So I’ll spend some time nodding my head but eventually she’ll say something repeatedly wanting me to truly respond and I’ll have to get up from what I’m doing, go over to her to find out what she’s saying “No rain???” and then go back to my work. She does this repeatedly.

Manipulative of her, isn’t it? She knows what she’s doing and I’m certain she knows she’s frustrating me.

Last night Chris went outside at 8 pm to grill some sausages. I could hear him talking to her while he cooked. At about 8:20 he came inside to tell me that Sofie had just brought out some hamburgers and a pepper for him to cook on the grill. Yes our dinner was done. She knew Chris was cooking yet she waiting until he was finished before asking him to cook her food. Grrrr

Almost every elderly person I know eats their dinner somewhere between 4 pm and 6 pm … what the heck did she want with a couple of hamburgers at 8:30 at night? There’s no way she ate them last night.

If you ever wonder why I talk about being outside at 10 pm planting plants, pruning and watering this is why. I hide until she’s closed up her doors and gone in and then I sneak out so I can do my gardening in peace – with the stray cats that wander through my yard and the raccoons.

Of course if I hide from her too long she literally peaks in my windows! Arghhh!






Family of raccoons

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I was just sitting in my living room and I saw the sensor light in our driveway go on. It does this from time to time and occasionally when I check I’ll see an animal but often I can’t find whatever triggered the light.

Not this time! I looked out the side window just in time to see a bushy tail pass by, so I moved to the kitchen at the back of the house and as they triggered the light in the back I was able to see two big raccoons followed by three smaller coons. The small raccoons weren’t babies, perhaps they were young adults in their first year. I’m sure it was a family though.

Luckily they were just passing through. They had walked down the driveway, and straight through the backyard. I don’t see them very often in the winter time, so it’s possible that this was one of my last sightings this year.

Scared a Coon!

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Saturday night, 9:30 p.m.

I Walked into the kitchen while I was talking on the phone with my husband (he was at work) and noticed that our security light at the back door was on.

I peeked out the window and saw the bushy tail and bushy butt of a big raccoon as it walked on our tiny white picket fence near the driveway. It was balancing on the fence, caught between two of my roses- Breath of Life, and Scent-Sation.

I wrapped hard on the window as my husband encouraged me with “Get Him!”.

The raccoon slipped a bit when it heard my knocking on the window and it sort of fell into one of the rose bushes. Then It scrambled over the other side of the fence into our neighbors backyard.

Ha! Score one for me! I scared my little friend away. I’m pretty sure that that was the one that sits and watches me water the garden late at night. He or she creeps me out when it does that, ’cause you just never know what a raccoons gonna do.

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