Saturday Somnolence

Sigh!  These whacked-out hormones are driving me crazy.  I woke up about an hour ago, had myself a cup of tea, answered my email & read new postings on the blogs I follow & I'm ready to go back to bed.  It doesn't help that we are expecting rain today & it is very gray & overcast outside.  

Pep pills!  Pep pills!  My kingdom for some pep pills!  

That's from Shakespeare, isn't it?  Or was that a horse?  Lol!  

I even "got crazy" this morning & brewed something other than Cinnamon Spice Tea!  Instead I made a cup of Vanilla Hazelnut.  So much for that idea.  I guess I thought it would pep me up.  Maybe if I had dissolved some pep pills in it ... lol!  

Okay ... no more drug talk   : )

It occurred to me this morning thanks to Connie, a fellow CCS-er, that I had mentioned this wonderful CCS shop I found online yesterday but then I didn't give the name of the shop or the link to it!  Duh!  The shop is Stitching Bits & Bobs & they are in Plainwell, Michigan & yes, I looked on Mapquest to see how far away from me Plainwell, Michigan is ... lol!  It's 7 hours away.  7 hours is a drop in the bucket.  Of course with the money I'd spend on gas, a hotel room (it would have to be an overnighter), food, & probably at prim/antique places I'd pass by along the way, I'd be able to buy a whole lot more CCS stuff from the stop if I just stayed home & shopped online.  I guess that answers that   : )

I am now going to vent about dogs or more precisely dog owners.  First let me say that our neighbors are not the friendly sort.  Most of them just keep to themselves.  This really bothered me when we first moved here.  Before we moved in John & I would joke that when we got here the neighbors would probably stop by to welcome us ... bringing us a loaf of still-warm-from-the-oven homemade bread or a chicken or a goat.  We were just being funny with each other but we did kind of expect people to be friendly in a farming community.  That, unfortunately, is not the case ... unless they want something.  One 2 of our neighbors ever stopped by.  One of them was the father of the woman who used to live here.  He stopped by before we moved in.  We had some guys doing some work for us & he came up the driveway one day & asked one of them if he thought we'd mind him cutting the hay on the back of our land & taking it for himself.  That is what he always did while his daughter lived here.  John said we had to "be nice" so when we moved in he went to this guy's house & told him he was welcome to the hay.  The guy never even said thank you.  One day about 2 months later he drove up the driveway, right past the house, & cut the hay.  The next day he came & baled it & took it away.  He didn't even come knock at the door to tell us he was there or to say thanks.  

A year later our neighbor right next door called us over to the fence.  He had seen us out in the yard many times during the year but never so much as waved to us although we always waved to him when we saw him & no, he never waved back.  We just assumed he wasn't looking our way.  Anyway, he calls us over to the fence this one day & tells us he's planning to get the fence repaired & he just wanted us to know that some workers would need to be on our property & would that be okay?  We said sure.  He then mentioned our land in back & our hay.  He told us he wanted to buy more cows & asked that if we weren't going to be grazing animals in back could he graze his cows back there?  He said he had someone coming to cut & bale his hay in a couple weeks & when this person came he would have him come over to our field & do our hay as well. He also said that he would take care of the land back there ... keeping it mowed & cleaned up.  We told him he was welcome to graze his cows back there.  When the father of the woman who used to live here stopped by to see if he could cut our hay & take it away again, we told him no.  We had this conversation with the next door neighbor in early July.  A couple weeks later a man did indeed come & mowed & baled the neighbor's hay but he never touched ours.  Then it was October.  Our hay was extremely overgrown & the neighbor never did buy more cows ... nor did he ever bother to say to us "hey, I've changed my mind ... go ahead & find someone else to take care of your hay."  We had to make a bunch of calls & finally found someone we had to pay to cut down the hay for us but it was useless for cattle by that time so he just left it lying on the ground.  

Now for the dogs.  Last fall this next door neighbor bought 2 dogs.  I don't know what they are ... they kind of look a little like boxers but they have long legs & slim, muscular bodies.  One day we drove up the driveway & there were these 2 dogs jumping all over us.  They were extremely friendly.  We had never seen them before & didn't know who they belonged to.  We hoped someone didn't just drop them off & drive away.  Turns out they belonged to this man next door.  Throughout the fall & winter & spring these dogs have ran loose & for some reason enjoy being in our yard.  They poop all over the place, pee on all the bushes & trees we have planted, & eat our birdseed.  Whenever someone has come to do any work in our yard ... like re-gravel the driveway or something ... the dogs rush over here & jump all over these people.  Yelling at them doesn't make them go away.  We finally bought bird feeders & put them high enough off the ground so the dogs couldn't get at them.  I wanted to tell the neighbor to keep his dogs in his own yard but John said to just let it go.  (John doesn't like to "start trouble.")  We are in a farming community ... there are no leash laws here.  

Okay ... so here it is summer.  The dogs are still running wild.  I had mentioned last month that we had landscaping work done.  The landscaping company charged us a fortune for this & did lousy work, but that's another story.  After the landscaping work was done I purchased new downspout drains & attached them to all the downspouts around the house.  One morning I went out on the porch to see what the weather was like.    What I found were the 2 dogs lying in my newly mulched landscape bed.  Part of the new downspout drain from this area was lying out in the yard a few feet away.  The downspout had literally been torn from the side of the house & pieces of it were lying in the landscape bed & in the yard.  One of the dogs ... or maybe it was both of them ... had dug a big hole in the landscape bed scattering the new mulch & the dirt all over the place.  I was livid!  John happened to drive up at that point (he had gone to the post office) & I told him either he had to see the neighbor about those dogs or I was going over there to see him.  John immediately went over to talk with the neighbor.  He came back & said that the neighbor apologized & said that he was having someone come that next week take care of some storm damage on the side of his house & he would have him come over here to fix our gutter.  This was a month ago.  Our gutter & drain is still lying in the landscape bed where we placed everything & the dogs are still running wild.  

There are other occasions where this neighbor has said he's going to do something & has never followed through with it so I'm not surprised that no one has been here to fix the gutter.  My thoughts are to call someone myself to come fix the gutter (if anyone will return  my calls ... we know how that goes around here) & to buy a gun & go over to this neighbor & tell him that if I ever see his dogs out in my yard again I'm going to shoot them.  I don't know if that's legal but if I give him a warning ... maybe even talk to the sheriff about it first & have him go with me to inform the neighbor of this ... it might be okay.  Like I said, there's no leash laws here so I can't fall back on that. 

Sorry for the long rant but this really irks me.  I hope I don't sound like a dog hater.  I'm not.  I just don't understand how people can let their animals run wild & cause problems for other neighbors (although we seem to be the only ones ... I never see the dogs on anyone else's property except ours) & not care.