Lately I have been torn about weather or not I should just throw in the towel and give up on my wildlife habitat and the gardens in the church lot. I am still angry and upset about all the crap I have recently gone through with the vandalism the break in and the constant headache of trying to keep up the church yard. I know if I chucked it all in I would have way to much free time and would be bored out of my head. I also know that for the most part if I stopped doing the church lot no one would even notice.
I have to deal with asshole neighbors that complain about stupid stuff that is not even my fault. My neighbor to the left of my house has always depended on me for a lot of stuff from watching her house, helping her paint so she could rent out the first floor, and feeding her cats whenever she goes away. I have always gone out of my way to help her. I have given her plants and taken care of them for her, I weed her sidewalks, shovel her snow and all she does is complain constantly. She is complaining that her basement is wet all the time because of my plants. There is 6 feet between my habitat and her house. I told her the reason her basement and foundation is wet all the time is because her gutters and down spouts leak. Now she is claiming that they are clogged because of the trees I planted in my wildlife habitat. The trees are not even close to being high enough to get leaves in her gutters to clog them. The tallest tree near her house in my yard is a dog wood that is about 10 to 12 feet tall. She has been snapping at me lately that my wildlife habitat is partially on her property but I looked it up on the county web site and she is nuts. First she started in that I was 6 inches over then she claimed I was a foot over now she says I am 2 feet over on her property and it is going to make it hard for her if she ever decides to sell her house. She has made it clear to me that I do not want to deal with her anymore and that I will not be inviting her over every holiday along with her sisters. When they come over for dinner all they do is fight and argue with each other.
The rental property behind me complains all the time that my roster and chickens are keeping their tenants awake. I told them that the chickens and rooster are not a part of my wildlife habitat and actually belong to the neighbor across the street. They have also been complaining about the churches pine tree dropping needles in there lawn and burning out the grass. I told them that the pine tree belongs to the church. I have been meaning to cut it down but I only have so many hours a day and there are other projects that take priority.
On the other side of my house is the church yard this is the one thing I feel I should just walk away from because it is the most frustrating. People hang out there at night. kids tear it up and no one from the church really does anything to take care of it. The maintenance guy wants to just mow everything down and I am to the point where I think maybe he should just go ahead and do it.
This evening some one for the first time in a long time was over in the lot and at first I thought okay let them do whatever they want because it will be less for me to do later. Then they started spraying plants with round up. I went over and asked them to not spray round up over in the church yard. They started to tell me I was rude and then got rude with me. I told her asking did not work so now I am telling her not to spray round up because she did not know what she was spraying it on. She accused me of being rude again and I said being nice and asking you did not work so if she feels I am rude then maybe she needs to think why. She snapped back and said my brother put this garden in over here and I know what I am doing. I just walked away and went back to work in my own yard. She came over and said she did not understand why she was not supposed to spray round up. I explained to her the plants she was spraying were plants that were planted as a ground cover. I told her it is obvious she does not know what she was spraying. I also told her that round up is bad for the environment kills bees and wildlife and causes cancer. She again brought up that her brother put the garden in 6 years ago and still claimed she knew what she was doing. I told her I knew who Nick was and that no one has been taking care of the garden since he put it in a couple of years. I told her I have been the only one really doing any of the work over there. She began to question me about who I am and if I was a member of the church. I just went back to work in my yard and she apologized about arguing with me and said she did not understand at first why I was upset with her. She said she was going to be doing more work and was going to be painting some stones and putting them around the church yard and putting mulch around. I think this Is where I stop and just walk away. She did a nice job of putting mulch around where the Mary statue is but also pulled up a lot of plants that I had planted along the sidewalk. If she is going to start putting stupid trashy looking painted stones around in the church yard I do not want anything to do with it anymore. It is supposed to be a church yard not a trailer park. I will not be associated with it if it starts to look trashy, and will enjoy the time it will free up for me to spend in my own yard.
I thought by the time I finished venting and putting every thing down I might be able to figure out if I should just give up.This still has not helped me out and makes me realize I am still to angry to make a decision at this time. My wildlife habitat has been my main focus, and my pride and joy for the last few years. It is something I need to be sure I don't give up on out of anger that I will regret in the future.
