Thursday, June 12, 2008

Of Chickens and Men....

Having problems with a neighbor. I wrote out the whole sordid mess in a post, then deleted. I hate being a gossip. But I'll sum up all of my feelings with this comment:
I loved the animal rights laws in Arizona. Animals were allowed to free range. If you had a problem with other people's animals on your land you'd better build a fence. If you left your gate open and a herd of cows ate your fruit trees, so sorry, don't leave your gate open next time.

Ok, I can't leave it at that.
I try to be a good neighbor and pen up my animals. I give them a nice place to live, a roof over their head, and good food to eat. Sometimes though, a chicken or two with confinement issues get out. My neighbor is determined to believe that my chickens and I are out to get him. It is a ridiculous thought since every time I see the escape artists out I quickly put them back in their well fenced and maintained coop.

When he came over a couple of days ago to complain, I told him that I had all of the pieces and parts to put up a 6' chain link fence - minus 9 line posts (thank you Tom!) - between our properties. It didn't seem to make a difference to him. He didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel and offer to at least dig post holes, if he couldn't afford to pitch in any money for the posts. He just seemed content to complain. So yesterday as I was doing the dishes I thought of Arizona animal rights. Thank heavens that in some places people see that the one who has the problem should find a solution rather than whine.

Arizona, anyone??

1 comment:

  1. We have good relationships with all of our neighbors... except the people directly behind us. The have several basset hounds and one of them barks constantly. We don't complain but our other neighbors tell us they do. Somehow, I think they've got it into their heads that we are the ones leaving the notes in their mailbox. Oy.

    Thank you for commenting on my blog today!

    ReplyDelete