Ah, Neighbours

Neighbours.......you gotta love 'em!

Or do you?

I live in the middle of nowhere.  To the east, I have no neighbour for several kilometres.  To the north, some fields and then the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park.  To the south, woodlot going down who knows how far.  Sadly, to the west, I have a neighbour.  Even worse, the neighbour's father visits on a daily basis, expounding his wisdom, doling out criticism and generally voicing his views on life to which everyone else must agree .

But no problemo.....the neighbour and I are friendly, the father I mostly ignore, finding things to do when he shows up.

Until this week.

On Monday, I received a visit from Municipal Enforcement.  "Someone" has filed a grass complaint against my property.  Gee, I wonder who that "someone" could be.  There's nobody else who would care.  There are fields to the east and west and south that look no better than my yard.  But "someone" has taken offense that my yard has been left natural.  It looks as natural as all those fields around me which are not offensive.

Again I say, I live in the middle of nowhere.

So why should it matter to anyone that I am leaving my yard as natural as all the natural space around me?  Natural, that is, except that I make an effort to control the invasive plant species that grow in my yard.

I admit, things did get away from me a little this year.  What with going to Pelee, doing the Carden Challenge and spending three full days working at the Carden Nature Festival, I've been pretty busy.  Add to that, I am now working, heading out at dawn to monitor birds all over the Carden area.  So yes, there are areas in my yard that are quite out of control.

But I didn't need to be told by Municipal Enforcement who would have left me alone had this complaint not been filed.  I was already on the verge of doing some trimming.  Now that I am being forced to, however......well, that is a whole different kettle of fish.  I am nothing if not contrary.

I have nothing against mowing except for the fact that it is a complete waste of resources.

That said, I mow when and where I have to.  For example, I have a path around my property where I patrol during my morning rounds.  Lately, because things are out of control, I've been getting wet up to my hips as I push through the grass and clover and goldenrod.  Thanks to the morning dew or overnight rain, my pants are soaked by the time I am heading back inside.

So I mow the path.  I've mowed the grass growing under the clothesline.  I've cut around the numerous hollyhocks and peonies.  I've left some goldenrod but chopped down others because they are threatening to take over everything.

I have left the burdock alone as they are choking out the invasive goutweed.  And before you get all up in arms about the burdock being invasive as well, I allow the plants to flower - the bumblebees love them - and then I carefully cut off every stalk that exhibits burs.  Since burdock reproduces only by seed, the burdock without burs cannot spread.  In fact, because they are biennials, they often die after flowering.

And in the meantime, the ghastly goutweed and the Campanula.are being smothered out by these buxom burdock beauties.  What!, you say - you are trying to get rid of the Campanula?  Sigh.  The plethora of invasive species that the previous owner of this house either planted or didn't control is incredible.  I have garlic mustard, goutweed, yellow loosestrife (not as bad as its purple cousin but can be a problem as well) and, yes, Campanula.  Did you know that there are almost 500 species of Campanula?  Out of this number, one is considered to be highly invasive.........yup, that's the one I've got.  It spreads everywhere easily.

But I digress.

So now a complaint has been filed.  The fellows from Municipal Enforcement were quite nice and informed me that, as I was planning to mow this week anyway, they would not make the complaint official.  That was nice.  But now I am wondering if this "someone" is planning to start a regular campaign of complaints.  Now I have decided that I do want the complaint to become formal so that if and when this "someone" (feel free to insert another word here) continues to complain, I have the basis to take this to a higher level.

In the meantime, relations with the neighbour himself have become somewhat frosty.  Not a problem for me as I can get along quite well without but I sense that he is feeling uncomfortable.

Ah, neighbours.....you really do have to love them.