Days of the Locusts

In years past I have written of the annoyance of leaf blowers. I am not the first. I am here to do it again. My next door neighbor's landscaper has been at it for four hours or so of and on, sometimes as close as 30 feet from my window. He is blowing basically all the leaves off of her lot, leaving a very neat ground cover of gravel, etc. Overhead hang poised thousands more leaves, poised to fall in upcoming weeks, assuring a repetition of this torture on upcoming Wednesdays -- the day the landscaper comes. It is amongst the truest curses of working from home.

To make things worse, I went outside briefly around lunchtime and someone else was running one not too far up the hill.

I love my neighbor. On Halloween she invited everyone over to her driveway to hang out by a fire pit, drink wine and eat chips. Her children have tended to our cats. She lets me borrow her mower. Her pets are always as sweet as they can be. I recruited her to the LFA Board and she was absolutely awesome in her handling of the park and staff and super conscientious about coming to meetings (not always the case). Mary thinks she may have to dig deep to find things for her landscaping guy Jesus to do. But still.

All in all it goes to show that while we can to a limited extent choose our neighbors through our decisions to buy and or (not) sell, we certainly can't design them.