Thy Neighbor's willow & wife... my crime...

[Owly055]

I committed a crime this afternoon........... One I've been contemplating for a number of years. Yes! I confess, I cut down my neighbor's willow tree......... or at least most of it. I wonder if other folks hate willows as much as I do. This damn thing hung almost entirely in my yard, dropping sticks and trash over the fence, making a regular chore of picking up garbage so I could mow.

I needed poles for my hops to climb, and among the branches that hung mostly over my yard were the perfect poles.......not straight, but hops don't grow straight. It also shades the area where I want to grow my hops too much. An hour of chainsaw work eliminated the problem. I know he hates the trash that falls into his yard too, but his wife is another matter.

With any kind of luck, I'll run into him at the bar tonight, buy him a few to prime him, and mention that I have a couple dozen bottles of "Big Red Nelson"...... My Nelson Sauvin red that runs about 10% abv......... and offer him a six pack. Then in the morning, I'll show up on his doorstep with a sixer, and ask him if he want's help cleaning up his yard............ Not all of it fell on my side of the fence ..... Oops! "Why don't we have a cold one and I'll splain..". He'll put on a show of being outraged, and I'll put on a show of pacifying him, and mention I'm doing a brew day after I make a run to the dump..... We'll go outside acting like we are on the verge of coming to blows, and burst out laughing after we are out of his wife's hearing.

The script is written........ all he has to do is play his part......... I've spread enough good will over the last few years that I suspect it will smooth over pretty easily. After all ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

H.W.

 

[WayFrae]

In my city, it is not a crime if you cut what hangs over your property line.

 

[Dan]

Give it a go. Drunken thoughts are the same as sober ones. Except sometimes we let the one go and not the other. Your plan though devious does seem sound.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[FermentNEthinG]

If you bury green willow branches into the ground to use as poles they will root themselves into little trees and start to grow again.

 

[plath]

If you bury green willow branches into the ground to use as poles they will root themselves into little trees and start to grow again.

ahhh karma.

 

[Owly055]

In my city, it is not a crime if you cut what hangs over your property line.

In my "city" population 5 at the moment, in a remote part of Montana........there are no rules. I went far beyond just cutting what hung over........ I went over the fence, climbed the tree, and cut down entire sections that were growing my way right at the trunk. This is small town Montana. We have a lot of history, and I'm quite sure he won't be upset with me over this.

Years ago, I had a system for scaring deer out of my garden that consisted of a motion detector that turned on a fan that inflated a green plastic garbage bag that would stand up and shake...... It was quite effective. I used sprinklers in summer, but after the freeze, deer would eat down my strawberries and dig up the roots, hence the bag. After shooting a few of them...... which is frowned upon by fish and game.... I came up with non-lethal methods. I actually drove a deer out of my garden one morning hitting her with a shovel..... in her opinion it was her garden. They can be a real problem.
This same neighbor came through my yard one night when I wasn't home with a 12 gauge, chasing a skunk, and inadvertently set off my bag system........ It scared him so badly he fired several 12 gauge rounds into it, shredding the bag. Must've thought it was a bear. I found the shredded bag, and couldn't figure out what had happened to it, until a week or two later when he fessed up. We laughed over that one for years afterward...... it still elicits a chuckle when someone brings it up.

That's small town life......... I let him use my supercharged incinerator, and help him set up his still, he reloads ammo for me and lets me use the shooting bench in his backyard. If one of the neighbors needs help putting on a roof, or trenching in a midnight septic drain field, the equipment and help is always available. We long ago learned that it pays to get along......... Population varies from a low of about 5 to as many as 12 as people come and go....... Most are ranch hands, I'm the only long time resident {25 years} (self employed). The guys get along, the women are a different matter!

H.W.

 

[temple240]

In a town do small, why do you guys live so close together?

 

[Owly055]

In a town do small, why do you guys live so close together?

It's the way the town was laid out........... It was a larger town once. A town is a town. You gotta realize that this is ag country. People laid out towns with the idea of not gobbling up farm ground for houses like they do today. The church and school, bar, livery stable, blacksmith, bar, dance hall, country store, etc... were once all part of this town. People didn't usta squirrel themselves away in remote places just because the could, with everybody having a 5 acre place to pasture a few useless horses. There was a time when being together as a community meant something.

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Today's drama unfolded or less according to the script. This evening we loaded up the trash from his yard on my trailer along with what I had retrieved, and did some more butchery on the pretense that as the tree was already butchered, we needed to clean things up a bit more just to make it look better.......... The Big Red Nelson left everybody in a better frame of mind...... gotta brew some more of that!! I'm not paying shipping on RedX, but two row with some crystal 60 and a bit of melanodin will get me to about the same place...... What I wouldn't give to have a Nelson Sauvin growing in my yard!!

H.W.

 

[Fionnbharr]

It's an interesting and otherwise amusing situation.

But I'm not all that comfortable with the way both of y'all are treating his wife.

Kind of disrespectful, I think.

 

[1fast636]

Oh my god I got a good laugh with the 12 gauge and your deer scaring trash bag encounter still laughing alil actually lol

 

[Spartan1979]

In my city, it is not a crime if you cut what hangs over your property line.

I heard that's true, unless you cut so much off that it kills the tree.

 

[Temptd2]

ROFLMAO about the bag and the shotgun story!

 

[hunter_le five]

Was anybody else anticipating a Hatfield/McCoy-esque feud to result from the OP?

 

[Temptd2]

Was anybody else anticipating a Hatfield/McCoy-esque feud to result from the OP?

Not when he said that there would be homebrewed beer involved during the pacification phase.

 

[Owly055]

As a "she" to use your words.......... I hope you weren't offended by the way we bypassed the problem wife ;-) .................. I tend to do this with ANY problem people, regardless of gender..... whenever possible. Someone in an earlier post felt she was given short shrift in the deal. The fact is that the tree was a problem for the husband (and for me), that outweighed it's "beauty". If I bought a house with a willow tree, cutting it down and replacing it with something decent would be at the top of my agenda!!

H.W. (in the wild west)

Not when he said that there would be homebrewed beer involved during the pacification phase.

 

[Temptd2]

*I* was not in the least bit offended by your story. Someone else upthread mentioned the possible slight of the wife. I thought the whole thing was pretty dang amusing!

My pointing out by way of my P.S. that I am, indeed, female, was to hopefully let youse guys know that I am not "dude" nor "man" as I have been addressed a few times around here. But I seriously don't take offense too easily - if I did, I'd have backed out of this entire forum and never returned, instead I have nearly 400 posts - love the place!