Wednesday, May 6, 2009

I swear, I'm not killing his trees!

Our neighbor to the West is a fanatic about his yard and garden. You can tell where our property lines meet. Our side is brown and weedy, his side is lush and green with grass and shrubs and trees.


He plants rows and rows of trees and bushes. They all live and thrive and they grow. He gave us a tree one year. He even sent over the bobcat driver to dig a hole and plant it for us. We killed it in 2 months.


My sand riding arena is near Mr. Dailey's property line and weeds grow in there. If I don't spray them a couple times a year, especially when they first appear, they overtake the arena.
I'll go out on a calm day with my 2 gallon sprayer - it has a hose with a handle and a precision sprayer so that when I spray a weed, the nozzle is mere centimeters away from the plant I'm attempting to kill - emitting a jet stream of Roundup - targeted to that particular weed.

My sprayer looks a lot like this one. However, I like to wear knee high rubber boots, jean cut off shorts, a tank top and a big floppy hat so I look completely ridiculous.


Sometimes when I begin spraying, a light breeze kicks up but I continue on because I'm half-way done and I want to finish the job. That and I'm not so sure I could remember where I left off if I stopped.

When I'm on foot spraying weeds in the sand arena, I might as well be in the Sahara desert. I loose track of my bearings... I stare down intently looking for green, I spray and move on to the next green I see. Sand and green, sand and green... I try to be as methodical as I can by going back and forth but I don't look up to keep track of where exactly I am.


Mr. Dailey told Furry Husband to keep me from spraying weeds when it's windy. He told Furry Husband that he said the same thing to me last year and I STILL sprayed weeds in the wind, killing one of his trees. As if I'm some sort of neighborhood menace or something.


I beg to differ.


I never spray on WINDY days. A light breeze might kick up but it's certainly not strong enough to blow the concentrated stream of Roundup, aimed centimeters away from my weed targets over to one of Mr. Dailey's trees at least 10 or more feet away from the place I'm spraying.


Mr. Dailey lives West of us. West. The man lives directly to the West of us.
The wind blows FROM the West - FROM HIS HOUSE - TO the East - TOWARD OUR HOUSE. If anything, I'm spraying and killing growth on MY property, not his.


Last time I looked, Mr. Dailey's property was green, thriving and beautiful. Not a dead blade of grass, let alone a TREE to be found.


That guy is getting on my last nerve about my weed spraying.
I'm sorta tempted to take the sprayer out on a really windy day and aim it directly at his property, laughing like a maniac. Only I know I'd end up covered in Roundup, twitching and convulsing in the sand because the wind will blow it all directly back on ME. I don't want to take an ambulance ride in my knee high rubber boots and big, floppy hat.


I'm taking a day off from work this year to spray weeds to my hearts content without Mr. Dailey watching, keeping score, and tattling on me to Furry Husband!


Wouldn't it be hilarious to burn a smiley face into his yard? Or 18 smiley faces?




Oh don't worry - I wouldn't, I wouldn't.



Girl can dream tho', can't she??

6 comments:

Kelley said...

Oh... a girl can dream!!! : ) My first thought was there are probably one two days a year in Wellington that there is not at least a breeze.... and one of those is right after the blizzard, so it's not a good day to spray anyway..... But---- if he lives WEST OF YOU!!! Good God man... chill!!!!! I'd be half tempted to move closer and closer to his fence..... just to watch him squirm!!! HEE!HEE!HEE! (if I remember correctly your arena is not CLOSE to his fence.... it would have to be pretty windy... and honestly, then you would be poisoning yourself more then HIS yard.....)..... head toward his yard ... DO IT!!! You know you want to.... you don't have to be spraying... just LOOK like you are spraying... : )

Cheryl said...

That was really funny. Maybe you can do an exchange of some sort and your neighbor can help with your garden? But when you do get it up and growing, I think you should burn a smiley face onto your own lawn, just to make passers by laugh the way I do when I read your blog.

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Hi Shanster,
What a funny post about a serious subject! Lots of people get real hinky about Roundup (myself included), so I kind of understand his point of view. Still, if you are doing it carefully as you say, he shouldn't be having problems in his yard. Then when you said he was to the West, I thought... huh? It should be blowing your way! People, sometimes....

We are 99% organic gardeners ourselves, but we did buy a bottle of Roundup last year for a very specific reason: to kill off the dozens of trees that come up in our garden every year, mulberries, maples, black walnuts, etc. We cut the tree down to the base and apply the Roundup with a Q Tip to the exposed cut and that seems to do the trick. It's time to start doing that again this year!! Ack.

About the smiley face ... the only truly evil thing I did in HS was to sneak over to a hated teacher's house my Senior year (at night of course) with a spray bottle of weed killer and wrote F-bomb You in her grass, then just waited until it took effect. Heh, it worked and happily I never got caught!

Shanster said...

Kelley - I know, my arena ISN'T near his fence really. sigh. It's o.k. - I'm sure he just needs something to obsess over. We all do... :) and oh, that would be HILARIOUS to "pretend" spray on a windy day. I think he'd have a heart attack. Could Larimer County charge me with some sort of homicide for that?? Would you be an accomplice??

Cheryl - I know - I really should ask for help or advice from him, but being so bull headed, stubborn, obstinate, pig headed I want to try to grow things on my own first! I'm like a 3 yr old that way - "No! I wanna do it!"

They are good neighbors... I just have to grit my teeth during weed kill season! It would be fun to do some smiley faces in my yard only I'd be so happy I actually GREW something I'd hate to kill it!

IVG - oh, I have SO much to learn from you! Bowing down. I don't know why I don't do organic? Probably because I think I couldn't kill the bind or kocia that way. Once I have things growing, I'll be more careful because I won't want to kill it off... in my sand arena tho' it's a really nice solution for weed control.

I can't believe you did that back in H.S.! How completely creative and inventive of you! I never would have thought of something like that. LOVE IT! Thanks for the laugh!

olivia said...

It's really hard to live next to meticulous neighbours ... but also really awful to live next to messy ones. That's why I want to move back to the woods and not have to worry about neighbours at all. :-)

Shanster said...

I know - I need a compound like Ted Turner! heh heh...