When we moved to this house 25 years ago, I swore we'd get to know the neighbors. This was based on my experience living "in town", where we lived 5 feet from our neighbors for 4 years, everyone had wooden fences, and we barely knew their names.
Little did I know that we'd meet them the very first weekend in the house, when we woke up to NO WATER! I looked out the window and spotted several people standing in our field, peering at what turned out to be our water line, trying to diagnose the problem. "No time like the present" I told myself, and went out to introduce myself. Being that we're on a community water system with our 6 nearest neighbors, this turned out to be the first of many situations where we ran out of water and had to work together to solve the issue, but I'll save those stories for another day.
When you live in the country, you really NEED to know your neighbors. Not only is it sometimes necessary to "borrow a cup of sugar" (to save you the 45 minute round trip to the store), but there are many other situations where it's helpful. In this blog I'll share a few of my favorite "neighbor exchanges".
The first way we solved the "get to know the neighbors" challenge was inviting them over to our house regularly. Twice a year for the last 25 years, we have hosted two parties, one on the 4th of July, and one during the Christmas holidays. The 4th of July is usually very relaxed, with BBQ, cold drinks, and for those who stay past dark, a distant viewing of the fireworks in town several miles away. We've learned to warn people to bring warm clothes, because often the evenings are chilly here even in the summer. On a few occasions we were socked in with fog, but in most years the fireworks provided a good way to wrap up the party. While the photos below AREN'T the view from our house, they are from the Petaluma fireworks show in 2019.
Photo credit: Katie Gebhardt, I Love Petaluma facebook group
At Christmas it's a different vibe. We have a fire roaring in the fireplace, the house is decorated inside and out, and we traditionally serve ham and scalloped potatoes. Rick makes his special punch, where 3 of the 4 ingredients are alcoholic but it doesn't taste like it, and people cluster around the wet bar drinking punch or wine and getting caught up on the news. The one year we were having our hardwood floors refinished and couldn't get together, or last year due to Covid, it just doesn't seem like the holidays without our open house.
We love to see our neighbors at our parties, but those events only lay the groundwork for the relationships that we are building. These relationships lead to friendly greetings when we see each other at the mailbox, offers to get mail or feed pets when we're on vacation, or being comfortable enough to call and let a neighbor know when the barking dog or the prowling tomcat is disturbing our peace.
The most scary situation where we were grateful for our neighbors was when there was a fire behind the house. The wind blows in from the coast in the afternoons, so it was moving very quickly in the direction of our house, and neither Rick nor I were home. Luckily, our neighbor John came up the hill to get a better look at the situation and noticed our kids were home. They were old enough to be home alone but none of them were driving yet. He took them to his house to keep them safe, and called me at work to let me know the situation. I've never been so scared for our property as that day, driving home and seeing the smoke rising, but it could have been so much worse if I didn't know our kids were safe.
Last year, when my retirement and the shutdown happened simultaneously, I had even more opportunities to get to know the neighbors. Regular walks with Lynn, exchanging garden experiences with Dawn, or including our yard trimmings in Terry's brushpile burn added to our pleasant experiences.
Since I had more time to garden, I had more produce than we could use and started an email list of neighbors who would be interested in sharing. This led to more pleasant visits as I dropped off or they picked up herbs, veggies, or flowers. I also offered things I made from the garden, such as pies or jams, and those were happily snapped up. That always makes me feel good when others can use what we produce.
I think the thing that was totally unexpected was the reciprocity. I was so happy to get canning jars from one neighbor, peaches and Gravenstein apples from another, plant starts from a third, and party invites from a fourth. This year the friendly exchanges keep happening.
Two of my favorite examples are from earlier this year working with our neighbors Tim and Terry and Steve. For these I have photos to share!
Tim happened to mention that he has a dump trailer, and I asked if he would mind picking up and dumping off garden soil for me. I had been buying it in bags, but it's a lot cheaper to buy it in bulk, and since we needed a lot of mulch and potting soil I thought it was worth a try. Not once, not twice, but THREE times Tim graciously picked up the product I ordered from our local "Grab and Grow" and dumped it on the edge of our driveway.
Luckily, I had the kids home to help Rick and I move and spread it. Last year we got most of the garden mulched with Tim's help, and that helped immensely given our dry spring and summer. Here's a portion of the "after" job. Tada!!!
The next story starts with a request to our landscapers to help cut back the Barberry shrubs that had been growing unchecked on our retaining wall in front of the house for at least 15 years. This is the "before" picture to give you an idea of the size of the job.
These shrubs are stickery, so I was very happy to have Randy and Jaime's help to cut them back. I asked them to put the clippings in the field. Normally Randy would have taken them to the recycle place where they make them into compost, but I knew that would be a lot of trips and expense, so I asked him to leave them figuring we would burn them after getting a permit.
I know it bothered Randy to leave a mess like that, and I wasn't looking forward to moving that stickery mess, but I was determined to save money.
Here is the "after" job, it looked so nice and we had views from the front yard that we had been missing for years!
So here's the part where the neighbors come in.
We had left the clippings in the field for a few days, and late one afternoon our neighbor Terry asked if we wanted help taking them to the recycle place. He had a large dump trailer, and said he could recruit another neighbor (Steve) who had a rental tractor that could be used to pick up the trimmings and place them in the trailer.
Before we knew it, they had the trailer there and were loading it up. They worked for a few hours on the job, until the point where it was getting dark. We helped with rakes and gloves, but the job was so much faster with the tractor helping! Terry took two trips to the dump the next morning, and for $53 we had the whole job done. I was so thankful to have the help and equipment, I was not looking forward to dealing with the mess but they just took care of it, without us even asking!
We are so blessed to have the neighbors we do. While working on this blog I found a number of "neighbor quotes" so I thought I'd wrap up by sharing my favorites:
"A good neighbor is a priceless treasure" - Chinese proverb
"A good neighbor increases the value of your property" - Czech proverb
"Ask about the neighbors, then buy the house" - Proverb
"All of us, at one time or another, need help. Whether we're giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That's one of the things that connects us as neighbors - in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver." - Fred Rogers
"Our American tradition of neighbor helping neighbor has always been one of our greatest strengths and most noble traditions" - Ronald Reagan
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