There is Trouble in River City

     The Music Man..... one of my favorite old musical movies....  I have seen it a million times.  I should buy that dvd.  I wish I could watch it right now. The movie was made in 1962.  It is just wonderful.   One of the songs in the movie is "Ya Got Trouble" and that starts with T and it rhymes with P and that stands for "pool."  (playing pool was going to lead the town's youth astray thus "the music man" was in town selling band instruments)  Well, I GOT TROUBLE and that T rhymes with P and it stands for POOP!!!!    

view just now from my front porch to the north

       It is 39 degrees right now, and has been foggy and drizzly all day.  I was on my couch, wrapped up in a blanket about 3 p.m., coughing up the crud from my lungs after being sick for a week and my phone rings. Animal control is outside and they need to talk to me. I guess I had better explain.   My house is completely surrounded by a chain link fence with locked gates so no one lets my schnauzers out of my yard and no one gets in my yard.  I am hearing impaired.  My kids can come in my front or back door and if I am not in the same room I will not hear them open the door or shut the door....if someone were trying to quietly break in I sure wouldn't hear them so my fences are locked just as an added deterrent. 

view from my front porch this afternoon to the south

I am really weird in that when I am in the depression hell hole a knock on the door startles and scares me to death.  Locked gates prevent that.  If my friends or family want to come over they have a gate key and know to call first, or they don't have a gate key and they have to call first.  Anyway, I am dozing on the couch, my head under the covers, two of my dogs snuggled up with me when the phone rings.  Animal control is outside and they need to talk to me.  HUH?! OK, fine, I get up and go outside, thinking what the heck.  Schnauzers are barky dogs so I expected them to say we have had a noise complaint.  I mean, what else can it be.  My dogs are never, ever out of the fence.  Since my ONLY neighbor on my side of the street has 3, dobermans, 2 pit bulls and a schnauzer that bark too I am kind of surprised.  Across the street are two houses separated by two vacant lots that are directly across from me.  The one the farthest away is an older man who has lots of cats and never has commented on my dogs.  The other house has a new young couple that moved in just last week but they have a big dog...boxer mix, with no fence.   My only other "neighbor" is a piece of property 120 feet wide and half a mile long that is totally vacant...no buildings, no businesses, no houses, just a few trees, rocks, lots of weeds and ant beds.....oh, and prairie dogs or gophers... we assume from the holes and mounds of dirt.   At the far end of that property are two pieces of property...one has numerous cows and horses, the other has a lot of sheep.  Around the corner from them live the emu i pictured not long ago, and another piece of property that also includes a big lot for about 6 horses.  Next to them the people have cute little goats.  Yes, we are inside the city limits but we live in a funny area on the north end of town where many lots are often 1/2 acre to 2 acres or so, and animals have always been kept. Interspersed and all around us are regular neighborhoods with small lots big enough for a house and a yard.  It is a weird part of town. Out of that big chunk of vacant land I have a lot that is 60' x125' with a single wide trailer on it.  All but the first 15' feet at the street is fenced in. Ok, fine, you get the kind of rural setting I am in, minding my own business.  So I go outside to meet two of the nicest animal control guys ever.  I'm prepared for a barking complaint.  I am not prepared for what comes out of this guys mouth.  "Uh, Ma'am, we have had a complaint that you have been throwing dog poop over the fence."  "WHAT????"   "A complaint that you have been throwing your dog poop over the fence."  "WHAT????" (I guess they could tell I was stunned and speechless, or maybe I only know one word)  Finally after a moment of looking at them like they are crazy I proceeded to tell them I do not know what you are talking about.  It has been raining all day---I have not been outside throwing poop or anything else.  "No ma'am, the report was filed about a week ago"  "WHAT????" I tell them---nicely cause I am nice, plus I was stunned and baffled and, did I say I am always nice to people? because I am just a nice, law abiding, anti-litter with anything, nice old grandma lady, and they are being nice to me---so I tell them I pick up my dog's poop every few days in a white Wal-Mart bucket and I put it in that dumpster right over there. I do not throw it over the fence.  Meanwhile, my dogs Zoe and Gracie are at the fence barking their heads off at the officers.  Zoe is a little girl, about 15 lbs and Zoe is a bigger girl, maybe 25 lbs..  Anyway, the officers said at least ten times in the ten minutes or so that we talked that they had never had a report like this before.  Finally I had the wits about me to ask "Was it these people over here -- with the dobermans--that filed the report???" (because who in the heck would be turning me in, especially for something I haven't done, and they are my only neighbors "across my fence") "No ma'am, actually it was the man who owns the vacant property.  He was trying to sell a lot and he said he saw you throw poop over the fence."  "ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I have been sick in bed with a bad cold for a week, I don't know what he saw but it is just me at this house.  I pick up the poop in a bucket and dump in that dumpster."   They are obviously looking in my front yard and don't see any poop, do see my two little dogs, and say one more time "we've never been out on a complaint like this.....".  I get my wits about me enough to point out that this neighborhood has dogs running loose all the time.  I pointed out the 3 dobermans and 2 pit bulls next door and told them those dogs are out of their fence and on this big vacant lot several times a day.  There is a couple that walk past my house every day and across the vacant lot walking to get a coke at the convenience store down the way and they have two big dogs with them that are not leashed.  Some new people moved in across the street with a big dog and you can see the house has no fenced yard. Any of these dogs could be pooping on that man's vacant property.  We have people riding their horses in this neighborhood all the time.  There is a creek on the other side of my neighbor's house and who knows what lives along the creek.  Before the people moved in we saw deer out here all the time.   Finally, I am drenched in cold drizzle and mad as I can be so I said "Let's go look for all this poop" and one of the nice guys says "Can we go look?" and I said sure let's go so we walk all around the two sides of my yard that border the man's vacant property.  110 feet of fence the long way and 60 feet the short way.  We walk along the fence and about 10 or 15 feet over so the three of us can easily see 30 feet from my fence outward.  Guess what? Where was all this poop I had supposedly thrown???  On the 110 feet side we ran across about 5, uh, piles.  The officer commented that my dogs could not have produced what we saw based on size. The next pile, THAT was horse manure, more big dog poop,  more horse poop, biggg dog poop.  The officers agreed nothing on that lot they saw indicated anything that could have come out of my schnauzers.  The animal control officers were very nice and just doing their job.  Darn, about two hours after they left I thought I should have told them THAT GUY who owns the vacant property....maybe HE needs to get out here and clean up his property....weeds, horse manure, someone's dog poop, and do something about those gophers and ant beds, and did I mention his weeds??!!
   I have a blogger friend who lives full time in an RV and travels all over the place.  I wish I had the money to do that.  If I didn't like the neighbors I could move on and see what the next place was like.