. . . quickly took on the look of a demolition zone.
But the elements that drew us to the property -- the pond, the pasture, and the varied terrain were there from the start.
The first order of business was to remove all evidence of its checkered past as some sort of archery/automatic weapons practice field and/or killing zone. (Just this week, while planting trees, we unearthed what was identified as an AK-47 shell casing.) This included removing a dozen or so bullet-and-arrow-riddled deer decoys as well as a hunting tower straight out of "The Most Dangerous Game"
We learned very quickly that our builder had no interest in the terrain outside of some arbitrary zone around the house, and that the backfill would be an awful mix of Wissahickon Schist, sand, and clay. On the upside, the kind soul who ran the digger re-routed a drain pipe to miss a beautiful old sycamore that we enjoy to this day.
Major areas of conflict were also laid out pretty early in the process. Our first encounter with the imperious, crazy-like-a-fox, dairy magnate who tried to convince us that we should pay for 1000' of fencing to hold in his cows because, "that's the way we do things around here" ended in a stalemate.
More distressing was the notion that every Elmer Fudd within a five mile radius was put out by the new "NO HUNTING" rule imposed on what was once their prime territory. When the first shotgun-wielding visitor came tip-toeing across our back yard, I let loose a less than impressive Bertie-Wooster-cum-Jeffery-Lebowski, "I say, this is private property, man!" protest only to have him raise his finger to his lips in a "be vewy qwuiet, I'm hunting a wascally wabbit" shushing motion. It ended with me in a screaming contest with an armed man.
But, I had a circa 1953 International Harvester tractor and an endless supply of rocks. I had no reason to complain.
Write faster, this is great so far!
ReplyDelete