Saturday, November 01, 2008

The Rolling Stones

Do you all remember when I wrote about the mud hole that had been created in front of our house by trucks turning their large wheels and tearing up the grass on the road side of our stone wall? I think that I mentioned that I had gone out and raked everything smooth and then placed a few large hunks of granite along the front so that my leveling work wouldn't be undone.

I think, about the same time, I may have mentioned that the streetlight at the corner of our lot had finally given up and gone out. We had called the power company and had been surprised when the truck showed up the next night. We had also been surprised the next morning when we found that the power company had removed the entire lamp and left just the arm with a couple wires hanging out up there on the pole.

This week marked week six of no streetlight so I called the power company once again. The representative that I spoke with said that the records showed that the lamp had been reinstalled. The job had been 'signed off'! Not so, I said, so she filed a new work order. We were tired of being 'kept in the dark' literally. Especially with Halloween just a couple days away. So I took the time to rig a spotlight for the front area where my mom parks her car...her brand new car...with Halloween approaching...with some neighborhood kids who, quite frankly, are more than unhappy with us. Thursday night we tried out the spotlight. We temporarily plugged the extension inside the house rather than fumbling in the dark to find the outside receptacle. We headed for the front window to take a look.

Lo and behold the streetlight was fixed!

National Grid must have come while we were out for the afternoon!

Hooray!

Friday morning came around and I noticed that a very large piece of granite was dislocated from the wall on the same side of the driveway as the utility pole. I went over to take a look thinking that the utility truck may have caught the corner of the wall dislodging the boulder. I wasn't really convinced once I had a good look. Seems more damage would have had to have been done if a truck had accidentally caught that boulder. Oh well, it was too large for me to move back into place.

Friday night's trick-or-treaters crammed our little dead end lane. Being a dead end seems to encourage 'drop offs'. Carloads of kids are let loose on our street rather than trick-or-treating in their own neighborhoods. We had our front light and walk lights turned on and my mom handed out piles of candy. They started around five p.m. and things were quiet by eight.

Saturday morning I decided to catch up on some winterizing chores like draining all the garden hoses and putting them away, taking down the temporarily rigged spotlight, and putting garden ornaments in the shed. I took a moment to take a walk around the property to see that all was undamaged and unmarred from the previous night. As I walked around the front, something just didn't seem right. It looked like someone had parked in front and left indentations in the slowly healing former mud hole. Then it dawned on me. What I was seeing were the imprints left from the granite that I had edged with a couple months ago. Someone had moved eight large pieces of granite during the night. They had been rolled through the grass and left nearer the wall.

Adding to my irritation was the enormous pile of dog mess in front of one of the boulders.

Off I went to get the shovel from out of the shed. I scooped up that pile and deposited it in the middle of the road. What else was I to do with it? If anyone would like to claim it they are welcome to dispose of it. It's not mine and it doesn't belong on my property nor in my garbage can. I rolled the boulders back to their indentations.

Now I'm determined to catch whoever is rolling my stones.

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