Neighbours

We’ve been having all sorts of interesting happenings next door. The house next to ours is a rental, and the renters (up until three weeks ago, but now they’re gone: wahoo!) were crummy – tons of cars, tons of noise, perpetual cigarette smoke, and generally not fun to live next to. The owner is a no-op, total absentee landlord (I finally met him for the first time on Monday). But the old renters are gone, and there have been a string of cleaners and painters showing up all week as he attempts to lure new renters. Apparently the painters also know a thing or two about trees, or at least own a chainsaw, since they did a fair amount of pruning. Their first target was the huge maple.

But nothing was safe.

And now the maple looks like this:

On the plus side (reaching towards the positive), it certainly opens things up a bit and the street appeal of our house probably jumped a few notches now that there’s a cleaner view from the street. But on the flip side, poor tree.

I was out marveling at the carnage when a potential renter showed up to scout around – some nice man from Texas with a wife and an 8-year-old and 10-year-old (his family will join him once the school year wraps up, and he’s trying to find a rental in the meantime). He was talking about seeing if he could work a deal where he would repaint the exterior and get a lower monthly rent rate (wow! We love him already.), and seemed full of ideas about the landscaping and pruning. I’m afraid that he’ll met with the landlord and hightail away, but keeping my fingers crossed that it works out.

I snapped a photo of the tulips by the front walk on the way back into the house – cheerful, happy, brilliant flowers, and messy enough to convey personality.

They’re getting a bit blowsy, so I’m not sure how many more days we really have left, but they’ve just been something to behold for the last two weeks, and brooding with anticipation for another two before that. Such a treat.