The fence made me sad. In a matter or days or weeks, depending on whether they are hiring someone or doing it themselves, that house and its surrounding yard will no longer be visible from the road.
I love to look at that house. It looks a bit like an
out-in-the-country home, only new neighborhoods are encroaching on its isolated
location. The house itself has some years on it. It has a front porch and is in
need of a fresh coat of paint. I can picture a couple of cane-backed rocking
chairs out there, but honestly, I have never noticed if they have rocking
chairs. I may have missed my chance for clarification.
It’s not the house itself that draws my attention. It’s that
magnificent yard. So much is happening out there. In one corner is an old RV,
which may possibly be a room addition of sorts. There is a shed in the other
corner, and in between, lots of things clutter the yard. There’s a crudely
penned area on one side of the house, and in the back, what I think might be an
above-ground pool. Clothes lines, old
bikes, a short windmill, mostly a bunch of junk, really, but not a bonafide
junk yard. It’s the kind of yard that demands you pay attention, which so much
to see, but no real sense of order. It would be fine in the country, which it
used to be, but now, it looks a bit like an eyesore, probably more to the
neighbors than to me. I find it fascinating.
The real reason I love the house is that I never know what
animal I’m going to see in the front yard. I’m not talking dogs or cats or even
a rogue chicken.
In the past, I used to see a mostly white swayback horse
with a little age on it. It would mill about in front of the house, grazing on
blades of grass that sprouted at random through patches of dirt. The horse had
no lead, no supervision, and no fence. It would just stand in the yard and
chew. I never saw it out in the road. That horse knew its boundaries.
I have driven by that house on and off for at least a decade. At first, I saw the horse almost every time, and then less and less, until finally, no more horse. Even though I never saw it, I still looked for it every time. Like the house itself, the horse had some years on it, and I figured nature took its course.
And then one day, I saw a pair of Sicilian donkeys. Regular
donkeys are just sort of heehaw ho hum, but Sicilian donkeys? Holy hell, I want
a dozen of them. They too hung out in the front yard, minding their own donkey
business, doing their donkey thing. I took more trips to Target than a family
of four warranted, in case I could catch a glimpse of those beautiful taupe
mini donkey-donks just chilling in the yard.
 |
| Cute AF, am I right? |
Then one day, there were three! A baby had been born, perhaps in a manger, and it was the cutest thing I had ever seen. The homeowners seemed more protective of the wee donkey, and at some point a makeshift corral was built to contain the family of three. I would slow down whenever I had occasion to drive by, grinning like a fool the whole time if I was lucky enough to spy them.
The donkeys, unfortunately, are no longer residents of the
yard. I am convinced they were forced to give them away, because no one in
their right mind would willingly part with a family unit of Sicilian donkeys.
And now, the tell-tale signs of a fence have been erected. I
will be denied of my chance to eyeball the yard, looking for animals that seem
so out of place on the way to Target. So yes, I am a little sad, because
progress means more development, and development means country houses are no
longer isolated, and maybe having a horse in the front yard is not the sort of
thing that should be happening. Going forward, every time I pass that fenced-in
house, I will reflect back to the good old days, when the country was the
country, and donkeys and horses roamed freely in front yards.
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