Yay for stupid neighbours

She put up a wrought-iron fence a while back, this ugly black thing, right on the property line and immediately after we moved in. No biggie, it's her property, even if it is an ugly fence and all... except she has a tendency to be outside sunning herself in a bathing suit and we have three young boys.

She's really mean to them. She has a manual mower, which our boys find fascinating - and so she tells them, "Don't look at me!" This isn't anything unique for her. She's routinely telling our kids stuff, like "don't ride your bikes on my sidewalk," even though the sidewalk's common property.

Anyway, after she told the boys not to watch her mow - I mean, sheesh, they're less than nine years old - we had a privacy fence put up. All is better now, because our kids can play in the back yard without accidentally glancing at her -- and they don't have to worry about her telling them what to do on our property.

Today, though... we've been burning some of the wood from the fence, and from the woods where we've been cleaning things out. Yesterday, some of the green branches smelled a lot like hemp burning (which is exactly how I described it to my son.) And today, having burned the rest of that particular wood in our fireplace... we got a knock on our door.

We answered it, and lo - two policemen were there. They asked our names, and said they'd received a complaint that someone was burning something that reeked of narcotics. (Yes, that's what I thought, too: "reeked of narcotics?")

My wife burst out laughing behind us, and I have to confess I had a bit of a grin myself. I told them we were burning some wood that smelled like hemp, easily confused with marijuana, and pointed at the fire. They asked if they could come in, and I welcomed them in, showed them the tree that yielded the smell, and they noticed the two fences.

I explained that to them, and they started laughing themselves... and the best part of it is that the woman was outside while all this was happening, on her side of the fence, and the police even noticed her over there, so she probably heard us laughing at her.

This is kinda fun at this point. I love neighbours. :) We've had some really cool people as neighbours over the years - we invited one (from Tallahassee) to stay at our house when he was passing through our area not long ago - but this woman definitely takes the mustard.

It rained today - hopefully she got inside before she got wet and melted.