Good Neighbors

Good Fences

Make Good Neighbors

The New England Poet, Robert Frost writes of mending the stonewall between his apple orchard and his neighbors pines; where Frost and the neighbor labor to rebuild the wall each Spring, and his neighbor tells him, "Good fences make good neighbors". 

We here at the Sunstone Tortoise Ranch do not need to separate apples and pines, but we do need to separate our two male Desert Tortoises now that we have doubled our herd.  We're now runnin' two head of torts out on our pasture, which is not conducive to a climate of good neighborliness among these otherwise gentle vegetarians.  The tort brothers, Chomper and Isaac, jousted one another until October in a effort to flip their rival, they only quit ramming one another because of the cool Autumn air that squelched their ardor for territorial fighting as they slipped into hibernation in the breakfast nook.  With warm Spring days, the brothers are up and have been returned to the back yard, ready to graze upon golden dandelions and fend off any and all interlopers.  This year, my tort ranching contrivance is to put up an 18-inch wire barrier (decorative garden fence from Lowe's Hardware) stretched across the yard and stake it securely into the lawn with wooden stakes interwoven through the wire mesh.  Isaac was placed in the back-forty while Chomper was penned in the fore-side lawn pasture.  The first day, they found one another and rushed the fence, each on his own side, and signaled a challenge by vigorously bobbing their heads at their respective rivals.  After throwing out reptile fightin' words, they tried to scale the fence to get at one another, but the stakes seem to hold the barrier in place.  After much sound and fury (OK, they don't really make much sound), but they did seem furious; I noticed that it was a Mexican stand-off and separated the beasts to their respective corners of the yard.

My observations over the next two days was that they no longer seemed to be rushing the fence to square off against each other anymore.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But I am now working on the theory that dandelions when eaten (or inhaled) may contain natural mellowing agents, akin the THC in Cannabis.  The tort dudes are not only now mellow yellow (quite right!); but under circumstance yet to be fully explained, Chomper ended up the other day in Isaac's back-forty and neither one of them was found flipped on the back of his shell after a day together.  Then, yesterday and today, Isaac was (apparently) mistakenly moved into Chomper's area, along with Chomper, and no fisticuffs, gular horn ramming broke out - not even a hockey game.  BFF!

Perhaps dandelions could be employed to solve conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, but until then, believe:

Good Fences

Make Good Neighbors

and keep that fence in good repair.

Good Cookies

Make Good Neighbors

The house next door went on the market in mid-January and was sold in 3 or 4 weeks.  The fourth family to own the house moved in two weeks ago.  With the tortoises pacified with dandelions in the backyard, I beat my spears into plowshares and turned my fence-building skills into cookie baking sweet skills.  Sixteen chocolate chip cookies were loaded onto a plate and I crossed the lawn to say "welcome to the neighborhood" with a plate of warm confections.  The Scotts have two sons and are anticipating adopting a baby girl from China this Summer, so they wanted to expand to a 4 BR home.  I was told several of the other neighbors had already introduced themselves, but not with such edible hospitality.

Some years back, Sue and I tried the same welcoming format for new neighbors across the street.  When they came to the door we said "welcome to the neighborhood" and then offered a plate of cookies.  The young woman at the door prodded the plate of treats with her finger and then shouted something in Hindi to the back of the house, and then scoured at us and said "we really don't like these kinds", and then shut the door on us.  Robert Frost's poem says that "something there is that doesn't like a wall", maybe so, but until our brief encounter with our cross-street neighbors, I did not think there was someone who did not like fresh baked cookies.

I am thinking, maybe I could concoct a recipe baked with dandelion mellowing agents in the ingredients and ship them to the border of India and Pakistan as well.  World peace begins on our block - or maybe that is just whirled peas I am thinking of.