Happened
to be in town, with the puppies, visiting my parents. And, having
made these visits quite often, I can tell you that of all the
challenges and chores and moments involved with being at a house
that hasn’t been the home of puppies for many days at all over
the decades, there can’t be more than one or two that approach
holding the dog’s leash while waiting for them to finish up in
the yard for complete lack of excitement mindlessness.
That
isn’t a challenge to come up with something less exciting. I’m
not looking for thoughts about what might be a step or two more
mindless. (More mindless? Mindlesser? Mindlessest? Never mind.)
Not looking to compare houses that have had puppies wandering
around often with those that have not. The point for me is—and
was—that I was standing in the yard, leash in hand, and while
I was looking around for distractions or potential problems since
this wasn’t a puppy-tested puppy-approved secure yard, about all
that was really happening involved trying to keep the two leashes
from getting tangled.
That’s
when I spotted a few pickets of the fence that were especially
worn at the bottom. Beneath the arch in the pickets was a rounded
little furrow extending from our yard into the neighbor’s.
In
talking to my father, I got to hear all about a variety of potential
path travelers. Squirrels. Skunks. Racoons. There were a lot.
A lot of different wildlife. We did eliminate bears. We don’t
think any bears were crawling under the fence to get into his
yard. But as soon as he said no bears, he added rabbits to the
yes group. Then, he began asking if I though a deer would try
to get under the fence, as some were usually around and had been
spotted nearby in recent weeks.
A
day or so later, I was taking a walk. Left the road of our house,
made a few lefts and rights, and ventured onto some nearby streets.
Along the way, I happened to notice several of the wooden fences
with a spot at the bottom where you could see worn pickets and
a small dip in the ground.
Apparently,
the critters had created a network of passages. A massive infrastructure
project. Small trench here. Hole there. Miniature ditches all
around. Roads. Perhaps, we might even consider this a highway
system.
Getting
away from the parent, my neighbor doesn’t do a tremendous job
raking leaves. This was also true of the neighbors that owned
the home before she moved in. At the foundation of all of it is
timing. See, if the leaves aren’t picked up within a few days
of falling, the wind blows them into my yard, then across it,
and ultimately into a drainage ditch. There, they are a bit harder
to rake and also can easily get wet.
I’m
not mentioning this to complain about the leaves or my neighbors.
Leaves happen, and the current neighbor is quote nice. Knowing
of the potential outcome, I often expand my circle of leaf collection
on the ride on mower from my yard to include sections of her yard.
I get ahead of the problem.
Why
I am mentioning it is as a sort of additional example of how different
people and houses, the foundation of a neighborhood, can have
hidden elements interacting. In some cases, like wildlife moving
around or leaves blowing between yards, these can be obvious and
visible once you see them.
But
not always.
Occasionally
things are a bit more subtle. Couple on one side of my house has
a spotlight in the backyard that they leave on all night. Nothing
rude or obnoxious or intrusive. But if I meander outside, say
around midnight or the early morning hours, perhaps to look to
the skies for shooting stars or such, it is the only light you’d
see around and can be distracting. Big sky overhead. No cities
or towns nearby to cause issues in seeing the heavens. But there
it is, the light one yard over. And I sometimes wonder if my extraordinary
view might be elevated if the light was turned off.
We
could be talking about anything. Kids playing outside. The time
of day this person or that brings their trash cans to the curb.
The frequency of visitors across the street and the cars parked
along the road. One person is out every day tending to grass and
plants and flowers and shrubs, while another prefers to let the
lawn grow for a couple of weeks before mowing.
Some
subtle and bordering on invisible. Some giant-neon-sign-with-bells
obvious. Each decision and action and moment intertwining and
overlapping with another to create the pulse of a community.
And
within that community, the unseen highway.