Every valley needs someone to ask. For four generations my family has watched this one squabble over water, property lines, and whose turn it is to host Thanksgiving, and at some point people stopped arguing long enough to ask me what I thought. So here we are. Send me your dilemmas — neighborly, horticultural, romantic, or otherwise — and I will tell you what I would do, which is not always the same as what is advisable.
The mailbag has only just opened, so allow me to introduce myself with three of the questions I am asked most often — usually at the post office, and always before I have had my coffee.
The gophers have declared open war on my vegetable garden. What are my options?
Surrender is one, and I do not say it unkindly; a gopher has more time than you and takes the longer view. But if you mean to fight, fight properly. Line your raised beds with half-inch hardware cloth before you plant, not after, when the tomatoes are already hostages. Put up a barn-owl box — a single family of owls will do more for you in a season than any amount of grim contraption, and they work all night, for free, without being asked twice. What I would not bother with are the smoke bombs and vibrating stakes sold for the purpose. The gophers, in my experience, regard them as a spa.
My neighbor’s rooster begins at half past four in the morning, and we are no longer on speaking terms. How do I repair this?
You repair it with banana bread, and you deliver it yourself. I am perfectly serious. The country runs on the neighborly wave and the small offering, and a feud over a rooster will outlive the rooster if you let it. Go over — in daylight — and say you have been meaning to. Nine times in ten the neighbor knows full well the bird is a menace and is braced for a fight, and a little kindness disarms them entirely. Should the tenth time arrive, the county does keep a noise ordinance; but the person who reaches for the ordinance first will find they have won the argument and lost the neighbor, and out here you need the neighbor far more than you need the sleep.
Tourists keep parking across my driveway to photograph the vineyard, and I have run out of patience. What do I do?
Ah. You have discovered the tax we pay for living somewhere other people keep as their screensaver. A small, tasteful sign does most of the work — “Private drive, please,” nothing barbed, since the barbed ones only ends up on the internet with your address attached. Keep the drive itself clear enough that a stray visitor feels vaguely rude, which most of them are not — only enchanted, and badly parked. And take some private pride in it, if you can manage: they drove a very long way to look at the view you get to wake up to.
Have a question for Annie — neighborly, horticultural, romantic, or otherwise? Write to [email protected] with “Ask Annie” in the subject line. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and are published anonymously. Annie offers neighborly opinion — not professional legal, medical, or veterinary advice.