Stray Cats and the People Who Feed Them

I've waited three days to write this post. I waited so that I would give myself the opportunity to calm down a little and not write a post that was all "...those-g**-d***-m*****-f******-no-good-gossiping-neighbors of mine..." Well, I tried.

A couple of months ago my neighbor started hanging string in the woods, like a boundary line. We ignored it though they went out of their way to tell us they thought it would be interesting to see where the line was, to which we responded that we had it professionally surveyed before we purchased our acre so we were fairly confident where our property ended. Well this past weekend they hung a new line (I'd like to point out here they moved it back two feet since the original string they hung was actually on our side, but whatevs). Along with the new string came a sign. Not just any old sign but this one:

Now I'd like to think we are good neighbors. Our yard is clean, mowed, and nice looking in comparison to some of our neighbors. We don't throw huge parties, play loud music or keep a thousand cars in our driveway in varying stages of disrepair. We keep to ourselves and do not engage in any neighbor bashing that we hear, cause really I don't have time for that shit. Oh, that and I don't care. We purposefully bought an acre so that we were not all up in our neighbors yards and/or business. Apparently this was done in vain. There's even a good fifty feet of woods between our houses. That seemed adequate at the time. It was not.

Feuds between neighbors extend as far back as history tells. I mean who hasn't heard the story of the Hatfields and McCoys, right? Except the Hatfields and McCoys knew they were feuding. Hell, they even thought they knew what the feud was about though I doubt the historical accounts are at all accurate. But at least they thought they knew why they were fighting.

I, on the other hand, had no idea a feud was going on, much less why. I had no problems with my neighbors, other than they were a bit nosy and gossipped more than I was comfortable with. You know if people will talk to you about other people, they'll certainly talk about you to other people too. I live by this mantra, mostly.

Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of reasons to start a feud but I didn't.

I never complained when I pulled chicken bones out of my dogs' mouth that the f-ers left out for the stray cats they feed.

Nor did I complain about the slimy chunk of tuna that the cats brought into my yard that nearly made me throw up when I had to retrieve it from my dog, cause who the F knows how long that's been sitting outside.

I didn't say anything when they called the county to complain that the bus my kid's ride left tracks in the grass. (I should point out that said grass isn't even on their property and the man who owns the property has told the county, more than once and repeatedly for the past twenty some years, that they can continue to use his driveway as a turn around.)

I didn't say a thing when I found out the crotchety old neighbors threatened to put glass in that strip of grass that doesn't belong to them in hopes of flatting the bus tires. I am rethinking this as it shows just how fucked up they are when they make threats against a group of elementary school kids on a bus. Seriously fucked up.

Hell, I never even complained when a tree from their property fell on mine and took out my kids' play set. Demolished it. And they never uttered one word of sorrow, no offers of help to fix it, no assistance in removing the tree. Nothing.

We've taken the high road and ignored all these things. But I think I'm done, while I write this at least.

I've learned from other neighbors that the bat ass crazy woman thinks I've been messing with the stray cats she feeds in a little cat house they've built in the woods between our houses. She's gone so far as to put a video camera in said strip of woods to "catch" me. They think she's crazy and off her meds. In fact they are taking bets on how long before she's committed to a psyc hospital. I say not too long. But since this is all gossip I'm trying to ignore it.

Well, guess what crazy cat lady? I. Don't. Give. A. Rat's. Ass. About. The. Cats. And if I wanted to do something to them I wouldn't have to leave my property to do it since the cats lived under MY shed ALL winter. But I seriously do not mind the cats since they keep the other rodent population down. And they are mildly entertaining when my dog runs out to chase them (no worries, he'd never be able to catch them and wouldn't have a clue what to do with one if he ever did. Besides he weighs all of eighteen pounds, no threat to the cats whatsoever.)

What's funny is I should probably mind the fox that frequents their cat house, or the coyote or the unidentified thing that comes to visit. But I don't. We live in the woods and should expect some animals. In fact I have multiple pics of animals that frequent the cat house that are not cats. You can find those pics here. If anything is happening to your precious stray cats, it's probably because of the other annimals you're attracting by feeding the stray cats. Duh! But who knows if anything is happening to the strays at all? They are strays! They could very easily be roaming away, finding other homes, getting hit by cars, being eaten by whatever might eat stray cats, etc... you just never know, because...they...are...strays!

I've often wondered why none of their kids ever come to visit even though one lives within twenty minutes and another within an hour. In five years I've only seen the one son two or three times. I've contemplated why these people never go out of town to visit relatives or just vacation. But it's apparent to me now, their families are probably staying as far away from these peeps as possible and I don't blame them one bit!

So now that I've written this I have some work to do. Already changed all the locks since crazy neighbors once had a key to our house and I would not put it past them to have made copies. I'm also researching fastest growing pine trees that provide best privacy to put along that side of the yard. This bush should do the trick, right?

And when the kids get home I will remind them they are to stay as far from the crazies as possible. It sucks having to do this.

Then I will get back on that high road and pretend they don't exist, sort of. I'll continue to wave if I see them on the street -but not because I want to be friends, only because I think they'll hate it more if I keep trying to be nice. I've already wasted enough mental energy on these fuck-up neighbors of mine and that will end now. And even though I really, really, really, really, want to so bad I can taste it... I won't hang this sign.

By the way, no cats were harmed in the posting of this whine!