6:15pm The Poodle discovers the fence on his first sortie of the evening
7:00pm – the Poodle returns and zeros in for a close up look of something he’s been looking at for months only now he’s looking at it over a split rail fence
The Poodle – June 11, 2013 – 7:04 pm
The Poodle is now giving guided tours of the creek. I swear to God.
He’s got another dog walker over there and he is sweeping his arm back and forth while explaining how the water used to rage out from the concrete pipe. I wonder if he knows that there are trees planted in the creek bed because if he does, that is not part of his guided tour.
I have a lot of work today but I can’t concentrate until I get this off my chest.
Truth: my subtext of internal dialog goes like this: buh buh buh buh buh
And the reason for it is this. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the theme songs from Farmer’s Insurance and Hot In Cleveland are conspiring to keep my head full of buh buh buh. Is there no escape?
………..
In other kvetching, it looks like the dopey creek project will have a suitably matching dopey fence around it soon. In the world of fencing, can there be a fence more inefficient at keeping things out than the classic split rail style?
Supplies have been dumped. Countdown to running hordes of trouble-making 12 year olds: 3 … 2.. 1 …
There’s so much tangential goings-on around the creek project. Remind me to tell you about how they put in new sidewalks because of the new catch basin and had to conform to current ADA standards by making all driveway aprons meet flush with the road pavement and they did that by chopping out half of my concrete driveway and re-angling that part, changing the slope significantly. In the 16 feet of driveway that they replaced, the drop is 21 inches. Ironic that their efforts to meet ADA standards made it a real physical challenge to walk up the drive. We protested and they offered to solve the issue (that they created) by building a wooden ramp from my front steps down through the middle of the lawn and through the heart of my magnificent rhododendrons.
These people are insane. The Great Wall of Rhododendrons featuring Mr. Sami, circa 2009
……………….
UPDATE: Wait. One more thing.
This professional photo, in a nutshell, is everything that is wrong with the modern bridal industrial complex:
oooh i am a naked bride and someone hung my wedding dress so high in a filthy tree that even if i stand on a golf cart i won’t be able to reach it
Things have been happening in the creek. Not wet things. Just mysterious things. There’s no point in a slow build-up to the revelation – let’s just get right to it, shall we?
The creek workers have planted trees in the creek bed where the actual creek should be.
gold arrows = mystery sticks pink arrows = mystery sticks X one billionty
Now I ask you – what was/is the plan here? Were these trees part of the original landscaping plan? If yes, then how were they planning to plant these if the creek was full of water? If no, then what? Are they hoping for lush vegetation growth to hide the fact that the town floated a bond so that the taxpayers could pay for a fancy schmancy creek that never has water in it?
Did I mention that on Easter, the yahoos on the other street – the ones who filled the pre-revison creek with battered wooden rowboats and the skeletons of discarded Christmas trees – climbed down into the creek bed to shoot golf balls down it’s length? They are not going to like what the trees are doing to their fairway.
Here are some other oddities which can be clearly seen when you click to enlarge the above image:
The gold arrows point to sticks that have been jammed into the ground – open field, creek banks and directly into the gabion. I suppose they are rooted cuttings, but … of what? They are spaced about 24″ apart on the creek bank so I suppose they are not trees. Then again they may have jammed 10 trees into a single hole in the creek bed so who knows?
The pink arrows point to those same sticks jammed vertically into the edge of the (former) backyards abutting the creek. A thick layer of extremely spongy sod has been placed over 2/3 the length. Cannot even imagine what this is about.
Mr. DeMille, we’re ready for our close-up:
wazzup?
So … trees or shrubs? If they’re trees, they jammed 10 saplings into one hole. If they’re shrubs … why are they planting shrubs in the creek bed? They seem to be partnered with the torrent abatement boulders so are they meant to be something in the water flow scheme? All I can say is if these are trees, why didn’t they put them in the empty field where the lookyloos stand with their dogs and stare at me?
Mystery Creek Theater S02 E01 – “You Wanted a Creek, Here’s Your Creek” Hilarity ensues when the faulty design of the creek revision results in a pressurized underground dam. Where did the water go? Tune in to see non-stop sump pump action in Suzette’s basement.
Mystery Creek Theater S02 E02 – “Kiss Your Topsoil Goodbye” Plan B to reroute the creek water involves digging deep trench from the corner of Suzette’s basement along side the property line and out into a catch basin in the cul-de-sac. Christmas is coming so the creek workers knock off for the season, leaving only a quarter acre of mud and ruts to remember them by. See ya (see ya wouldn’t wanna be ya) in May!
1. Physical decrepitude: Whew! Just came back inside from pulling out about 30 very shallow-rooted weeds. I’m pretty much done in.
2. Mental confusion:Every time I go out the back door, the absence of the trees still surprises me. There’s one “tree” left on the other side, only because when the creek workers were taking everything down Old Mary put on her babushka, pulled up a plastic chair and stared at them so they wouldn’t take that one on her property And by “Old Mary” I mean “that big mouthed-bitch with the ignoramus sons Mary”. Anyway, she saved that one tree. Because it was part of a dense mass of trees, it grew bent while it was seeking light. I always think “rainbow” when I see it because of the arch I guess. So it’s a weird mixture of something’s wrong (no trees) and oooh! (rainbow) whenever I go out the back door. Also, there doesn’t seem to be all that many leaves on that tree so maybe its dead or almost dead. Old Mary should have let the township take it down for free.
Big black birds usually perch on those bare branches. I don’t know why my first reaction to this scene is happiness. You would think I’d know better by now.
3. State flower of NJ. My yard is positively filled with violets and rabbit poop.
Sorry – there won’t be any pictures of the rabbit poop.
4. Deck pots. Let’s start making deck pots!
I don’t know. Maybe I should have gotten yellow marigolds for that fancy pot.
5. Change in plans. The DIL just called and she wants to go shopping for tiki themed yard ornaments. She doesn’t know it but my parents were the tiki pioneers of Wilkes Barre way back in the day. They strung plastic tiki face lanterns crisscrossing the inside of the garage and that’s where we sat for cook-outs if it was sunny or rainy or windy. They had big ole C7 bulbs in them, not the little mini lights like the modern ones have. They’re probably still hanging there.
The boss creek worker banged on our front door this morning at 7am. FINALLY after abandoning us on December 20th, they have returned to make right the muddy mess they left us then. AND THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG.
BAD MOOD ALERT! I have a day off from work today. Finally I have the time to do the little things I can’t do on a normal working Friday (which would be lounge around on the deck and enjoy myself) and now I can’t because I’m all crabbed up. I have already tried to change my attitude by buying 2 things from Amazon and was just about to fire up my online search fu for Mexican flowerpots but now I think I’m going to have to leave the premises so the top of my head doesn’t blow off from aggravation.
It’s a beautiful sunny morning outside so maybe I’ll bomb down to the Corningware Outlet and see what’s shakin’ there.
Cripes Suzette 