One problem of living in the Sunshine State is the hellacious thunderstorms (go figure). We had a doozy last month–50 to 70 mph winds, crazy sideways rain, bend-over-and-kiss-your-butt-goodbye alarmist weather reports–and the long story short is that a tree between our house and the neighbor’s fell. Yep, creamed her new pool enclosure but good. It didn’t hit the main house, thank goodness, but it was a mess. Boy howdy.

And then the trouble started. We called our insurance company, gave her the information, and waited. In between then and now, there’s been power restoration, cleanup, some terse text messages about who said what about taking that tree down when, and then silence. Frankly, the ice storm that followed the thunderstorm has been worse. This week the fence guy came out, and now a chunk of the picket that used to be near the tree has been replaced with six-foot stockade. Ouch.

Robert Frost had a bit to say about fences and good neighbors. This extract from “Mending Wall” struck me:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.

Mr. Man and I are going over with a bottle of wine to work on patching things up. Fences are one thing, but walls are something else entirely.