by Glory Lennon

Created on: August 11, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

We weren't trying to make enemies. Heaven knows those are easy enough to make without trying but it seemed our new neighbors had a problem with us right from the start. Perhaps we weren't of the right ilk but you'd think we would be coming from the same state of New York, accents intact and everything. We both did get a hankering to move to the country but since they had their summer home in the Pocono Mountains first, they figured we were the interlopers. So, what that we had been living here on a permanent basis in rented dwellings for the same amount of time.

Interlopers or not, we wanted the land adjacent to theirs, it was for sale and we paid the big bucks for it. If they wanted it to remain open land, empty and wild they should have bought it themselves. However, we needed a place for our family's new permanent home and we built it on that four acre plot of land next to theirs. But it was four acres and they had four as well. Surely they wouldn't bother us and we wouldn't bother them, right? Oh, but how naive we can be at times.

While the builders were doing their thing actually building the house up on the hill about 100 yards away from our neighbor's back door, we, my husband Tommy and myself, were planning our gardens and developing landscaping schemes. Just the fact that we were taking down the horrible tangle of wild raspberries near the property line seemed to annoy and distress our neighbors.

"But we planted those!" Mrs. Neighbor insisted heatedly.

The mere fact that she was lying about planting something that grows wild all over the entire state of Pennsylvania was enough to make me dislike her. I wanted to tell her I knew she was lying but my mama always told me it was best to say nothing when confronted with a disagreeable person even when you know you are right.

"Sorry, but we have plans for OUR land. You are welcome to dig them up and replant them in YOUR yard," Tommy said pleasantly.

We continued to remove them plus the closely related and equally menacing wild Rosa Rugosa, with Mr and Mrs. Neighbor glaring at us from their back porch. It was a twenty foot wide patch of briars which was not in the slightest bit a fun project but we wanted to plant a row of Colorado Blue Spruces so, our kids could be safe from their nasty, ill-tempered dog plus we wouldn't see them and they wouldn't see us. It seemed like a good plan since becoming friendly and nice wasn't in the cards.

Thorns scratched and dug deep into our skin but we continued undaunted much to

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