pond puzzle solved

Last night I was outside and saw the truck return from two nights before. The one Peko barked at, and the voice that sounded familiar. Normally I don't pay any attention to who is at the pond, unless we are planning on swimming or fishing. I always defer to the visitors. This time, however, I went into my own sneak mode. My curiousity had been aroused.

I saw a guy get out of the truck, and then a woman from the passenger side. That confirmed an afterthought I had that when the voice said, "sorry about that" he had been speaking to someone waiting in the truck for him, not to me for startling us. Then he took some gear out of the back of the truck, and a stepladder. Now I was really feeling nosy.

I grabbed the cam as a cover, and wandered over to the landing. Another truck with out of state plates was there, and they had all headed to the dam to fish, speaking in loud voices I couldn't help but overhear part of their conversation. ;)

As I had suspected, the fellow with the ladder had trimmed the branches, most presumably for his out of state visitors fishing pleasure. Then I heard someone approaching, so I spoke out as to not frighten her. I was actually more pleasant than usual, and the batteries chose that moment to die, so I made my way home and heard her following me. Not caring, I headed up the drive happy to have found an answer.

The neighbor who owns the property might not have been so happy to hear that folks had been trimming branches on her property. Her deed allows for a twenty foot wide right of way to the pond for public access. Her deceased husband had hated folks that parked up in the woods, and his last winter, he used his tractor to haul logs out to mark the right of way. They never posted the property, though. The neighbors on the far side of the dam, did, and right there in the middle of the dam is a no trespassing sign.

Although we have both exchanged verbal permission to each other for property access, neither of us takes advantage. We stick pretty much to the right of way. Her daughters I had to call onto the property after a runaway dog-they are very concious of respecting other folks property.

Last year the saplings and I were at the pond swimming, and a couple of guys showed up with sledehammers and proceeded to chip apart a large boulder in the right away that always made the right of way nearly impassable for a boat trailer. I had to call the kids out of the water-rock chips were flying that far. Still, hard to tell from y posting, I am rather easy going and engaged the rock smasheres inconversation, sort of amazed that they could and did annihilate that rock by hand in short time.

During the conversation, the more vocal fellow revealed that he was a dedicated fisherman, with a bass boat, and state law allowed public access to every water way and I guess he was rationalizing his right to take out the rock. I let him know who owned the property and suggested he should speak to her, as he starting sharing his vision of personally putting in a culvert and bringing road gravel in.

A few days later I ran into the landowner and mentioned the guy taking out the rock, and he had been to see her. *laughs and giggles*. Well, dear reader, you are at a disadvantage at my private joke, for you have never met the woman. I don't know how to describe her without being insulting, but let's just say, since I am a doglover, that she is a bulldog with a nasty disposition and lungs to match. (I have never seen the fellow with the bass boat since.)

I saw her daughters walking on the road today as we were headed out, and I was sorely tempted to ask them if they had given someone permission to trim, but decided not to. I saw one of the girls lose a lure in one of those branches hanging over the dam this spring...and although ballsy beyond belief to trim property that does not belong ot you for your personal use, they did do a good job.

But now I know why the guy was acting so sneaky the other night. Good dog, Peko.