For years the neighbors planted a garden on the very back corner of their lot that butted up to the very edge of our yard.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but every year it seemed like the tilled ground of their garden began to creep further and further onto our property.  People coming to visit would often times compliment my nice looking garden and were somewhat surprised when I would tell them it wasn’t mine.  Nothing was ever mentioned but it sort of bugged me.  After about 14 years and 14 inches of lost ground later I decided to hire someone to come over and till up a spot for me so I could plant a garden.  I thought it might be sort of fun to have some fresh produce and I sort of figured it might be the only way to stop the neighbor from adding the “inch a year” to his garden spot.

I mapped out my plan and was told by the guy I hired to do the tilling that I should “clearly” mark the corners of where he should till so that just in case I wasn’t home when he got there, he would know exactly where to go.  A few windy days later he showed up at the post office where I worked and told me he got the tilling done so I paid him and anxiously awaited closing time so I could go home and hit the dirt!

As I strolled into the driveway after work I expected to see a small patch of black dirt to be visible from where I parked but everything looked just exactly as it did when I had left for work.  Hmmm….I wondered what had happened.  The tiller guy had worked for me before and there was never a problem but the ground that was marked was clearly untouched.  I didn’t see my yellow ribbons but the wind had been sort of crazy so I wondered if maybe they had gotten blown away.

I knew there had to be a logical explanation.  Here are the results of my investigation.

When choosing who should till your garden, I’ve learned the town drunk isn’t the best choice.  Now don’t get me wrong, he was a very nice man and he did a lot of odd jobs for people to make a little spending money so he could hop on his lawn mower and head to the bar for a few after a long hard day of tilling gardens and spraying weeds.  I’m sure you’re wondering why I added the part about him hopping on his lawn mower to head to the bar but that was his main vehicle after loosing his driver’s license for the gazillionth time due to the fact that he was driving under the influence more than he was not driving under the influence.

When I finally found him to ask him where my tilled garden spot was he looked at me in total and complete disbelief.  He was shocked that I would ask him that but as the conversation went on, his shock would end up being almost undetectable in comparison to the one that I was about to experience!

Apparently the wind had indeed removed my yellow ribbons that were marking my garden spot by the time he and his tiller had gotten to my back yard.   He took a look around and the only markers he could see were in ground that already appeared to be tilled but he thought to himself, this is their yard and there are sticks in the ground so this must be where I’m supposed to till.

The garden spot he discovered was our neighbor’s.  He was right, it had already been tilled.  The sticks he saw were marking the rows of the seeds that had already been planted and all I could do was laugh….uncontrollably….almost crazy like….for a few minutes longer than I probably should have.

It just goes to show that we should all strive to do what’s right.  We shouldn’t be greedy with anything, especially with the size of our garden if it means we have to inch our way onto our neighbor’s property.  Karma always finds a way to teach us lessons and sometimes it comes disguised as a tipsy guy with a tiller!