Stuffs
--Magic in a Certain Slant of Light was third in the Strange Horizons Readers' Choice Awards. Yay!
--I have been stuck on several stories for days now, but yesterday started a new story called, Sleeping Beauty in Upstate New York with Cows, Pigs, and an occasional Rooster, which I think I can finish this month. The writing will go faster as soon as I figure out what it's about.
--Billie and I are entered in another tracking test in Illinois in two weeks.
--John Henry has his next cancer checkup in two weeks (these are not on the same day).
--For some reason, unknown even to them, the lawn guys fertilized my lawn twice in five days.
--The fence guy told me today that my entire lawn is now considered a front yard by the City. This means that if I didn't already have a fence, I could only have a four foot fence instead of a six foot fence. The City is crackers if they think a four foot fence would be a good thing for my yard to have.
--Before John Henry lost his leg, he would jump up and look at people over the top of my six foot fence.
--Some of these items are related.
Comments
Yeah, I'll bet they are!
Congrats on the SH recognition!!
Posted by: SarahP | April 11, 2006 09:00 PM
City rules for fences amuse me. I can understand the need to not block a driver's view at corners, which is often a problem with a fence or srub. The idea that a person can only have four feet of privacy, which is basically none, in areas where they live crowded together, amuses me in a weird way. At least they don't tell you what color housepaint you are allowed to use.
I suspect it goes back to safety: police driving by can see doorways, neighbors can make sure you aren't being burgled, etc. Chain link is uglier than wood, but see-through, but there's no exception for that in a tall fence. Weird.
Posted by: Cath | April 23, 2006 04:35 PM
When I originally built my fence there was a restriction about how far into the front yard I could go which was actually about driver vision at the corner and which clearly made sense. I have no idea what the idiotic reason is behind declaring my side yard my front yard.
And remember (if you want to be even more weirdly amused) there is also social pressure not to put up a fence at all (and not just in this town--there are places where it's a whole lot worse than here)--last year I put an offer on a house that the owners refused to sell me because I was planning to put up a fence. And this wasn't in a development with stupid development rules--this was in a neighborhood that already had fences and dogs and icky stuff.
I spent some time in Fort Collins several years ago and one of the things I loved about that town was that everyone seemed to have six foot wooden fences.
Posted by: debco | April 23, 2006 08:38 PM