New Neighbor

The view from my back yard at dusk yesterday.

I still look to the east with wonder and surprise, even though it has been at least a week since I first noticed the framework of a new house rising across the hayfield from us.  It appears huge to me.  Maybe my perception will change once it is finished.  Whatever size, it is a vast improvement over the house that used to be located on that property, close to the road, where it flooded on a regular basis, partially because some former owner had built a berm all the way around the house, which actually trapped water inside rather than keeping it out.  Oddly, the first time it happened after its most recent occupant moved in, my husband hurried over there with a pump that would have prevented the house from flooding, but the man of the house refused it.  Not only did he refuse it, he never bought a pump himself and just let the house flood on a regular basis.  And he and his wife had school-age children!  I never met them, but I figure they had awful respiratory problems from mold.

My husband met the owner of the new house last year.  This man bought the property through a foreclosure auction after the flooded house became unlivable.  He wanted it because it adjoins acreage to the east that he already owns and plants row crops on.  That's a good sign.  He's attached to the land.  Not only that,  he had the old flooded house bulldozed right away.  With its overgrown yard, boarded-up windows, and collapsing garage, it had become an eyesore.   The new neighbor will be a good one.