Digging my ditch

Last Friday, we went south of the city to visit a few old project sites, only to discover that one of our ever-rising creeks (thanks, development!) finally exhausted a client's already short fuse. He was tired of it eroding his property line and threatening the hundred year-old stack of sticks shed at the water's edge. So, he did what any rational person would do.

He made a pond.

And by "made a pond," I mean borrowed a neighbor's backhoe and dug a 10-foot hole in the middle of his yard, near enough to the creek that the crumbling bank is likely to collapse at any time. Surprisingly, officials noticed the sudden emergence of a pond where no such thing had existed previously, and they told him to fill the damn thing up again before they fined him.

But the pond, having been made, is apparently staying. The officials are probably too afraid of his massive pond-digging tools to mess with him.

His next door neighbor? That guy looked at the creek, looked at his sloping property, and decided, "Hey, I know where to build a great house! Right in the depression next to the creek!" Just to be sure he really enjoyed the full benefits of annual flooding, he made sure that nobody put any pesky stilts under his house. No sir, just wet, wet floors for that man.

Naturally, of course, both the pond and the soggy house are our faults. Stupid third parties, trying to mediate. Should've just dredged the damn creek and buried the channel in concrete.

Meanwhile, a third party is busy sabatoging our tree plantings by using deer antlers to scrape away all the bark. In February.

I really want to be there when the person's in action, just to wander up and innocently ask where all the antler-wearing deer come from in the middle of winter.

Gotta love my job. Beaver management and landowner pacification. At least I'm never bored, right?