Neighborhood Work Party

We have new neighbors across the driveway from our back door. A young couple with a nine month old baby moved in three weeks ago. They are the third owners of the 1949 ranch style house on a 75 by 100 lot. The first owner is 97 and lives in a retirement home. The second owner, a couple about our age, bought a house on the east side of the mountains.

The garden went to heck over the past few summers due to the owners spending most of their time somewhere else. We've watched the young couple struggle to deal with three summers worth of weeds and overgrown vegetation. I thought it might be fun to mount a neighborhood work party and give them a boost up. Our closest neighbors were eager to help.

This morning seven of us showed up to help the young couple and a visiting mother-in-law clean out the grass choked 50+ year-old raspberry vines. The adults pulled grass, ate blueberry muffins, and chatted, the baby entertained herself with toys, and Quinn, the neighborhood cat, lounged in the middle of it all.

My mother was right, "It's not work at the neighbor's house."