Our home is on the side of a mountain. It’s just off the road that crosses this particular mountain range, with our lengthy driveway meeting the main road right where it turns from macadam into compacted gravel. Consequently, our driveway is where the school buses stop.
A half dozen vehicles idle there each morning, every one with a child or two waiting for the bus. (Why the kids can’t simply be deposited to stand by the side of the road, I cannot imagine.) The bus pulls up, the kids hurl themselves from the mothership’s airlock to the school bus’, and everybody turns around in our driveway, one at a time, including the bus. This scene repeats itself twice more each morning, and in reverse three or four times in the afternoon.
The deep ruts running through our lawn were what clued us into one parent’s usage of our property as a parking space. (We maintain a large, grassy, semi-treed area down by the road, where a stream flows through.) The grass was dead, ground into hardened, compacted mud where a vehicle had clearly been parking regularly for quite some time. I checked on a recent morning and, lo and behold, a Ford Expedition was parked full on our lawn, three feet removed from the road.
Full of the righteous indignation shared by all those who have newly discovered their property rights, I hopped in my Volvo and headed to town, returning an hour later with a half dozen four-foot cedar stakes. I planted them in the ground along the road at intervals of ten feet, preventing the damned gas-hog from doing any more damage.
Yesterday, still flush with the sheer genius of this tactical maneuver, I checked on my barricade, hoping for some sign indicating my opponent’s frustration (a broken twig or a smudge in the earth; hey, I’ve read “The Tracker“…twice). Instead, I found straw and grass seed.
The sonofabitch seeded my lawn.
I’m gonna go take the stakes down. I feel like a jerk.
that is awesome.
Don’t you just hate it when things like that happen?!!! I can soooo see myself doing the same thing! Knowing my luck it would have been a disabled person or something and their wheelchair lift had broken causing the damage….
But would the person have realized the error of their ways and put the seed down if you hadn’t made things clear with the cedar stakes?
Another option would be to measure out 2 intentional tracks for the tires and put down gravel along them. That way you’ve got a nice little SUV path and can keep the grass in the middle and on the other side.
Option 3, which would be still nicer of you, would be to put up a little 3 sided shelter with a bench in it for the kids to sit in under cover while they wait for the bus. Then the cars don’t need to idle there. Except maybe for kindergardners.
You sure it’s grass seed? Maybe it’s something more nefarious.
Haha, that is a great story. You should post more stuff like this Waldo, you are a good story teller.
Way of the Scout for life!
That cute story renews my faith in human beings for the next 24 hours or at least until I next decide to turn on cable news. :-\
Even without the lawn ruts, the twice daily ritual you describe with the parents cars, the bus, and your driveway would (were I in your situation) drive me to irritation. Who moves out to the country to watch (or listen to) a crowd of cars idle in front of one’s house twice daily?
With the Caveat that I’ve never seen your lawn so don’t know if this would be doable or practical.. I’m going to suggest my favorite solution for limiting property encroachment: Start a row of boxwood hedges to create a natural border. Not only will it act as a deterent, but it will also beautify the property.
Then on either side, at the bottom of the driveway, deeply sink wood posts so that about 2.5 to 3 feet are above ground. Then run a heavy gauge chain across the driveway connecting the two posts.
Further you could call the school system and ask them to move the bus stop to another location. It might take a few tries, but they would probably move the stop.
I prefer the old axiom, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
We’re on 34 acres, significantly back from the road. I can only see (or hear) the cars when the leaves are off the trees, and I can really only make things out with my 15×25 Bushnells. I appreciate the the bus has to drop the kids off somewhere, and that the end of the paved road is a pretty good place to do that. If the county will just repair the drainage pipe that the bus has totally crushed by driving over so many times each day (and stop driving through our drainage ditch), I figure it’s all good.
34 acres? Oh well that’s a bit different then. That’s about a decent sized (mom and pop type) farm.
In that case I’d plant the box woods anyway.. and let them grow as big as you can get them. Then (after they get big) every couple of years you’ll be able to find someone who’s willing to pay you money to prune them.
Makes you want to throw your Birkenstocks at the wall, huh, Waldo?
Somehow, I just knew you drove a Volvo. A 760 wagon, perhaps? GRIN
Er…no. I generally wear cowboy boots or sneakers. Birkenstocks are for pansy froo-froos.
I don’t actually know anything about Volvos, other than that they’re the best deal going for used cars, they’re very safe, and they’re what Edgecomb’s sells, and I only care to drive cars that I can get at Edgecomb’s. Mine is an 8…something, from 199…something. (4?) Ah, I googled my site and found that it’s a 1994 850. This is my first car; before this I’ve only had my 1973 Honda CL 350.
You’ll be interested to know that Volvo ownership is a predictor of affiliation with the Republican Party. The correlation isn’t strong enough to be terribly useful — that mantle is claimed by the Mercury Sable, which is the most Republican car, last I checked.
“You’ll be interested to know that Volvo ownership is a predictor of affiliation with the Republican Party.”
They didn’t ask this guy. I drive a 1987 740 GL (330,000 miles baby) and Im about as Republican as Fidel Castro.