The good and the bad...

I never know which to tell first... the good news or the bad news.  In this case, I'm not sure the good news outweighs the bad news, so it probably doesn't matter.

So, good news first:  THE CREEK IS FULL!  We got almost 2 inches of rain over the weekend and so the deep cracks in the earth are gone and the creek is running.  The rain was wonderful.

As you can see, plenty of water.  (You can also see that it's still a mess!  Because of the possible land swap with our neighbor we didn't have the tree guys do any work on the creek yet.  Turns out the neighbors don't seem to want to swap anymore which means a whole additional issue with fencing across the creek... but we'll cross that bridge a little later!)

I wanted to go out and see the creek during the rain but never had a chance.  I could tell where it had been at least a foot or two higher.  I wonder where our giant turtle is hanging out now. 

One creature that will no longer be hanging out at our property is this one:

Not sure what kind it is... I don't think it is poisonous... but the tree workers didn't take any chances.  Our resident hawks or some other scavenger had removed the evidence the next day. 

So, finding a snake on the property COULD be considered bad news, but not really.  That is to be expected.  If it had bit someone that would have been bad news.  The bad news is....

One of the people up the street called the city because of all the tree work going on.  You know, that's not exactly a quiet process, removing and chipping up tree branches.  So, the "tree police" came out and were not happy with the number and size of trees that had been removed from the perimeter of our property (without a permit.)  And they weren't happy with the dirt that had been dumped (without a permit.)  They posted a stop work order.  So now the tree work is at a standstill.  We own the property but we can't really do what we want to or need to on it without the city having a say. (It seems that they have lots of reasons to issue permits and collect the associated fees.)  I've been waiting for the "Landscape Administrator" (aka tree police) to call me today to find out where we go from here but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back with me. 

Not sure how all of THIS is going to affect the current re-zoning issues, including trying to get the variance to allow us to have the barn set forward from the house.  Some of the neighbors have voiced some concern over the smell of the horses (a smell I happen to love) and the fact that their dogs may "go crazy."  All we can tell them at this point is that we will keep a very clean barn and we will do what we can to minimize the impact on the neighborhood.  I spent much of the weekend fretting and stewing at all hours of the day and night.  Today I'm just irritated.  Maybe that's progress!

Hopefully the next post will be all good news.