It's No Rear Window...It's Front Driveway

As if the past couple days of Farmer H's escapades with the knife-wearing Stick Man who blocks the upper road with limbs wasn't enough to set Mrs. HM's nerves on edge...

Friday evening, Farmer H went to work. For fun, really. He wanted to pick up a big metal shelf that he plans to put in our basement to put more junk on. He said he could load it with the forklift, and the night shift would be there, so there would be no suspicions of impropriety. Yeah, right. Like Farmer H used those words. But he DID want to go while people were there working, and could see what he was doing.

He had no sooner left than I went out for my walk. It was 4:20. The Pony would probably get a smirk out of that. The dogs are not on speaking terms with each other lately, because Copper has forged a wedge between them. Juno is depressed, and Jack looks remorseful, like he knows HE'S the one who cheated. So they don't romp along beside the driveway with me. Jack ducks under the fence on the right side of our property, into Copper's field, and they often flush a rabbit out of the brush. Juno sighs heavily and lays down in the yard, near the big cedar.

Now here's the worrisome part. As I got near the end of the driveway, I heard a car coming. I often turn around and start back. I don't wanna see no stinkin' people during my walk. And I don't want them to see me. Sweet Gummi Mary! As of late, I've been wearing a man's CPO jacket and a Carhartt sock cap. I don't want to wave, and I don't want to be a snob if THEY wave and I don't wave back. I'd rather show them my back, and double up later on the distance I cut short.

So...I was looking down the road so I could pivot when I saw that car coming. Oh, I saw it. I saw the lights, coming over the rise in front of our other property. We have the original 10 acres we built the house on, and the 10 next to it that we bought a few years later. There's a pipe in the ditch to make a crude driveway over on that property. That's where the car was.

AND IT STOPPED!

Huh. I wondered if it might be HOS, getting ready to drive down in the field. Maybe looking for Farmer H. But HOS has a truck and an SUV. This was a van. Weird. I went back down the driveway, looped around by the carport, and started Lap 2. That van was STILL there! I was suspicious. What if they saw Farmer H leave? What were they doing? Maybe they were going to steal something from the BARn. Maybe they had been headed for the the house, and saw ME!

I was not happy with this new development. Nobody should be parked there. That's our property. Nobody has business on it. I though about taking out my phone, and snapping a picture. But it won't zoom very far. Not to see a license plate. I though about walking down the road, and asking if something was wrong. If they needed help. But you know Mrs. HM. She's not confrontational. So I went all the way onto the road on Lap 3, and glared that direction. Stopped walking a minute. Watched. Muttered.

My protector Jack ran up then, for his end-of-the-driveway petting. He gets that every trip if he shows up, and if he has stayed out of the horse field. There was now a person standing at the fence on the land across from ours, looking into the field. It belongs to the people at the bottom of the hill. The one where they had THEIR rocks harvested before ours. Nothing is in that field. Especially not rocks! Sometimes they put their horses in it, but I haven't seen them in a while. I think they've been in their barn.

Huh. Things got curiouser and curiouser. On my final lap, I heard tires on gravel. The van was moving! I didn't want to look right at it. But I called Jack over, and glanced up from petting him. It was a small white van, with a company name on it. I see it out here all the time. It's somebody who lives on past us. I don't know what the deal was, but I made a mental note to tell Farmer H.

I'm sure he'll be interested in another person to call the cops on.