I am very lucky to have great neighbors and I strive for them to describe me as such. One is elderly and fairly recently, a widow. They had thier daughter and granddaughter move in to help with the husband who had lung cancer and only had a short period of time left. They had a bedroom and bathroom built in their walkout basement for the move-in. The walkout door had grading issues that needed to be resolved before the new basement work and they put it off. Right before they finished the work we got about a 6" rainstorm one morning and it flooded all the new work in teh basement. I was alterted to this by my other neighbor and I promptly went over with my backhoe and dug a trench to drain the water out of the basement and away from the door. They are outstanding people and was happy to help. I was several hours late for work but my boss understood. She is now a widow and I recently had to dig a hole for the daughters deceased dog. I also always go over after a snowstorm and clean up beside the garage with my tractor because their plow guy cant get to that area. When the snow gets deep, I always go over with the roof rake and rake the eaves before they develop ice dams. And she makes the best pies I have EVER had!:licking:
Two other neighbors are elderly widowed sisters. I cut firewood for them, rake their roof, move their leaves after they are raked up. We even have a strange lawnmower arangement where they own a lawntractor and I perform all maintience on it for exchange in using it to mow my own lawn, and they are hard on stuff
At least their nephew works at the JD dealer so I can get parts at cost :thumbsup: But just to see how happy they are to be able to mow thier own lawn when they want is worth it. I am constantly getting pans of lasagna, and brownies, pies, cookies ect. I save a lot of money on groceries:thumbsup:
One of my neighbors owns a beef farm and I am first in line when haying season comes around because I enjoy it. He is the type of guy to quickly accept any help offered but always repays it 200%. I bushogged his fence line last week for about an hour and I got 4 nice porterhouse steaks in return. :thumbsup: My tractor is much smaller than any of his tractors on his farm but it clearly has a place, as it is the only one that fits under his barn and the only one with a backhoe. Anything that he has I could consider mine also. He mentioned he needed some minor welding done on his baler that needed a wire feed welder, something I have and he does not. I had him drop off the part and I returned it repaired in a few hours. He often has me pull up to his off road diesel tank to top off my tractor. Most of the time we barely say thank you to each other but it is very much understood. It is a relationship that I really enjoy.
My other neighbor is the brother of the farm owner, another outstanding guy. I help him whenever I get the chance also. I dug some stumps with my backhoe for him last fall. He said he would pay me but I told him it wasnt necessary. They were mostly pines and poplars and several years old so it wasnt terrible digging. I went over a few days later to see if he had a right angle drill for project I was doing. He didnt but he said here you go and gave me a Lowes gift card. I said it was not necessary but he and his wife insisted I take it. I figure it was for $20 or something like that, and was happy to have it and happy he appreciated it. It wasnt until I got to Lowes that I realized it was for $300!!:confused2: I felt kind bad at that point but I knew he would never take it back and I know hes not living paycheck to paycheck.
When I started framing my garage a few years ago, he heard me outside early in the morning setting up to start framing. He came walking through the woods with histoolbelt on and helped me for an entire saturday and I didnt even ask! He makes his living as a carpenter and is an unbelievable worker, so its not like it was just having another warm body around. He even brought his own staging over with him. Everyday I am thankful that I live in a place that is almost like everyone is in competition for being the best neighbor.
Like many of you, I bought my tractor to get a bunch of projects done around the house and because tractors are just plain cool
. And just using my tractor is its own reward but helping others using it takes it way over the top in the satisfaction departement.
And then their is the woman who lives across from the farm. She bought some hay bales from my farmer neighbor but her horses didnt like it...so she didnt pay for it. She didnt return it, just decided its not good enough to pay for. I wouldnt give her the time of day!
Thanks to you all for making the world a better place and TBN a good place to hang out.
