City folk

My husband and I are known as city folk around here. It's a burden we carry, as we experience lack of respect from our neighbors and contractors.

It just goes on and on, and I have given up on remodeling because of my utter disappointment in the service (we went 6 months without a shower and had to use an outhouse because they took so long to rebuild our bathroom. Trust me getting up in the night with a flashlight to pee, like camping, is only fun whilst camping.)

Today we got very bad news.

Just yesterday Herr Daniels was here dragging our pasture. He promised that sometime in the week his cousin Karsten would come fertilize and kalk our pasture. I was excited cuz the last couple years Daniels has not added anything, he'd just harvested.

If you've been reading my blog a while, you know Karsten. He's a professional show jumper and on the side he is a hay farmer like his father before him (his father who rammed one of our Tposts into an Spost).

We stopped dealing with Karsten a few years ago because he found us too tedious to deal with. He harvestd our pasture, but did not pay us the percentage of bales agreed upon, so my animals had no hay in Winter. Also, at some point Karsten stopped returning ANY communication from my husband. To be ignored about our business arrangement 100% of the time was not aceptable to us.

It was so bad, trying to get our portion of hay from Karsten, we'd line our Prius with a tarp and drive across the watershed to his family's farm and fill our little Prius with hay. We had his permission, of course. I expect he was thrilled he did not have to deliver, only listen to complaints from his boarders.  Sometimes people would stop us and say who are you and why are you putting our hay in your car? But for the most part, we could just go schlepp away a few bales without problem.

So we let him go, good riddance.

***

When Daniels said Karsten would come fertilize our pasture this week, he couldn't specify when he'd come, only "sometime during the week."

It shoudln't have been the very next morning, according to the German language (in der laufe der Woche).

We assumed we would be told when this would happen and we were wrong.

And I padocked our gate, as usual.

Slacker Karsten arrived with the fertilizer truck today and found our main gate padlocked. I am kicking myself for locking it now.

Karsten rang up Daniels and complained he could not enter our pasture to fertilize it.

Daniels called J and said, *sigh*.......

"I WILL NOT BE MAKING HAY ON YOUR PASTURE THIS YEAR, because of no fertilizer.

My cousin Karsten stood at your gate with his tractor and could not enter!  It's not worth it for me to come harvest hay if there's no fertilizer."

Holy crap what? Last year he made 180 bales without fertilizing (I keep track of this stuff). Then he profitted selling those bales back to us for a price I'd never imagined, because there was a drought and they could not do a second cut.

What is going on here?

My husband's reaction was logical, of course:

#1: Karsten has our phone number. He can call me anytime. He also has J's cell phone!
#2: Karsten has the combination to our gate lock! We have never changed it.
#3: Karsten knows where our house is and can ring our doorbell!  J said, "My wife was home all day long."

WTH.

I had hours to ponder it, before J came home from work. I had remained very calm on the phone cuz I could feel how upset he was about this betrayal.

When he finally arrived I said, "There is something else going on. How could Karsten be so stupid, as to forget where we live, forget our phone number, forget our combo?"

The most likely answer is what has happened so many times ---- they send some lackey to do their work, without any previous knowledge of us or our property.

But even then, wouldn't an employee call Karsten or Daniels and ask for the combo? Or ask how to contact the owner? What is going on here?

I believe there is more going on than we know, and that Karsten and his cousin Daniels are not on good terms. And we are being punished for it.

I know our field has to be mown to keep it in good health (we don't have enough animals to keep it under control, nor the weeds). I would hate for it to be mown and left, not harvested. I just pray we can find someone who will come and mow and harvest (silage, most likely) and give us a little bit of money that we can use on hay.

Until now, we've had either the Slacker Karsten or his cousin Daniels reap our hay, and then give us 1/3 of the harvest for free. A win-win situation, our field gets tended, and our hay loft gets a little hay. We buy the rest of the year's hay at full price.

It's so frustrating cuz I have this feeling we are seen as outsiders, and worse, city folk. Nearly every contractor has taken advantage of us (try showering in your kitchen sink for 6 months!).

J laughed when I said, "The only one who hasn't screwed us is the installer of our Plissee on 4 windows!"

***

Since December our front gate to our horse paddock has been broken. After repairs a few years ago, set in new concrete, the wooden post just re-disintegrated into dust. THREE MONTHS I've been nursing this gate open and closed, and stringing up a chain to keep my animals from pushing it over and running into the street.

J had three contractors agree to come fix our gate post. 0:3 came. One of them came and looked at it, and promised to fix it, and we never heard from him again. The other two were people we knew from this neighborhood but apparently don't need our business for such a small job.

I mentioned my problem to my veterinarian who was here last week to work on teeth. (Teeth, not fences, as I'd mispoken on the phone making the appointment. There is only one letter difference between tooth and fence in German. The vet laughed when I said, "OK go ahead and check our fencing too.") The vet mentioned another client of his, who owns Warmbloods, Mr Candy. He's a contractor. OK please get your butt to Finally Farm Mr Candy!

Today Mr Candy came by and fixed it with 150 pounds of concrete. We'd spent *100 euros* on one single metal post that should not budge if properly installed. I wonder why anyone wants to deal with wooden fences, ever, ever!! Mr Candy worked for two hours in alternating hail and sunny thunderstorms. I hid in the house but helped him near the end. He said only a buldozer would take that post down in the future. Good.

Hopefully Mr Candy did not screw us like so many others, upon discovering we are city folk.

He saw our three fish ponds, overgrown and neglected since we'd rented them out to a neighbor to take care of them. He asked to see them but we can no longer visit our ponds because this latest renter has laid all his yard waste/branches directly in the path by our gate. Is that even legal, that I cannot visit my own ponds? I tried taking away his pile but he just reinforced it. Unbelievable. Since we have a contract with him, J explained it to me like this - it's like we are renting an apartment to a tenant. We are not allowed to just barge in at any time.

Mr Candy said he'd happily take over our ponds and restore them to use.

This is the fourth time I've heard this line in 10 years. These fish people all have such ambition, and then they walk away.

J gave me the "good" news today that the city needs to inspect our ponds this year (every type of agriculture has to be inspected here) and most likely the city will find us in negligence, and we can push our renters out. Maybe little Mr Candy can jump in. He said fish keeping is his hobby. I answered, "You have HORSES. Horses are your hobby." He said, "Fish and horses." Ok then.

***

Mag is a freak and I love him but my gosh, it's just another horse passing by! He lost his SH%$ yesterday, rearing up on the lead line because another horse went by on Hohestrasse. He was so bad the rider of that Icelandic had to dismount! I'm still pissed at him. Why should that be a problem?

Oh, cuz Ani and I only ride midweek mornings, when no one else is out? *sigh* OK then.

He is adorable though, and Michi said, "He's as pretty as Baasha was when he was misbehaving!"