What did you do to make your neighbors think you are crazy?

Setting the alarm for sunrise, in winter, to put out warm hummingbird feeder. Feeding organic walnuts to squirrels.  

Vacuum the pine cones out of the yard, prior to mowing, and the leaves from the flower garden, before winter sets in, using my shop vac and a cyclone pre-filter.

Me, to neighbor who just moved in next door: "Hey, can I have those cardboard boxes you're recycling? (With excited grin)"
Neighbor: "Aw, you don't want these. I left them out in the rain, they're ruined."
Me (now with BIGGER grin): "I'll take 'em all!"

Sheet mulching layer for my front yard. Perfect timing, too! And I missed the chance/was too lazy to scavenge from the bins on collection day.

The biggest pain is removing all that tape!

At this moment I live in the city in an area that has neat manicured lawns. It drives my enighbours crazy that we put off mowing the grass for as long as possible ...and then do not rake up the cuttings.

We let the yard grow. I've harvested dewberries out of it, and have let the backyard go to the chickens. It's now pretty covered over with mulberry trees and goldenrod. Native asters, too. We have native grasses growing that blew in from somewhere, and I let them do their Tall Grass Prairie thing. Wheat has gone wild and replaced part of what the builder scattered years ago, and we have sections that are white or yellow clover seasonally, or some odd grass that has been stubborn enough to survive total neglect, chickens, and goose grazing. I have scattered fenugreek around the backyard and have great huge clumps of it that the chickens eat from time to time, and that provide a spot for other things to grow.

My neighbor needs to think, have "alone time", and get out of his house every so often but his youngest son likes to drive their yard tractor and keeps their backyard closely mowed, so he (Neighbor) mows part of my front yard with his tractor. Slowly. He covers most of the front on his side, the drainage ditch on that side, and the side yard. He carefully avoids the pretty tea rose up front and the sprawling swamp rose in the back.
He doesn't understand why we don't want a nice lawn. Or pretty gardens.
He has a nice yard he's completely fenced off and filled with the cars of his family - multi-generational household. Sometimes they have parties and have a bouncy house and grill out. (We don't get invited. lol)

I told him that my trees help with the heat and feed the chickens. I use the grass part of the yard to feed the geese, and rake up what I can of the softer old growth to provide bedding where it's needed. We agree that wild rodents should stay in the fields and he would prefer it if I did more to keep the grass down between us, but if I let him mow and don't fuss about his goats he'll do that part until I get around to it.

I go out with a garden fork in the Spring and Early Summer rains and poke holes where Neighbor drives the tractor so I get better water penetration from the compacted soil. Our yard soaks up the rain like the sponge it is, while his yard runs water off in sheets.
My geese enjoy wandering over into the side yard to watch his chickens and yell at his dogs.

They think I'm a crazy woman and my husband is an overworked guy with a weird wife. I think I'll be giving them an "extra" rooster soon. We have lovely conversations, very infrequently, over the fence.

Brody Ekberg wrote:

S Ydok wrote:

Carla Burke wrote:

T Simpson wrote:

greg mosser wrote:probably when i erected a crow-feeding platform that i stock with mice we caught in the house.

That's pretty weird dude..

Yup! But, this is a fantastic idea! Crows are not interested in eating your poultry, but are a deterrent to raptors, which are VERY interested in eating domestic poultry. It's a means of attracting LGBs! (Livestock Guardian Birds!)

This sounds interesting!

I see people struggling with predator birds around their chickens all the time on Facebook and nobody has ever brought up attracting crows. I think it’s a great idea, although they definitely could get annoying with all their noise. Definitely will keep the idea in mind though!

Don’t crows go after chicks?

Vanessa Smoak wrote:Don’t crows go after chicks?

So far, our hens have been very protective of the chicks, and we've not lost one to any predator - even the black snakes that occasionally get into the coop and steal eggs, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't.

I told them that I don’t have a TV or wifi. CRAZY!

Austin Durant wrote:Me, to neighbor who just moved in next door: "Hey, can I have those cardboard boxes you're recycling? (With excited grin)"
Neighbor: "Aw, you don't want these. I left them out in the rain, they're ruined."
Me (now with BIGGER grin): "I'll take 'em all!"

Sheet mulching layer for my front yard. Perfect timing, too! And I missed the chance/was too lazy to scavenge from the bins on collection day.

The biggest pain is removing all that tape!

I can relate. Neighbors that do a LOT of online shopping generate lots of cardboard for me to pilfer from their recycling cans.

Probably when my three year old self ended up in a rural emergency room after the barn cat tried to take out my trachea.

I was out at the well pump in the dusk with my hippie-freegan-but-urban parents who were visiting their hippie off grid farmer friends in Loachapoka Alabama. We were getting water, maybe for my bath in a tin tub in the middle of the living room. The grown ups took showers from some kind of bag rigged up above them. Cold of course. It was the 70's. I had probably already hit the outhouse for the night. I was convinced that there were bears in the outhouse after dark t so no way was I using those facilities after nightfall.

Anyway, the well and pump were behind the garden and we were all out there in the evening cool. The grown ups were chatting and I was wandering around looking at things. I saw a big black cat walking in the garden and thought "oh, a kitty cat that I should pat!" and started toward it. My mom said "Merce! Stop!" and the next thing I knew I was on my back with a cat on top of me biting into my throat.

The next think I remember was a lot of hollering about whose car to take me to the hospital in and arguing about where to go. I don't remember crying myself but I was bleeding from the throat copiously and can imagine that that freaked them all out pretty badly. After that was some kind of rural hospital with the last light streaming in through the windows and a bald doctor with twinkly glasses and a white coat leaning over me. I got stitched up. There is still a scar in the soft part of my throat. They put the cat down after finding that it didn't have rabies.

I was three and I thought all of the grown ups there were crazy. The doctor probably did too. Cannot imagine what the neighbors thought.

I weed the weeds.

Along our quiet street there is a three acre, permanently empty plot and stretches of green that are public land.  The plots have lamb's quarters, garlic mustard, woodland lettuce, curly dock, bitter dock,  purple deadnettle, wild garlic, chicory, narrow leaf and broadleaf plaintain, chickweed, sorrel,  and clover.  In other words, Fast food!  Free vegetables! Unfortunately, the mugwort is trying to move in and take over.  

I can't have a barely useful, superspreader, invasive weed overcome my delicious, nutritious weeds!  So, my neighbors  watch as I weed among the weeds, tearing out only the mugwort, especially after a soaking rain when it's easier.  

One day as I was gathering some greens and pulling mugwort, our wonderful, funny, busybody neighbor Chris  goodnaturedly asked me,
"What the hell are you doing?"
I explained.  
Dire warnings about being poisoned, wildlife peeing on my food, etc., followed by the inevitable "You're crazy!".  
I think he loves it.

I do sometimes wonder if my neighbours think I'm crazy, as I:


1. Pick dandelion heads and put them in a basket.

2. Pick stinging nettles with my bare hands and put them in a bowl.

3. Pile up logs and branches all over the yard, and cover them with dirt.

4. Walk around my yard looking for fiddleheads and taking off the heads.

5. Tell my dog to "be nice to the plants!"

6. Wander the yard looking for sticks for trellises.

Susan Mené wrote:I weed the weeds.

Along our quiet street there is a three acre, permanently empty plot and stretches of green that are public land.  The plots have lamb's quarters, garlic mustard, woodland lettuce, curly dock, bitter dock,  purple deadnettle, wild garlic, chicory, narrow leaf and broadleaf plaintain, chickweed, sorrel,  and clover.  In other words, Fast food!  Free vegetables! Unfortunately, the mugwort is trying to move in and take over.  

I can't have a barely useful, superspreader, invasive weed overcome my delicious, nutritious weeds!  So, my neighbors  watch as I weed among the weeds, tearing out only the mugwort, especially after a soaking rain when it's easier.  

One day as I was gathering some greens and pulling mugwort, our wonderful, funny, busybody neighbor Chris  goodnaturedly asked me,
"What the hell are you doing?"
I explained.  
Dire warnings about being poisoned, wildlife peeing on my food, etc., followed by the inevitable "You're crazy!".  
I think he loves it.

Mugwort is a wonderful medicinal. It helps promote relaxation and good sleep, as well as being able to remember dreams, better, if you want.

Susan Mené wrote:One day as I was gathering some greens and pulling mugwort, our wonderful, funny, busybody neighbor Chris  goodnaturedly asked me,
"What the hell are you doing?"
I explained.  
Dire warnings about being poisoned, wildlife peeing on my food, etc., followed by the inevitable "You're crazy!".  

And what does he think happens in commercial fields of green stuff?
This reminds me of the people who tell me that they prefer to eat out "because the food is cleaner". They have never worked fast food or in a commercial kitchen.

in't that the truth.

Well, not my neighbors but my husband.  After laughing till the tears ran down my face, I tried to explain what was so funny about THIS comment:

Dc Stewart wrote:If you've been really good, Santa will urinate on the biochar so that it's already inoculated.

from this thread:

https://permies.com/t/218487/casual-thought#1852990

I do a lot of stuff some folks would find crazy so as to avoid judgemental stares and the unwanted opinions of others I bought land where I have no neighbors. There is not a soul within eyes shot of my homestead. Only deer and bear. wolves, coyotes, etc and they are never judgy. I can do as I please and only I can see and hear it.

I was once house sitting for a friend with a miniature agroforestry system.  It was in a more mesic environment that didn't get so much rain.  He was on rain water catchment.  

Sure enough while i was there it started to rain, and it was enough to overflow the catchment tank. So i decided to go out side into the rain, turn on the water hose, and strategically spread the water out into the landscape, rather than letting it all go into one spot to drain away.  

The neighbors probably thought the hamster running the wheel in my head died.  "What is he doing watering in the rain?"

Went exploring with my dog.  Found a sump (water recharge basin) that had a new "entrance" cut into the wire fencing.  Aways wanted to go in there, so I did.  An hour later, my across-the-street neighbor met me walking home.  

oh dear. i also never see my neighbors until.... i have a machete in my hand, horsefly bites bleeding down my face, manure splattered everywhere, or some other ridiculous situation. I know they think i'm nuts.... with lots of justification.

Too bad about the shirt though!!! (anything fun inside the sump area, besides all the DNA evidence you left?)

Soon after we moved here, there was flooding, I took a mattock and chopped out channels to put the water where I wanted it. The water was flowing, so I could see how to channel it easily, but that meant every stroke of the mattock splashed mud all over me.
A truck pulled in "Hi! I'm your neighbor down the road!!" "Hi! I'm a muddy mess!!"
Lovely way to meet the neighbors....
:D

I put my greenhouse in the front yard, and butcher animals in the backyard. I live in a small rural city.

My neighbors are amused by the whole thing.

Yelling at them. We value our privacy and bought a 4 acre lot tucked waay back at the end of the street in "town", by town I mean a small village on the edge of a state park. What we didn't know is that there's been a concerted effort by the neighbors from a more cluttered part of the town to declare our private road and utility easement along our creek as public property, so a number of them started a campaign to use it as walking path.  Again, we're private people, and I also get up to weird and maybe not the most legal stuff, like making charcoal, and I don't want people wandering through our property.

I put up signs and turned away anybody who came on without business.  I mean anybody, old men and women, groups of middle aged ladies, local utility company people checking on things in their casual clothes with their personal vehicles.  One of the signs from previous owners that I left up says, "Beware of dog", we don't have a dog, I joke that I am the dog. After about 2 years, they finally gave up and stopped coming.  Now we're the crazy anti-social people at the end of the road who get up to who-knows-what. Technically, that's true. lol

My elderly neighbor saw me picking aronia berries in my food forest and asked if I was picking blueberries.  I told him what they were and gave him a handful to try.  He spit them out really fast, turned tail and muttered his way back to his porch.  I get gallons of them and love them for jelly and wine but I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm crazy.

I have been piecemealing a wooden 'retention' wall on the side of my property where I am trying to reverse years of erosion by adding biomass behind the wall and essentially making a hugel at the base of a small five foot decline.

Tree trunks, branches, shrub pruning all go towards it. It isn't a mess but it is sizable.

Nobody has said anything to me so far, but I have had 'donations' appear next to property of branches/tree trunks. Nothing crazy, but someone has noticed!

Estimated water usage before we moved to the country.  Installed water tanks for double that amount.  We are known as "the tank farm"
Needless to say, we have water when others are organising tanker deliveries.  Ha! not so silly now.     It is looking a bit iffy since there has been half the "normal" rainfall over the past 12 months.