My good neighbours are the farmers who deliver my feed and straw during the winter and take the bales across the field and pop them over the fence to save me rolling them through gates - one of the lads jumps the fence and helps unwrap them into the rings too and always stops for a wee blether. The hay man likewise, could deliver 6-8 at a time but comes with 2-3 to make sure I'm ok when it's snowy and always stops to chat too. When my 4yo pony died it was the first lot that came out with ropes to drag her away from the fence while we tried to get her up, and the second that came with a tractor to drag her body up the field so it wasn't lying out overnight til collected.. I know they keep a bit of an eye on me working on my own for days at a time, they're often the only people I see from week to week in the worst weather!
As for immediate neighbours in house terms, the couple next door moved out last week after 18 years and I was worried as they aren't animal or country folk but happily put up with muddy gateways, boggy bale areas outside their kitchen window, twice the flooding of field drains (first time into their garage, second thankfully diverted by the first's emergency runoff), phoned me if they saw anything untoward in the fields, and enjoyed the cats wandering over their garden and into their house on occasion.. I met the new ones yesterday and am very hopeful as he is from a local farming family up Newport way but ex military and civil service, newly retired while she is a university person and tho they have a rather nervous and yappy dog they are all really lovely and he has offered to try and help with anything he can - and is planning to buy a chainsaw
so I may get my bigger logs chopped up finally in return for plums as he loves them and they're nearly ripe now
The other side is another story but not for a good neighbour thread
