Peace and Quiet, Anyone?

My front garden, with the neighbor's gardener's truck parked on the street.  You can't fence out noise. 

A beautiful Saturday morning.  I put on old clothes and go out to work in the garden.  In the distance I can hear the heavy, persistent drone of a power mower.  I think, "the perils of living in suburbia," even though I live in Berkeley, which is not exactly suburbia, but people do have yards.  Mercifully, 15 minutes later it stops.

 Peace. 

The man across the street starts vacuuming his car. 

I think about getting my MP3 player so I can listen to music to drown out the noise, but it's too much trouble to take off my gardening shoes and go indoors for it.

The vacuuming stops.   Peace again.

A truck parks in front of my house,  and two gardeners begin an all-out assault on our next door neighbors' yard, with a power mower,  a leaf-blower, and edge-trimmers.  The neighbors, of course, are gone.  The rest of us listen to this chorus of machines.

I give up.

I spray that foul-smelling goop, Liquid Fence, which really does deter deer, on a new plant that's being (quietly) chewed each night by the resident neighborhood herd and retreat to the house.