Our Neighborhood

House being remodeled next door

There is a lot of variety in our neighborhood. Every day we walk we see new things. There are a lot of houses being built or remodeled. There are also quite a few houses that have been partially built or almost finished where all work has stopped and in some cases for a long time. There are very small houses (one to two rooms) and very large two-story houses.

There are houses and yards that are very well kept and others that are very run-down. There are also many piles of trash. Most of the roads are paved but some are still dirt. When we walk we see many of the well-kept yards have two-liter pop bottles filled with water on the grass. We could not figure out what they were for until a man told us they were effective at keeping dogs from pooping on the grass because they see their distorted reflections in the bottles and it scares them off - quite ingenius. There a many empty lots and a large open field where they play soccer in the evenings. There are people who seem to work every day cutting brush and burning it in the open fields. Unfortunately, they do not pick up the trash while they are doing that.

There are termite mounds everywhere, even in our neighborhood. We found a particularly large one in a building lot one block from our house. You can see some of the trash at the bottom of the mound. There are also many beautiful wild flowers in bloom at the side of the road or in empty lots right now. We live a couple of blocks from a senior couple, President and Sister Kimball. He is in the mission presidency. We are a ten-minute walk from a large shopping mall but still have cattle wandering through the neighborhood.

Grass was planted at our house this week. The workers put out individual plants eight inches apart that they brought in a gunny sack. The grass puts out long runners. It is pretty coarse but looks a lot better than dirt. We were lucky because it rained today and was cooler which will help the grass get established. I don't know how often it will need to be cut. It should make our yard look much better. The workers also cleaned up outside the gate so it is much improved. We pass a lot of people when we walk and they are always very friendly.