Every winter snowmobilers trespass across our yard to get from one street to another.  They zip across the snow too fast to catch a license plate number.  Between the noise of their engines and their protective helmets, it’s virtually impossible to attract their attention verbally.  One year we were able to identify a neighbor boy and his friends as the culprits. A polite chat with the parents resolved the issue that winter.  Sadly, the trend didn’t hold and each year there seems to be a new crop of noisy trespassers.  Complaining to the local police produced no results.  In fairness, the police really can’t do anything unless they (or we) can catch and/or identify the culprits and “prove” them to be the trespassers.

This year we decided we had had enough. In mid-December we hired a local man to put up a temporary fence to block the snowmobilers from using our yard as a shortcut. The fence was made of orange plastic and secured to metal poles pounded into the not-yet-frozen soil.  Similar fences had graced other winter yards in town over the years so we didn’t think there would be any problem.  Snow came, but snowmobilers didn’t.  For the last six weeks life has been quiet and peaceful in regards to the snowmobilers.  And the pristine, snow-covered lawn was a beautiful sight from my office window.

On Tuesday, January 19, we get a call from the local code enforcement office.  It seems that our pretty orange fence, effective as it might be in discouraging snowmobilers, is in violation of a fence ordinance enacted last summer.  The town fathers want the fence taken down.  Now mind you, other village residents have erected a variety of temporary fences to keep snowmobilers off their property, too.  We expressed our willingness to obtain a temporary permit. The code officer, a snowmobiler himself,  empathized with our collective plight, but said there is no provision in the current fence law for a temporary permit.  He would take the issue to the village board meeting that evening.

After much discussion of the problem of trespassing snowmobilers, the board tossed around the idea of increasing the fine for trespassing, but took no action beyond encouraging the police chief to have his officers identify and ticket violators. The code officer said he would speak to the leaders of the local snowmobilers club to encourage their members to abide by the no-trespassing law. A suggestion was made to put an ad in the local newspaper at the beginning of next winter to remind residents that temporary snow fences are not permitted under current law. In the meantime, the board would “ignore” the temporary fences and address the issue directly before next winter.

So our orange snow fence continued to stand in the cold and the snow and the wind,  defending our yard from errant sledders.  Until one unhappy snowmobiler decided to steal it.  Yup, one of our village’s finest knocked on our door about 11:00 p.m. Saturday night and said he thought someone had stolen our fence.  Sure enough, the entire section of fence that bordered one side of the yard was missing.  The police officer said he had the missing fence in the back of his patrol car, and that a man was already in custody for the theft.  The officer asked if we wanted to have the man arrested and the answer was a resounding “YES!”

This should be one for Jay Leno’s “dumb criminals” list.  Apparently the “alleged” thief had been drinking and was upset because he couldn’t snowmobile over our yard, something he claimed to have been doing since he was a youngster.  After stealing the section of fence, he dumped it in front of the Mayor’s house.  The Mayor, who lives around the corner from us, told the police he knew where the fence had come from.

When the police approached our middle-aged suspect, he apparently engaged in a “run-and-tussle” of some sort with one officer.  As I was signing the complaint form, the accused was down at the police station trying to wash pepper spray out of his eyes.  Apparently pepper spray takes about an hour to wear off.  

Kudos to our village police for outstanding work! More on our orange fence saga as it unfolds.

There are at least five things you can do online to help others. If donating money was the first thing that came to your mind, you’ll be surprised to learn that none of these suggestions will tap your wallet.

1. Help feed hungry people around the world by playing a vocabulary game at FreeRice.com. Direct benefit to you: an expanded vocabulary, which can have a positive effect in other areas of your life.

2. Educate women about heart disease and stroke by participating in the Go Red for Women campaign by the American Heart Association. Direct benefit to you: the potential to save your life, or the life of a woman you love.

3. Help feed dogs and cats in shelters around the U.S. by answering trivia questions at FreeKibble.com and FreeKibbleKat.com. Direct benefit to you: acquisition of interesting facts about different breeds of cats and dogs.

4. Volunteer to help out with your favorite online forum, email group, or chat site. If you’re a writer, share your expertise and experience at Absolute Write Water Cooler. If you’re interested in genealogy, Genealogy Trails is looking for assistance to help expand their free online data resources. Direct benefit to you: “meeting” new people and developing friendships around the world.

5. Use your favorite social networking tool or instant messaging program (mine is Trillian) to send encouragement to someone who is struggling with a problem of some kind. When Life hands you lemons, it’s great to know that you have support while you’re trying to make lemonade. Direct benefit to you: that irreplaceable, warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from just doing something nice for someone else.

January is traditionally a month for setting goals.  We often start out with resolutions born in December, decided on the spur-of-the-moment or in the heat of disgust with our failures in one or more areas of our lives.  We firmly vow to do better in the New Year.  Unfortunately many of us fall back on old doubts and old behaviors within a few short weeks.  We chastise ourselves and our brains start delivering negative messages about our inability to change. Sometimes we square our shoulders and “promise” to start over next week, or next month.  But somehow it doesn’t happen.

Merriam-Webster defines the word goal as “the end toward which effort is directed.”  The first step then would be to determine our “end.”  This can be a place we want to be at a certain point in our lives, an achievement we want to claim, or an event we want to attend.  You decide. (and yes, you can have multiple “ends.”) It’s a good idea to write goals out in longhand and phrase them in a positive manner. Freelance writer Angela Booth offers us one way to set goals for ourselves. Another technique uses the SMART mnemonic.

Step two on the road to goal achievement is – dare I say it? – a good, swift kick in the attitude. Productivity coach Dave Navarro tells it like it is. I’m still reeling from his refreshing honesty, which jolted me out of my long-held habit of procrastinating in posting to this blog.

Step three is both simple and difficult.  Change. If what you’re doing isn’t producing the results you want, do something different. Change your attitude and your actions.  Of course, you can do it! All it takes is the willingness to move forward.  Now off you go. 

The New Year will bring positive changes to this site: a fresh look, more frequent posts, and new articles and book reviews.  Thanks in advance for bearing with me during the transition phase.