Pixies in the Back Yard

Ms. Rachow says, “Why journey all the way to Great Britain when you can build a little England right in your own back yard?”

Recently I spotted a great landscaping trick in one of those slick English magazines. The piece was titled “Sneaky Tips to Turn Your Back Yard into Sherwood Forest.”
I was already well on my way with plenty of trees and freewheeling shrubs. The challenge was that the neighbors behind us had built a solid fence and painted it mud brown. No matter how hard I squinted and thought of the woods, those boards still looked like the Gulag to me.
The article suggested the artful attachment of trimmed branches to camouflage flat-fence backdrops. Even my city slicker hubby, who thinks any landscaping problem can be solved with a few bags of concrete, thought the picture in the magazine looked charming. So we decided to give it a try.
Luckily I’d failed to prune our eugenia hedge for the past 10 years. When I cut it down to size, not only did I reveal a wonderful mountain view, I ended up with plenty of straight branches perfect for transforming brown boards into a forest.
I trimmed away the twigs and cut each branch to the exact height of the fence so as not to alert the neighbors to our subterfuge. I leaned the resulting rough-hewn poles against the boards, and voila, the result was so woodsy I half expected to see pixies moving in.
A few weeks later I happened to be at the opposite side of our suburban forest, and I noticed some rough-hewn poles lying willy-nilly in our other neighbors’ backyard. They were perfect to extend my woodsy theme, and I thought about asking if I could have them, when I realized those branches looked very familiar.
Someone had swiped my poles. And I thought I knew who -- the little pixie who lives next door and her best pixie pal. This pair are at the height of their architectural expression. Translation: they’d liberated my faux forest to construct their secret fort. Then, apparently, they’d been called away on other pixie matters, and the branches had been abandoned.
I did the only thing I could think to do...I stole the poles back, all 23 of them. I carried them the 150 feet back up the hill, still feeling a little unsure as to whether I'd done the right thing. At least this counter thievery saved me from having to go to the gym that day. And all’s well that ends well.
However, things are seldom over when you live next door to pixies. So it was that this afternoon I spotted the little ones shuttling back and forth, retrieving the poles I’d stolen from them. It’s amazing how fast pixies can scamper, even when carrying six-foot tree branches. They were like long-haired finches making a nest.
I crept closer and chanced to hear them chirp about building their secret place. Life doesn't get any better than eavesdropping on the plans of pixies.
Then along came the grandma who watches the girls many afternoons. “Maybe you two should stay on your own side of the fence,” she told them.
If the pixies were disappointed with this change of direction, they didn’t show it. They transitioned smoothly to the scheme of tricking their terrier, saying, “Walkies, Brillo! Walkies!” Of course, the dog is no fool. He knows when pixies say “walkies,” it really means “bath time.” But Brillo is nothing if not a good sport, and truth is he rather likes being washed by pixies.
That left me to decide whether I’d be a good sport and let stolen poles lie…or if I’d take them all back again. I certainly didn't want to dissuade the girls from careers as architects. But I did want my poles back.
Real life seldom offers a solution for a situation as sticky as this. Luckily I had a stash of recently trimmed tree branches that weren’t good for fence camouflage. But they’d do fine for making a pixie hideout.
So I began the exchange. Grandma caught me in the act, and we discussed my plan. Somewhere in the middle of our chat over the fence, the girls came out with the wet terrier wrapped like a baby.
When they saw me they wondered for a moment if they might be in trouble. When I explained I was bringing them more materials to build with, they said, “Oh, thank you. Can we help?”
As I said above, all’s well that ends well. But when you live next door to pixies, things are seldom over.
First published in the Montecito Journal September 4, 2008