Our Ditch

Like a busy worker ant, I've been in and out and around our home today washing the Xterra (or The big Red Gulp as we call her in the worst gas months), sweeping out the garage, & giving some TLC to my potted plants. The weather is getting weird, as any good Floridian knows when it goes from 50 degrees to 83- something dark is brewing.
So, I went out the garage through a little built- on porch we have into our back yard to use a table to give fresh soil to my plants. I kept noticing the sound of machetes and hacksaws and noticed a group of men in orange behind our chain link back fence lumbering along...Our yard is privacy fenced on sides with a chain link running down the back along a very deep, ancient "ditch" that runs behind two rows of streets.
For lack of an estate somewhere out in the country, we have always enjoyed a good back yard with a place for our fire ring, our grill, our dog, and general fun yards things to do (football and baby pool). When we sold our house in Nashville, we rented this home with the help of a relative down here, and have been very happy with it (old school wood floors, bad insulation, concrete block walls, one bath) but still large and kindof cool. The chocolate brown cupboards give me nightmares but i may repaint them soon if we stay on for a while.
Anyway, we've always like this ditch...because our yard never floods due to it being very steep, and in a weird way like the fact that around dusk all kinds of critters come out. We have a cute little white owl who sits on one fence and stares at us, several large Florida rats, raccoons, possums and general nasty critters - but still! Also there are alot of jays, finches, hummingbirds, cardinals to watch because over the course of 40 years since this neighborhood was built, the "ditch" is covered in a dark green lush tunnel of vines, banana trees, oaks, hibiscus, magnolias, elephants ears. It's a really nice natural boundary from one back yard to the next, and in my humble opinion, a suburban nature oasis.
Well...I asked the men in orange if they were looking for treasure. No, they're just surveying the trees. Hmmm...we have heard gossip in the hood lately that Pinellas county was going to someday cover our ditch and put a drainage pipe instead. I guess the time has come....since we rent this place a phone call to the county won't do much to stand in this path of progress.
So now, until about 5-6 at night I look forward to the sound of chainsaws, bulldozers and trees being torn down while we sip on our Pinot and discuss world events on our back porch. Have you really ever heard a tree being pushed down- it cracks, schreeches and groans. Uhgg! Maybe for the next few weeks I'll sit on the front porch instead, wave at cars like old folks do, and plan for our home out in the country....With our very own cool ditch. With our very own cool critters.