The yard work isn't horrible when the mosquitoes leave me alone. It turns out I like listening to the sounds of nature and the neighborhood much more than any of the music we have in our collection (when I'm outside that is). Being out there is kinda relaxing when I'm not thinking about the neighbors behind us (in other words, our anonymous letter writer). I sincerely hope they find the sight of bare earth boring and unpleasant as that's all they're going to get until we figure out what else to do. I still want to move so investing a bunch of money in fixing the pond and landscape does not appeal to me. If I had understood just how expensive and how much work keeping the landscape going was going to cost, I never would have had it installed. 'Specially since one of the real estate agents we spoke with back when we applied for a home equity loan warned us that the pond would not increase the value of our property. That didn't bother me when I thought I'd be living there until I died as I figured our enjoyment was worth the cost. Now, not so much.