Notes from Maine - 2026/05/03

My neighbor across the street burned some brush in his field this week. He’s a good neighbor. It was raining steadily that day—there was no chance of the fire getting out of control. Still, he called to let me know that he was going out for a bit. He said, “If the fire department comes by, give them my number.” I don’t think I would need to (I suspect they have his number). It’s easy to still think of him as a kid. He was only ten when I moved in here. Now, he’s in his thirties and we occasionally collaborate over an engine or an electrical issue. 

Last summer, he pulled up on his four-wheeler. Fortunately, my sister was out front and intercepted his question.

He asked, “Does your mom want to go on a ride on my four-wheeler?”

Like I said, we were lucky that my sister was out there to supply the correct answer.

“Of course Mom wants to ride on your four-wheeler,” my sister said.

He seemed a little surprised by the answer and asked if she had a helmet.

My sister waved that question off and went to fetch Mom.

He was very careful with her on the back, but drove fast up the dirt road to show her around out back of his place. When she’s cleaning up brush and leaves, he lets her dump that stuff across the road in the ditch near his driveway. They have a good rapport.

One time, years and years ago, I was burning brush in my field when a car pulled into the driveway. It was a nutty lady (she seemed normal at the time, but I came to find out she was nutty) who yelled to beckon me over.

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“Your field is on fire!” she said.

I had a hose in one hand and the fire permit sticking out of my back pocket. I turned to look at my friend, who was sitting in a lawn chair near the blaze. Our town requires “TWO (2) ADULTS” present while burning brush, according to the aforementioned permit, so I had invited over a friend to chat and hang out. We couldn’t make sense of what the nutty lady was saying.

“What’s that?” I asked again.

Turns out she was joking. She really stopped to talk to me about Earl (horse). She had Shire horses as well and wanted to know where Earl came from. It turned out that her horses were first cousins to Earl. Through her, I met a nice guy who lent me a draft horse trailer when Earl had to have surgery (years and years ago). It was good to get connected with another Shire person, but like I said, she turned out to be a bit nutty. Many of the horse folk around her have since told me so.

One of the things she told me that day was that, legally and technically, I should have a ten foot fence around my pasture because Earl is a Stallion (she said it that way, capitalized). I cocked my head and she told me, confidently, that it was the Law (capitalized). Then she laughed and told me that it didn’t matter to her either way. I can’t imagine where she came up with this Law. I’ve read through the statutes—not because I was concerned that she was correct, but just because it’s interesting to see how things are codified. I have a legal requirement to prevent Earl from trespassing on other people’s property. There is language in the Maine Revised Statutes regarding confinement and shelter for Earl, Maybelle, and Lilly. There’s also a statute that defines a “legal fence” (it must be four feet high and “in good repair, consisting of rails, timber, stone walls, iron or wire, and brooks, rivers, ponds, creeks, ditches and hedges, or other things which in the judgment of the fence viewers having jurisdiction thereof are equivalent thereto, are legal and sufficient fences”), but there’s nothing to connect the idea of confinement to the definition of a legal and sufficient fence. 

In my town, we don’t have an active roster of “fence viewers,” so if there was a dispute, they would likely have to impanel one from the Select Board or maybe local residents? I wonder if I should request a fence viewing so I can head off future possible fence debates. If some other nutty person arrives with a claim of malfeasance, I would hate to be caught unprepared. 

Sometimes I wonder if the fire in my pasture summoned the nutty lady. If I have another fire, will another nutty person arrive to invent more Laws about Earl?

One time I saved my summer brush and we had a bonfire at a Thanksgiving party. A friend (spurred on by chanting his name) tried to jump over the fire and tripped. While his daughter watched, he tumbled through the flames. He was unharmed, although his daughter still remembers the incident.

By the way, if I do request that a panel of “fence viewers” come by to view my fence, Maine law dictates that the party who calls upon the fence viewers is legally required to pay them $3 a day for their time. I’ll have to save up.