I'm still angry over the incident.

We've had very little good weather for outdoor activities this Summer & Fall. Winter is expected to close in by Monday with snow coming. So today was perfect for taking my dogs for a walk in their stroller. I took my camera along to capture as much local Fall color as we'll probably get this year. Except for the above red dogwood bush, Fall color isn't much this year. I usually take some camera along most everywhere I go, but there often isn't much to photograph. After spending some today time photographing (from the street) some plants growing wild in the vacant lot at the end of the courtyard up the hill in the development where we live, I started to walk back home.

However, I got stopped by the police. Neighbors had called the police on me for taking pictures. I don't know those neighbors nor even remember what their house looks like (despite repeatedly walking past it). But for some reason, they reported me to the police with a false claim that I had photographed their house. How weird. My camera was never pointed toward a house. Still, the above dogwood bush did sit curbside at the front corner of one neighbors' lawn (away from the house & against the property line with the vacant lot). I also took the photo toward the empty lot as a background. To put things in perspective, all lots in our development are 3 acres or more. So the neighbors' house was nowhere near this bush. Side property lines are usually far away from where the homes sit. Since the lot next door is empty, there was no house there either.

Thank goodness I'm white!!! I'm also a middle aged woman who had a stroller filled with 3 tiny Chihuahua: two of them in Halloween dresses. A really dangerous character, huh? I never stepped off the street (which I'm forced to walk in since we have no sidewalks) and I certainly had no interest in anyone's house. Yet still the neighbors called the police on me.

Of the people, who currently live in the development, we have lived here the longest. We build way back when the development was just getting started 30 years ago. Ah, to be 22 again...That was back when there were a lot more open places in the development to photograph Nature. Of the original home owners here, we are the only ones left. Over the years, I've never really gotten to know our newer neighbors because the homes are so far apart. Once the original homeowners (who we were friends with) left, we then continued our own lives beyond the development. For the past several years, we have just minded our own business and have other friends.

I do walk regularly during good weather, but I usually walk outside the development. Those hills give me better exercise. But due to speeding traffic, the streets outside the development are not as safe. So I have also walked (for the past 30 years) within our development. Plus I almost always have taken a camera with me. I've met a few of our newer neighbors (most now also gone) during some of my walks and have always exchanged pleasantries. But it seems we again have newer neighbors.

Bottom line, the police officer agreed that I am doing nothing wrong. I never set foot on anyone else's property (unless invited). I have absolutely no interest In photographing anyone's home without permission. And if someone looked at the memory card in my camera, they would just find plants, insects, birds & my dogs from my neighborhood walks. I also told the police officer that he needs to tell the home owners, that complained about my walking with a camera, that I consider their complaint harassment.

The police officer was very nice when talking to me. Nevertheless, I don't know exactly what he later told the paranoid people, who had called him, after he went back to them. I also don't know where this matter will go in the future. Although I will not be doing anything to deliberately exacerbate the situation, I'm not going to stop walking with my camera. I also do not like being harassed because I do have a camera. This is America.

However, after talking to the neighbors again, the police officer stopped me a second time to warn that for my own safety, I probably should avoid that part of the neighborhood. The folks, that had called the police, made a vague threat concerning my future return. What a crazy, unsettling world we live in.