u/unrelatedtoelephants

Hi! As the title says, I’m from Pennsylvania, USA and looking for a penpal! I’ve never had a penpal but I’m excited about the possibility of making new friends over the world. Along with letters, I would really love to send someone small items like stickers, tiny artworks, or even small handcrafted gifts and receive some in exchange. Not like as a firm commitment, but just as a little fun surprise every now and again! Looking to write to just 1 or 2 people about once a month, very casual. :)

A little bit about me - I’m childfree and live with my boyfriend, our 4 cats, and our axolotl. I have a variety of creative hobbies and also enjoy reading, hiking, gardening, fitness, video games, and watching K-dramas. I have been trying to teach myself Mandarin Chinese for the last year (it’s going very, very, VERY slowly, lol) and have picked up a tiny bit of Korean from the shows I watch - if you speak either of those languages and are willing to share, I would be super interested (all communication from me would be in English).

If you are interested in exchanging letters and lil trinkets, please don’t hesitate to comment or DM!

Over the next few years I plan to fully remove our suburban back lawn to replace it with ~70% natives/~30% vegetables and a handful of non-invasive non-natives.

My neighbor on one side won’t be an issue (and they have a fence around their yard anyway), but on the other side, my neighbors are the perfect lawn, all wild animals are pests type. I really don’t want to put up a fence; I’d rather spend the money a fence would cost on something else, and also I don’t want to keep the local larger fauna out of my yard.

Is there anything in particular I should plant along the property line that my neighbors are likely to find acceptable? They don’t spend a lot of time outside so privacy isn’t really a concern of mine - I just want something that is relatively well-behaved (won’t spread to their lawn too much) and looks intentional/traditionally aesthetically pleasing. Or should I try some alternative kind of landscape border like decorative rocks or something, that wildlife can still navigate over/around?