Not the day I expected

Today was yard work day, so after feeding the stray kitty I set about watering my new shrubs and pulling weeds.  After four hours or so I had finished in the back yard and moved to the front.  After I set out the hose to water the front landscaping, I walked across the street to my neighbor's house.  He's old and is currently living with his son, and my other neighbor and I keep watch on his house.  I needed to check the mailbox and pick up the stray papers and such that seem to always show up in the yard.

My neighbor has been gone over three years, so checking up on his house is typical for my week.  What I found in the front yard wasn't typical.

A .22LR derringer.  As in, a gun.

To say that I was shocked is an understatement.  I noticed something shiny in the grass about 8 feet from the curb in the front yard.  Thinking it was a candy wrapper or something, I headed over to pick it up and was startled to find this:

It's so small I had to look at it twice to make sure it was real.  Yep, real, but it's only about 4 1/2" long.  A kid could mistake it for a toy.  I headed into the house and called the police, and the cruiser arrived in about 10 minutes.  The officer checked it out and saw as I had that the hammer was cocked.  He carefully examined it and found a live round stuck in the cylinder, which he cleared.  Then he locked it up in his cruiser and took the info on how I found it.

Interestingly, about half an hour before, while I was sitting on the porch setting the timer on the hose which was watering the front shrubs, a silver SUV had driven slowly down the road and pulled up to the curb across the street.  A young guy got out of the car, leaving it running, and started checking the ground close to the street but not near where I later found the gun.  You see, my neighbor lives on the corner and the guy was looking around in the yard on the side of the house facing the main street, not in the front yard facing the residential street that runs in front of my house and my neighbor's.  After a couple of minutes he got back in his car and drove away.  I noticed that it had Georgia plates;  I'm in Tennessee but right on the border so you see Georgia cars all the time.  Other than that, I couldn't see a lot of detail because I didn't have my glasses on (hate perspiring on my glasses).  When the guy got out of his car and started poking around in my neighbor's yard I stood up on the porch and gave him a stare, just to make sure he saw I noticed him.  I'm not sure if that contributed to his leaving quickly, but I hope it did.  We look out for each other around here, and I wanted it to be apparent.

I live in a very quiet older neighborhood, mostly populated by senior citizens who bought the houses soon after they were built in the 1960's.  I hadn't heard nor seen anything out of the ordinary.  And then a gun pops up in the grass across the street.

Definitely not the day I was expecting.