Boxers X 4

Our Friday night and Saturday went to the dogs. Literaly. 

Sparky and Milo came for a visit and a boxer party was had.

Did you know it is impossible to get FOUR dogs to sit and pose for a picture?
The dog whisperer...I'm not. 

 You see who IS sitting? Cocoa. She seems to really care.

 Ozzie: "Mama, did you say cookie?"

I feel I'm losing control over this situation.

Cocoa: "hey, is anyone going to listen to the mama?" Ozzie: "I'm trying really hard but I have absolutely NO attention span. Remember?"

I spy with my little brown green eye....boxer butts.  

I tried the whole sitting thing again in the driveway. Yes, SHE again listened while the other three wandered off like I wasn't even there. Boys don't listen. rude.

 Seriously, they are not camera whores. 

On Saturday afternoon when the two visitors were leaving, we finally got a photo op. kinda.

On Saturday night, Cocoa and Ozzie slept hard. Having so much fun is really exhausting. 

The.story.of.my.life.

XOXO 

recycled puppy

My sweet friend Kelly {who is not supposed to send me Christmas gifts} sent this to us at Christmas.

A recycled puppy.

I love him.

And yes, he is made out of all recycled stuff. 

Her note stated that he should overlook my garden.

And he does.

Kelly and I met circa 1990. Her beau was/is Coach's childhood friend Don, who was also my high school friend. I met Coach on a blind date set up by Don's previous high school girlfriend in 1985.

Make sense?

Sure it does.

 In 1990 when Kelly & Don and The Coach & I lived next door to each other, Kelly and I jumped on the recycling bandwagon when that baby hitched it's horses.

And we still are. Recyclers rule. And they are more attractive.

I'm just throwing that out there.

Have a great weekend! It has finally cooled off here....and I'm digging it. 

XOXO

Another crotch surprise....and why PETA will be contacting me.

I don't know how long it has been there, just growing and growing.  This time in the crotch of our ornamental guava tree. I caught a glimpse of it's purple-ness out of the corner of my eye on Monday. 

This made me giddy. I wish every Monday held a sweet surprise like that.
Our little secret surprise resides just above the dog that I've come to neglect.

I love him, but I've kinda ignored him too.

Poor Bartholomew!

After I went back and saw a few posts with him in his glory, I am determined to bring him back to where he should be. Such a loyal little pup he is.
See, he is so like me, he tells everyone to "Plant a tree"! Unlike me though, he leaves out the 'dammit' at the end!

Have a green and happy Wednesday!
XOXO

Raising the bed.

Which is similar to raising the roof. Kinda sorta. but not really.

You know I love my veggie garden. It has brought me tremendous joy the past few years.
B U T, it has brought me tremendous anxiety this past year.
Anxiety? I know. I am wacky.

My garden circa early 2012

You see, the problem was every time I went out there to work the garden, it was filled with weeds. Grass weeds. Weed grass. The kind of stuff that required so much work, that it overwhelmed me.

So instead of looking forward to gardening, it stressed me. And then there were the rocks. Actually boulders. In some spots, I could not place plants because apparently our property was at one time a quarry. 

my garden mid 2012

I thought about just scrapping the whole dang thing. A match and some gasoline. *poof*

I shared this with Coach's Mom at Christmas and we discussed that if I were to raise the bed, and add tons of new soil, it would be easier to maintain. But taking on THAT task also overwhelmed me.

B U T since I have the best MIL on the planet...she volunteered for herself and Coach's step-dad to come back and build a bed for me. Yes.they.did.

I know. I am so darn lucky. And it's not like they live down the street...it is a 2 1/2 hour trek for them.
So, two weekends ago, they came over and we started.

 Sometimes the Coach threatens me with that very same sledgehammer if I don't cook him chicken wings. 

 There was much debate about my garden fence. Do we leave it? Do we redo it? Do we scrap it?

Of course, you can't work in the garden without having a dog or five getting in your way. 

 The coach came up with a genius way to keep the fence, but make it better than before by using things we already had. He has the brain of an engineer. which is exactly why I don't know what he is talking about half the time. 

 The Coach and Bill pretty much had this job handled...but every once in a while Sue or Lindsay would bark out some orders from the shade of the golf cart.

I would never do that. I barked my orders from the shade of the house.

Ok, that was 2 weekends ago. This past weekend I had 7 yards of compost delivered. 

Two deliveries like this one.

 And then my super sweet nephew Bryan and the Coach shoveled it into the bed.  You'll be proud to know that I also helped out with the shoveling of sh*t compost.

On Sunday, I added my plants.

Voila. My garden is raised, as are my spirits.

No rocks. No weeds. Just plants and some garden chotskies.  

 We had a bit of extra compost material and filled in low spots on either side of the garden.

 I'm still debating on putting some sort of lattice/fencing on the backside...because I have tomato loving dogs.

 Yeah, they look innocent enough...but right here they are both plotting against me to eat all the tomatoes. 

Bastids.

So, that has filled up my life for two weekends....and I am a happy bee right now.

I'm so thankful for my helpful peeps! 

Now I can go back to only being stressed out with things happening INSIDE our house! 

You know, like a normal crazy person. 

XOXO