Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Spring has sprung!

The doggie door - Cooper has been checking this out recently. I fully expect to find my child has escaped out onto the deck through the door in the next few months. We will have to be super vigilent!
Poncho the little Schnauzer
The big grow bed
The little grow bed - ZUCCINI! I hope...
BUSTER B. Beagle, super Beagle, Butterbean, Fat Boy. And yes, he is supposed to be that color, it is called Lemon and White thank you very much.
The Gus - the first born Schnauzer - my first baby.

This weekend - Happy EarthDay by the way - we spent a LOT of time outside. Cooper did get to go to a concert held at his school - and may I say my child is a dancing fool. He was the first one out there when he couldn't stand it any longer and had to get out there and dance. He cannot be controlled. He loves all music with a beat - country, jazz, alternative, hard rock, folk, klezmer, you name it if you can dance to it, he does. We also gardened. Well, I did. The Bob helped me get the dirt and the grow beds ready.

It seems we live on a rock. A hill made of stone. You dig three inches down and you find rock. When they dug the pool, some 20 years ago I think, they must have had a backhoe in the yard and dug out the giant rock that is under our deck. So I have resorted to raised beds. 12 cubic feet of dirt later I have gardens. I have planted, and hope to grow the following: beans, three kinds of lettuce, cabbage, carrots, zuccini, and pygmy sunflowers. I also planted herbs in boxes on my deck. That is so the DOGS don't widdle on them. I feel like I can wash off veggies, but the herbs I would rather they don't wiz on. I will be planting tomatoes in these hanging things called Topsy Turvey planters, where they hang upside down from the deck. I did this last year and was moderately successful. We will see how this year goes.

My problem is now how to keep the Schnauzers from digging in the beds. They think I provided this giant box of dirt for their personal benefit. They are not doing their business in it, they are eating the dirt. WEIRD. Buster is our other dog, the ancient and recently diagnosed hypothyroidic Beagle. We have spent a LOT on this dog recently to find this out. But of all the dogs he is best with Cooper. As long as Cooper doesn't come between him and food!
I will expound upon the virtues of the non shedding schnauzer and the evils of the breed known as BEAGLE another time, but suffice to say I cannot leave the house without looking like I did a roll in the hay with Buster. I have hair removing devices in most rooms in the house, in my car and in my office.
Ooo - brushes with fame! I was HOT baby HOT this past week. First I was interviewed and quoted AND had my picture on the front of the Boston Business Journal. I won't bore anyone with the sordid details of the subject - suffice to say it had to do with financial aid at colleges - but the big deal was I WAS ON THE 6PM NEWS. No, I was not arrested or found wandering blathering gibberish in the North End. Again, it was a rather boring subject, but it is my job and they interviewed me and some students. Very exciting. So officially I am famous, if only in my own mind.

3 comments:

Susie Felber said...

Great garden & doggie reporting! I want to kiss those the pooches up. And yes, that doggie door looks perfectly Cooper-sized. How could he resist? I want pics when he finds his way out (tomorrow I'm guessing). All a big HA to your description of being on the new and a big congrats to actually being on it. That is so very cool. Stop with the"boring caveats -- it's great!

N said...

We have a dog named Gus - well, Angus - too!

Our yard is some sort of clay/high alpine desert dryness that is disinclined to support anything but weeds. We're doing raised beds, too - and trying to figure out how to keep out the dog and the cat. Our dog is scared of vacuums and pop-top cans, but rimming the garden in PBRs and leaving our vacuum out in the yard don't seem like the best ideas.

mkosboth said...

Leaving the vacuum out does not seem practical, unless you were going for that hillbilly look. Nothing against hillbillies by the way. I may resort to poles and chicken wire or netting of some sort around the edges. Very attractive as well.