Flowers, flowers everywhere...

Now that I've finished moving I can turn my full attention to one of my bigger obsessions: gardening. I've scoured almost every corner of the Bailey farm in search of what some folks would term junk, but what I call treasures. Mary and Dick (Scott's parents) took me out in one of the little sheds that dot their property and we had a hey day digging through stuff that would make good planting containers or garden ornamentation. I found old metal stools, enamelware, rusty wagons, an old handled tool box, and my very favorite a little metal chick house that now sits on our deck.

The chick house has proven pretty useful in keeping things away from Maya, a big floppy golden lab. Maya has a bad reputation around our house, but really, she's not so bad. Her enthusiasm is a bit overwhelming sometimes and she tends to offend folks by displaying it a little to exuberantly. But she always jumps off Mary and Dick's little back deck and lopes along beside my car as I pass their house on my way home, and is there to meet me when I get out of the car to go into the house. I usually get out of the car prepared to do a little petting all the while reminding he not to jump on or, for the love of Mike, please don't slobber on me.

She also has a bad habit of snitching things that don't belong to her. Last night Scott took the sprayer of the hose end so I could put a kinder, gentler spray nozzle on that wouldn't blast the soil out of the flower pots when I went to water them. He finally got the old spray nozzle off with a lot of grunting and what may have been a little mumbled swearing and a GIANT pair of pliers. When I went to get the new nozzle I couldn't find it anywhere. I made the mistake of leaving it on the deck after I brought it from the old house, and I'm sure Maya took it off to some corner of the property and it won't be seen again until one of the guys runs it over with the lawn mower. So I have now stuffed all of my little bits in the chick house so in the future whey will be safe from Maya the Marauder.

Oh, and p.s: I also found a giant paw print right in the middle of one of my flower pots on the edge of the deck. I have no idea what she might have been up to there.