Meet Molly and Jake. Molly is a Labrador Retriever, and Jake is a West Highland Terror Terrier. They are my daughter's dogs who occasionally come over to play with Tucker. I love 'em a lot and am a little embarrassed to admit I may have been known to call them my granddogs.
Last year I didn't plant a veggie garden other than two tomato plants. I was disappointed and a little mystified that the tomatoes were still not ripening by August, but I supposed it was because it was a late spring last year.
Then, one summer evening when we were all eating dinner out on the deck, Molly rounded the corner from the garden with a juicy ripe red tomato in her mouth. The little stinker had been eating all my tomatoes just as they ripened!
So my husband put up this temporary (and less-than attractive) wire gate to keep sneaky Molly out of the side yard vegetable garden.
Last weekend he built a nice new permanent gate to replace it.
Thanks, Hon!
Under the new gate are my daughter's hand prints, made when we poured the cement sidewalk back in 1996. (Seems like just yesterday.) Who could have foreseen back then that this little girl would grow up to be a young woman with a tomato eating dog of her own.
It appears to me like Spring is more advanced in blogland than here in the Northwest high desert. We're just now starting to see blossoms and daffodils, and I still have the winter view over the neighbors' fences that divide our tiny city backyards.
The lilacs, like this one, and other bushes and trees that will screen our neighbor's houses later this spring and summer are just beginning to get their new leaves. (That's the white church from yesterday's post peaking out behind that big fir tree.)
Some violets, a few tulips, and this Bleeding Heart that I planted last year are the only signs of new life in my backyard still.
In the narrow side yard the new growth on my clematis vines is slowly climbing up the wire supports to the trellis above. I'm still thrilled that they made it through the dry winter.
I love to go outside and walk around my small yard each morning now that Spring has arrived to see what new plant is emerging from the soil and which new leaves are starting to grow on the bare tree branches. Along with autumn leaves, I think this is the best part of living where there is such a pronounced changing of the seasons.
