Sunday, July 14, 2019

Garden Project - Phase Two Update

Our secret garden project is about halfway completed. After a couple of days of work last week progress halted and will resume again mid-week.
It looks pretty good thus far.
We've made a good number of promises about when it will be completed. Please know that every promise has been made in good faith. Numerous factors that were totally out of our control have pushed the completion date back, but it looks like we're in the home stretch now. More updates and pictures to come!

Monday, July 8, 2019

Garden Project - Phase Two. For Real This Time!

Yes we had a bit of a misstatement a few weeks back with our post that our secret garden project was happening. We're very sorry. Unforeseen events caused it to be pushed back to today. We've been on a "too embarrassed to post until this thing got started" quiet period. We just tried to lay low until there was verifiable progress that we could show off.
 We can definitively say that the project is off and running!
And everyone can start hazarding guesses as to what they think it is. But you won't have to wait too long with your guesses. The project should be completed in a day or two, so we should have full pictures (with Shaak Ti for scale of course) by the end of the week!

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Garden Project - Phase Two

Phase Two of our big garden project starts today. It's been a bit of a wait and we're ready.
This unsightly rectangle of rocks will look much different, hopefully by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Grandparents Visit

The grandparents trucked all the way from North Dakota to visit the homestead last week.
The dogs were very happy to see them and get all the pets and love that we apparently don't provide. Both dogs get lots of love from the Grandparents, but Shadowfax especially. Climbing on Grandpa is the only time we really allow her to sit on anyone's lap.

She's been sitting on Grandpa's lap for years now. We did a post about the Jungle Gym for Dogs back in 2011. 

Friday, June 14, 2019

Dirty Napping Dog, Clean Napping Dog

The Summer season around here is filled with napping outside and soaking up the sunbeams.
Shaak Ti has her preferred napping spot.
Shadowfax has hers. You can probably guess which location we prefer. Sleeping in mulch leaves you a bit dirty. Sleeping on a nice dog bed leaves you a bit cleaner. It's crazy how that works. 

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Western Redbud in Bloom and Pink Snow

One of the smaller trees in our front yard is a Western Redbud. It's on the Southwest corner of our house and has wonderful structure and enough summer foliage to provide dappled sunshine at its base.

For a few weeks in Spring though it's truly a showstopper. From about Mid April to the first part of May it is completely covered in delicate, tiny pink blossoms. The picture below is from late April.
As with all Spring blooming plants the flowers gave way to leaves and the tree shed the tiny pink blossoms. The blossoms were so numerous that they coated the ground below. There were so many fallen spent flowers that they caught on other small plants and shrubs and made them look like they had pink flowers too.
The flowers all fell off in the space of a week or two and coated the ground below in what looks like a fine dusting of pink snow. 

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Shadowfax and the Sliding Rump

I've watched Shadowfax nap over the course of this morning. She initially started fully in the dog bed, warmly covered in her blankie. Over the course of a few hours here twitching and dream-squirrel-chasing made her rump slowly slide out of dog bed onto the floor.
Shadowfax was nonplussed by all this though, she napped right on through it. We had a big day yesterday; hours and hours of romping in the backyard exploring, chasing squirrels, and playing fetch n' catch. She's probably pretty exhausted, but should have those pittie batteries fully recharged in no time.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Shaak Ti Napping in the Mulch

We've had a lovely stretch of Summer like weather over the past week, upper 80's and even 90's. And Shaak Ti has taken full advantage of this by dusting off her mulch napping skills.
She's lost nothing over the winter, her mulch napping skills are in top form.And yes we have many dog beds outside (both in the sun and in the shade), some area rugs on the patio, and numerous less-mulchy places to nap. But Shaak Ti prefers a more natural napping spot.