Dirt, Digging, and Dogs

Yesterday was a perfect day. It was the kind of day outside that makes you feel guilty for staying inside. Usually on days like that, we take the dogs to a park or field or something outside so they can run and play, but Chris had different plans this weekend. He convinced me to stay home and to work in the yard with him. Now, my gardening skills are about as good as my baking skills. I just have no interest in it. I don’t like to get dirty or sweaty. I don’t like bugs and I try to avoid as much manual labor as possible. Take me for what I am.

But I agreed to at least stay outside and play with the dogs while Chris worked in the yard.  First, I made Chris pick up all the doggy “calling cards” in our yard so that I could run around out there safely.

After that, I decided to check out the dog’s hideaway. They have this corner of the yard that they like to hide in.  We call it their fort.  They get behind this bush and I don’t know what what they do – make bird feeders out of milk cartons or plot to take over the trash cans outside – I don’t know what happens back there. So I decided to find out.

Here is the bush/fort:

Its actually not that interesting, but I did find a few holes that they were digging under the fence.   Now I know they are going all Shawshank on me out there. Bad dogs.   So I blocked their holes and moved over to see what Chris was doing.  So did the dogs.

Lucy helped Chris rake:

And not to be outdone, Molly was right behind her:

We (and by “we” I mean “Chris”) put up a little picket fence around the vegetable garden so that the dogs didn’t get in there this year and eat all the veggies.   Last year, they thought we were growing a regular salad bar out there for them.   A few hours after the fence was up, Molly decided she was over the fence thing and wanted to check out the cucumber situation:

Then she got in trouble:

A little later in the day, Molly came to say hello to me and I had my first casualty of the afternoon:

After this, I figured, “What the heck?” and I jumped into the flower beds with Chris.   He gave me a pretty new, shiny hand shovel and I planted some bulbs.  I felt like I was contributing.

Later that night, Chris took me out to dinner and to Barnes and Noble to reward me for being so helpful (I can be a bit of a child about things like that.  But what’s wrong with needing a good, healthy reward system???).  I’ll work for dinner out somewhere any time!!