Oh My Ears and Whiskers!

We've lived in our house for 6½ years. For the first 4 or so, we had neighbors to the left who were pretty okay, generally, friendly and outgoing, but they had a couple of glaring flaws that never quite jibed with who they appeared to be in most cases. They were absolute barbarians when it came to on-street parking, always taking up more space than they needed, poaching spots in the winter instead of shovelling their own, etc. (I watched them drive over someone else's folding chair once, on purpose.) The wife was particularly pushy and bossy, and she was inclined to start feuds with neighbors over perceived slights that she had no qualms about foisting on other people. And, they had a Rottweiler.

Now we have nothing against Rottweilers, and their dog was seriously one of the sweetest I have ever known. I don't remember ever once hearing him bark. We used to sneak him hamburgers if one fell off the grill and on the ground. He was perfectly fine. Except, well, he was a Rottweiler, and the neighbors didn't keep him leashed when they let him outside to "do his business."

Not sure if you're familiar with Rottweiler refuse, but it's some pretty high-test stuff. There used to be a hedge of assorted roses between our yard and the neighbor's, all different colors and sizes, and by someone's calculations once, the bushes were at least 10 years old, possibly as old as 15. The neighbors just let their dog pee all over these rose bushes, and now they are essentially gone, burned down to stumps from Rottweiler urine sitting in the sun all day. Once the dog marked himself a through-way between the roses, he would come over and make his messes in our yard. We spent a lot of time throwing bags of dog poop back over in the neighbor's yard and trying to rescue heirloom flowers in our beds that were victims of their dog's bladder.

Le sigh.

Those neighbors have been gone for a couple of years now, but it's taken a while for all of the territorial markings from the Rottweiler to wear off, because we are finally starting to see more and more wildlife in our backyard. We're practically running a refuge for field mice liberated from our kitchen:

And we keep seeing this rabbit running around our place at night:

And when my mom was down working in my side flower bed, the one in the shade with the hydrangea and some bleeding hearts and the giant hostas and the clover? You guys, she found a freakin' rabbit's nest, complete with three wee little baby kits:

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, these are the cutest things I ever seen in my whole entire life and I include my own kid in there somewhere. SO CUTE! They're probably as big as my hand, and there are three of them, and you can see in the pictures that they are totally adorbs and also that their fur looks so SOFT. I just want to pick one up and smell it but of course I know the rules about not touching it so the mama doesn't reject it blahablahblah. I'm not going to DO IT, because come on I have read "Bunnicula"* but still.

Baby bunnehs in my own yard. And last year we had the robin's nest in the butterfly bush. I am thinking about getting a statue of St. Francis of Assisi.

* Amazon affiliate link.

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

But that doesn't mean that I won't show you some pictures of my roses anyway.

One of the early buds from the peace rose bush, outside our back door. I love this plant, and I didn't even know I had it until last year. (I think it was last year.) It was way in the back of the yard, by the fence and the alley. We transplanted it to a spot that gets full sun and it has been doing beautifully. I mean, who knew? News flash: roses like sunlight!

Hahaha, I dressed my kid in an Earth Day shirt to go outside and work in the garden. I am such a wannabe-hipster, which is probably the only thing in the world worse than actually being a hipster (or a hipster's puppy).

Gerberas! Yellow, because that's Shae's favorite color. I have two yellow plants and and orange one, because orange is Syracuse's color. Love these things, in every color, even pink -- and that is saying something, because the only pink things I voluntarily have in my garden are my bleeding hearts, two azaleas, a couple of roses, and my peonies. And I didn't know the peonies were pink, because they were a salvage operation.

Actually, that's kind of a lot of pink. Hmm. Maybe it's growing on me.

Man, I hate this stinkin' tree -- it's a Japanese dwarf maple, and it's so red, and it's in such a strange spot in the yard -- but I'll be darned if it doesn't take some lovely pictures.

Coming tomorrow: pictures of adorable little furry things that rhyme with "maybe monies"!

Heart of Gold, Thumb of ... Brownish

Every year since we bought our house, for my birthday-slash-Mother's-Day (even before I had an actual child), my mom comes down and works on my flower beds. Because I am kind of a little hopeless. I know how to grow things from seeds, and I can save critically ill greenery from pretty much everything except infestations of those little gnatty-flies, but I am not good with weeds.

Mostly because I am not entirely sure what is and what is not a weed. Violets, for example, are a weed. I did not know this. In my yard, strawberries are a weed. But yet I love them. The way I figure, if it has a pretty blossom, then it's a flower, and therefore good.

(This is how I ended up with unkillable weapons-grade morning glories that nothing short of nuclear war can destroy. In my fevered dreams, I picture a post-apocalyptic world where the cockroaches are eating Twinkies and admiring my morning glories.)

We've had a crazy winter and spring, and some of my flowers are confused, I think. Nothing seems to be blooming at the right time. My bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots just came up in the past couple of weeks, and they're almost done already. I don't remember seeing them before Easter. My daffodils came and went so quickly that I don't think I even got a picture. The lilacs are gone. My columbines, which normally come up fairly early, are still just sprouting.

And my Montana bluets, which are supposed to open in the summer, are already causing a color riot in the backyard.

Of course my mother had help pulling weeds. Those dandelions aren't going to blow themselves around, you know.

Self-Indulgence

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me, especially now that I got my Violet Proto-Drake from Blizzard because I am a giant nerd about finishing all the holiday achievements and lucky for me that Children's Week is right around my birthday, and also because I have a husband who is willing to do the PvP stuff for me because I suck at it!

Happy birthday to me!

Random Monday

Oh, hello there! It was all hot and humid and stinky and sweltering this weekend, and I think I got brain damage or heat stroke or something, plus there were bebeh bunnehs in mai flower beds, squee! While I try to get myself back together, here are a couple of random pictures from the weekend:

I was hoping we'd be able to put this off for a little bit longer, but it looks like soon we will need to have The Conversation with Shae about riding in cars with boys. Of course, we're trying to teach her all about "no means no" and you can just imagine how well that goes over with a three-year-old: "Time for bed, Shae." "No." "Come on, it's time to go to bed." "'No means no,' Mommy." "!!!!"

Are the Sun-Maid Raisin people hiring? Because just look at how well this kid can rock a bonnet! No, I don't know why my Aunt Kim (pictured in the background) has a random bonnet around the house, but it is totally adorable. I was already working on a Halloween costume idea for this year for Shae, but I might try to work with this instead, because I love my kid in hats.

Yesterday we went to Church, which probably we should do more often but DON'T START. The 11:00 Mass was for my late paternal grandfather. Shae was wonderful, well-behaved and quiet and polite, and also really cute in her yellow dress. When she put it on at home she said, "Look at me, I am getting married." I just don't know who this person is, this proper little lady sitting in front of me in the choir loft.

I miss having feet that are little and narrow enough to pull off cute shoes. I have weirdly-shaped Fred Flinstone feet, as wide as they are long. Makes it hard to find cute, especially in the summer.