After the rains came & Day 116 of Dog

It's not as dry and desolate as it looks...underneath that ghoulish gray crust is a rich world of teeming life. Slumbering grubs, overwintering weed seeds, hibernating grass roots--it's a jungle in there.

After three weeks rain, it's finally dry enough to walk out there and start planting. Just lettuce, radishes and spinach (a second planting--I did a first planting last weekend), and maybe a tentative patch of Swiss Chard. And I'll transplant a few of the brocolli that survived an overnight frost in my cold frame that I forgot to close the lid of.



The strawberries don't look so good. Clearly they're not dead, so keep fingers crossed.



I was planning to fertilize them in the spring but it'll take a little research to find out when the time for that should be. Later.

It's so good to see these guys are still with us. After all the dire warnings about declining populations and hive failures...we got bees!



Izzy is so strange! I bought two big bones at the grocery last night. So I put her and the big dog out, put the two bones at the bottom of the steps, and waited. Big dog sniffs at them, clearly unable to decide which to take. Finally I pick up one and hand it to him. He takes it and walks a few steps away to eat it.

Expecting her to come get the other one, I go inside. And I wait. And wait. And the bone just sits there!

So what was her deal? Does she think they're both his?

Being human and of less than infinite patience, I went back outside. She rushes to the top of the steps like she always does--somewhere in her poor, confused brain she thinks that's the safe place to be when a big, scary human is outside. So I put the bone on the step in front of her and I went back inside.

Swift as a shadow, she seizes the bone and starts her routine with it.

What's this routine, you may wonder? Holding the bone in her mouth, she circles the yard three or four times. Then she buries it; goes and lays down; then digs it up; circles the yard some more; buries it again....

Oops! I was wrong. This time she's taken it to the far end of the yard under a tree and appears to be eating it.

Yay, dog.