Yes Laura, There Is STILL An Audrey

Audrey is alive and well.

This picture is for Laura, who wondered if Audrey had appeared again this year.  Yes indeedy!  Apparently you can't keep a good Cup Plant down.  She looks to have survived the winter in good form and is quite a robust little thing already.  Hopefully Audrey will not grow any taller than the 12 feet she achieved last year - she'll interfere with the phone wires if she does. 

On my list of projects is redoing the raised flower bed Audrey inhabits, as her huge root mass shifted some of the timbers last year.   Hate to move her as she obviously does well in this spot, so perhaps we will just make the planter wider, to accommodate her needs.

Argus wonders what is going on here!

The dog yard project is proceeding well.  Ron removed the board fencing that we put over the chain link when the neighbor observed that my yard looked like a prison camp - somehow I doubt that 42 inch chain link would hold prisoners for long, but we covered it up just for her.  The chain link along the side of the dog yard will be replaced by all new privacy fence to match the back fence we are replacing. 

The digging is complete, the perennials have been moved, and the fence guys are scheduled to start on Monday.  They'll take down the back fence, set the posts for the new privacy fence, and reset the posts for the remaining chain link.  Eventually they will return and put up the new fence - hopefully that won't take too long as we will be without a fence for that period.  I'll put up a temporary fence, but of course the dogs can't be left out safely until the new secure fence is up.  Means we'll be doing a lot more walking.

Amazingly, the bitchy neighbor has been as nice as can be.  It probably won't last but I'll appreciate it for now.  And I'll keep wearing my Amy Klobuchar & Mark Dayton tee shirts when I deal with my very staunch DFL neighbor!

Mariah is on her way to her new home in Arizona.  Honestly did not think we could pull this off because of the (justifiable) temperature restrictions on shipping animals, but Continental Airlines was very nice to work with and Mother Nature co-operated.  Dropped her off at 4:00 AM - who knew airports were that busy so early in the morning!   The airline personnel could not have been nicer and hopefully everything goes smoothly for her flights.  The timing was good as Mariah would have been the most affected by the lack of fencing.  She LOVES being outdoors, no matter what the weather.  We'll miss her a great deal as she was a good fit for this household, just not quite what I wanted to keep and show and possibly breed from.   So, we still have an "open spot" in Paisleyland.

Hopefully Rosie can meet me tomorrow and retrieve Reebok for a couple of weeks.  I'm really tired of four extra walks a day, and Reebok is tired of living in the basement.  When she comes back to have her pups here, she'll move into the family room with the others, and be a full time house dog if she can get along with Coral & Josie.  If she's bitchy with them she will just run with Argus & Watson.  I don't like running shifts and prefer to have all the dogs run together, but sometimes it's not an option when bringing in an adult dog.  My dogs accept anyone who comes to stay, so I'm hoping she'll fit in.

Thinking puppies!