April 14, 2015

White Dog tip-toed around all the straw that was blowing on the driveway. Steve made the same face as he vacuumed out Pumpkin. The straw bales, eight neatly tied little bundles, sat on a pallet waiting to be moved into the yard where they will become part of Candace and The White Dog Army's experiment in straw bale gardening.

Next comes ten days of conditioning the bales to begin decomposition and "Baby" proofing the straw platform so that a certain darker white member of the WDA will not try to "help" with aeration and expanding the area. The plants are waiting somewhat impatiently in the cooler shaded side of the house for their permanent home where they can put down real roots.

We are still snake hunting. Actually, we are at a standoff; none of us likes the humane trap information we have found which involves putting a live mouse into a trap to lure the snake inside. Humane for the snake maybe, but not so much for the mouse. Thankfully he seems shy and not an aggressive type, we have not seen him since the encounter in the woodpile.

Little Miss Z has failed her terraforming and landscaping course with WD. In her time, WD would create great and lovely works of earth art...but she always respected the growing things. Zsofia has focused her ideas of changing the terrain on the idea of digging up the Bradford Pear Tree. She has unburied roots that have been recovered enough that White Dog decided that the poor tree needed more protection. This morning she and Steve went out and laid out a lovely pattern of bricks to form a shield over the dirt under the tree. Hopefully, this will be enough to turn the Dark One's attentions elsewhere without baking the tree roots.

Bella excitedly called all of the White Dogs to the front window this morning so that they could enjoy the beautiful ruby-throated hummingbird that was buzzing around the blue flowers they helped recently plant on our front landing. The little bird ignored all of their calls to stop and visit then flew away to make way for the daily Song to the Mail Carrier.

Spring is calling full force now, complete with canyon winds and vastly fluctuating day/night temperatures. We can all feel the pull of life pushing out with vigor and need to feel the earth between our toes.