Privacy Screening

Sunday we decided spur-of-the-moment to run out and buy some bushes to give us some privacy from the neighbors. We started our quest about 3:30 pm driving from one nursery to another and finally ended up at Castle Gardens in their muddy back lot picking out these honeysuckle bushes. We got a great deal on very good sized bushes... we should have a great screen within a year. Neil had to use a pick-ax (good thing we all just happen to have one in our garage, right?) to get through the clay to get them in the ground. Even so, we had them in and watered by dinner-time and even took a break to walk to Divino's for gelato. Yum!

Beat this, Dyson!

Introducing the greatest vacuum ever..... "the Boss"! It's about 5,000 years old, passed down to Neil in college and still cleans better than any new vacuum we've tried. Those bagless ones are just plain stupid. The Boss has recently gone bionic with new belts and brushes and now there's not a dog hair in sight (at least for a few minutes til they lay on the rug again). It makes me love vacuuming!

Spring Plant Sale

Spring is officially here, now that the gallery's spring planter sale has happened. It was a great weekend, despite a rainy Saturday, with pots full of flowers everywhere. Our favorite plant expert, Judi, created amazing planters as we watched in awe. We even had some fun garden fountains this year. Always a good start to gardening season!

Dog War

The new neighbors have two dogs. Two dogs that like to bark. A lot. At everything, but especially at our dogs. We've tried many plans to get them to stop. Plan A: ignore and hope they settle in and shut up..... abandoned after week 2. Plan B: be nice, talk to them kindly and hope they shut up.... abandoned when I got growled at by the little one. Plan C: scold them (since their owners seem to be deaf) and hope they shut up.... still working on this one when my patience wears thin. I like to scold them under the guise of scolding my own dogs, but that often doesn't work because mine aren't the ones barking and they tend to get confused. I've now moved on to Plan D: outnumber and overwhelm them and hope that they shut up. I even brought in an extra dog so they'd be outnumbered 2:1. You can see from the photo how well this plan worked.... the barky dogs started their barking and my tough pack of killer mutts all ran for the back door to get away from them. Time for Plan E......