Still white... just sunburned. :P

Today I finally began my garden. I turned the soil in a patch of ground next to the east fence. The dogs don't run up there and it's fairly good soil. This marks the first flower garden I've ever attempted. I've done veggies, of course, but never a flower garden. Anyway... I tilled it with a shovel and then went through and sifted out all the roots and weeds and the larger sticks and stones - the earth here is quite rocky. Needless to say, that took a while. Then I realized I needed some kind of marking-off barrier to warn the dogs out of it. Jason has some old juniper limbs out back that he was going to burn, so I took a few and fashioned a crude barrier. It was sort of ratty looking, so I started stripping off all the bark of the limbs.

That was about when I discovered that I never knew how cool and interesting a piece of wood could be. Juniper has many, many layers of bark. Some of them, as you get closer to the wood, are a quite purple color. The wood itself is white, and the other layers vary in shades of deep gold and rich gold-red. Absolutely gorgeous, to say the least. I kept finding deposits of crystallized resin beneath the bark, and discovered that where the bark was purple, the resin was red. Beautiful. The coolest one was a branch that had obviously been eaten up a bit by bark beetles. There were all these awesome designs eaten away underneath the bark. That one had the most resin, as well. I found some remains of the little creatures. It sort of made me wonder what the heck kind of teeth they've got that they can knaw all that wood. They must also have stomachs of iron.

I could draw some sort of analogy as to how bark beetles, like people's problems, shape a person's life into something unique and individual, making us cherishable, and giving us little wounds that heal over time, leaving beautiful deposits of crystallized gems for memories.... but I won't do that. It's boring and would ruin a perfectly good blog. Besides, the bark beetles inevitably kill the tree at the end of it, and that's not a very encouraging analogy. :)

So... between stripping the bark off several juniper limbs and tilling up my first flower garden (which I intend to plant tomorrow), I got my very first sunburn of the summer. Don't worry... it's not bad. It's just sort of pink... I thought it might match my outfit today. :) Just kidding.
The barrier looks much better now. Although I doubt it will keep the dogs out.

Also, when I moved in, I sort of expected that Tovie wouldn't gravitate to me as much as to Angie and Jason. Even though he's my dog, I wasn't exactly able to visit him much the last month or so of school. I'm pleased to say that I was wrong, and the little miscreant follows me everywhere and believes wholeheartedly that he's my lapdog. The little stinker also dug under Helmut's fence again. I blocked it off with branches and rocks, this time, and he wasn't able to get under it. I do notice that Helmut stuck a big old stump up against the fence on his side. Oops. Sorry, Helmut...

A few days ago - day before yesterday, I believe - Daniel had to go into an allergy specialist. The poor kid's allergic to everything. Soy, dairy, eggs, peanuts (quite badly allergic to peanuts) and cats. The last is bad news for Milo. He's out of the house for good now. Daniel's exema is already clearing up, though, so Angie figures that's what it is. Milo can still come in the garage and in my room, because he has to eat inside. He can't defend himself against the dogs too well, and Dane's a food-hog. Anyway... he's in my room now. He's a notorious pest, though, so he'd better not get me up in the middle of the night or he's out of here. He likes my fishbowl. And fishbowl water. And fish. It's quite funny. Have you ever seen a three-legged cat try to catch a goldfish?

More later!
Au revoir!
-- Anna Grace