Sharecropping with the Bowdens

Since the addition basically took up all of the full sun in the back yard I found myself without a big garden this year.  Luckily some good friends bought a new house with an incredible back yard with tons of space and lots of full sun needed for yummy vegetables.  When they were thinking about buying the house and I got to see it, I immediately offered to sharecrop with them.  The deal was sealed.  We tilled up a 15x20 plot of land in April and got tomatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers, corn and herbs in the ground. And everything is doing fabulous!  We have started harvesting and I hope to get the winter crops going in July.

How did we get such BIG puppies???

When I moved into this house, it was the first time in my adult life I was staying in a stand alone building all by myself.  I had always lived in apartments or with roommates and I must say it freaked me out to be the sole living being in my creaky old house.  So, to remedy that I started searching for a puppy.  I went to petfinder.com and found Dex - it was love at first sight.

So I called to make arrangements to meet him and unfortunately he had been quite sick with parvo and the nice lady said I could come and visit but that they wanted to watch him for a bit longer so I would have to wait a week or two to take him home.  So, mom and I went to meet them out in the country.  Well, there was an entire litter of puppies that had been rescued and Dex had several brothers and sisters.  All were taken except for his sister and Reggie.  The lady at the rescue said she didn't think Reggie would ever get adopted becuase he was all black...if anyone can explain this to me, i'd love to hear why this is a problem, but apparently she thought it would keep him from getting adopted.

Well, as she said that the gears in my mind started turning...I have always thought that if you got two puppies they would grow up together and not be so needy and dependent on their humans and since I just couldn't stand the thought of poor Reggie not being loved because of his color I decided it was time to test out my theory.

I had taken pictures of the puppies and was telling Paul all about them one night when we were at Sazio's...and it was Paul who named them.  Reginald and Pointdexter...or Reggie and Dex.  Being a cat person, I was quite surprised and excited at how my love had embraced the idea of having dogs.  This was going to be great!

A few weeks later, Dex was all better so Paul and I trek off to get our new puppies.  They were very excited to see us and had a blast on the ride home in the back of the heep.

The first time I took them to the vet was quite interesting...the lady at the front desk took one look at Dex and says "What kind of puppy is THAT????".  Dex, being quick witted, immediately responded and informed her that if she must know, he is a DEX puppy!  One of a kind.  And when the vet saw the puppies, he let me know that they were MUCH younger than I had been led to believe.  So that's how we ended up with such big puppies.  I don't know that I would have adopted Reggie if I had realized he would get soooo big.  I have never had a 50 lb puppy in my life!

I must say that I was right about my theory.  Two puppies are way better than one.  I don't think i'll ever adopt a single pet again, in fact.  They keep each other company and while they are quite attached to us, they can handle our long workdays or a trip to the kennel when we go out of town. 

They are also SOOOOO different.  Dex is the troublemaker and full of energy.  He takes care of his big brother.  Reggie is special.  He is quite sensitive and doesn't like loud noises or people yelling.  The addition truly traumatized him.

I love my puppies and I am so glad that Paul does too!

Daylillies

People come from all over to take pictures of my grandmother's daylillies ...she has even had weddings photographed in her beautiful daylily garden!  Last spring she divided her daylillies and we planted them along the fence in my front yard...they are spectacular!

Why Renovate?

Paul never really liked the house on Beirne.  And it only got worse after we had been here for a few years.  When you buy an old house, things fall apart faster and some things just never work right.  Having just started his own business there were many "issues" with the house that we simply couldn't afford to do anything about...the nasty old floors, bad plumbing, moisture issues, hot in the summer cold in the winter...and the list goes on. After Paul's business got off the ground and we could afford a little more house, I spent many hours sketching the renovation and playing with the design. But we still weren't committed to staying. Until one day I was in the front yard taking care of the daylillies that we had planted from my grandmother's garden and as I was pinching off the spent blooms, as clear as day, they told me not to leave and that if I would just give them a year to get established they would put on quite a show :-) crazy, right? well, from that moment on I decided we should move forward with the renovation...and I am so glad we did. We LOVE this old house.