Gone to the dogs

It just dawned on me tonight that I have not only been not posting on my blog, but I have been not reading anyone's blog. I've been feeling a little. . . underwater. Homeschooling has been really busy, even with one less child actively homeschooling. I still read papers and discuss ideas, but the college kid is much more in charge of her learning. And a great visit with my mom and my aunts culminated in taking four seventy-ish ladies camping, one for the first time. That was pretty great. . . and work is busy, and I'm helping out with a couple of groups I'm excited about in the homeschool group, and I actually made it to spinning night tonight, but still.

It's been a year since I felt as though the garden had any purpose other than helping me feel as though there was just One More Thing I Wasn't Doing Well At.

Hmpfh. For something I've loved since I was ten, that's a bad thing. And last night, I had a nightmare about working in the garden with friends who were going to help me whip it into shape, etc. etc., but it all went pear-shaped pretty quickly.

I think it's anxiety because in April, I'm going to be part of a fairly bigdeal kind of garden tour, so knowing that months turn into weeks into days into ohmygoodness it's here! it is time to get everything going again. Starting seedlings, repairing broken irrigation systems, dealing with pests.

Speaking of . . .


Picture of innocence, isn't she? We all know better. In fact, Eric and I are almost as tired as we were with newborns. Broken nights -- and they haven't all been puppy-caused, to be honest -- have really messed me up. I'm even taking naps nowadays, and that's not like me.

Mikey hardly gets any quiet time unless she's in her crate or taking one of the still-baby naps that she's prone to.


Otherwise, they're pretty fond of one another, I think. She seems to be sharing some things with him on occasion,


But mostly it's teeth and paws and barking. She's still short enough to stand directly under him and bite his legs, even when he's trying to get a drink. We had hoped to not get a puppy bold enough to bully him, but bold enough to stand our busy household, but this is what we got.


Good thing she's cute.


But since there really is some activity going on in the garden, her new habit of leaping into beds and digging (sorry, two-inch-tall peas!) had to stop. Bowing to the inevitable truth that I'm not going to train her to stay out of them fast enough to get the fall garden up to speed, the kids did this today:



Parts are short, only the 24" chicken wire, but parts are leftover chicken run fencing. It's big enough right now to keep her out, and we're doing things as we can.


At least a short respite.

Meanwhile, I finally got out and worked out there today and it made me feel much much better about things. It's not where I want it to be, but on five hours of sleep a night, it's better than what has been happening.