Saturday

Whew, I've been home a whole 24 hours. Seems like weeks since that's been the case, but of course I was home for a night or two last week.
We went out and cleaned up a little yard debris from the tree in our front yard. It's mostly dead and badly in need of pruning, and Ben and I are not really the people for that. To begin with, we're not home, and the tree's way too big for us. Neither one of us has any business on a ladder, especially Ben. He thinks he's got some folks from his church who've volunteered to come help us one weekend, which would be great.
We cut down a lot of scrubby trees and roses in the back over the winter. The trees I think were all volunteers, but it had clearly been years since anyone's paid any real attention to all that stuff. Now I've actually got some bulbs sprouting back there...one's an iris, I think, and I'm not sure if the other's an iris or something else. It (almost) inspires me to plant my amaryllis, which is done for the year anyway. At present it's just a bulb and 2 long leaves cleaning the air in my office.
One thing I forgot to do this week is to ask someone to water my plants. Everything's looking seriously dehydrated, and I expect they'll take a while to come back. There's a primrose, which will require serious pruning but was already looking perkier this morning, the amaryllis, which survived the week with no noticeable ill effects, some wandering jew, which is trying to climb out of its pot (a styrofoam cup), and something green which I don't know the name of but which looks more than a little depressed. I think they'll all be okay, and they're easier to manage than our furry children.
A quick gratuitous plug: Eric was able to tug on a string or two and get the wondermutt into a kennel for the week...although they were closed Saturday afternoon, they opened up and took him in, which was a lifesaver. Paradise Acres showed him lots of love and attention while we were gone, and kept us from lying to the dog: we always say we're going to the puppy spa and wind up going to the vet to board. This time he really did go to the puppy spa--but we didn't opt for the daily massage or deluxe bed. Just the basics for the yard dog. They were great to him and to us.
And the Boo cat stayed home, which is her preference, also she lied to Eric when he came by to feed her. She said (screamed, actually, at the top of her cat-lungs) that she was starving to death and had run out of food, but there were 2 bowls of dry food that she had basically ignored. He bailed her out with a little wet food, but we're still being punished with frequent cat-hollering. She'll get over it, eventually, probably right about when we leave for annual conference.