From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, The Cows of Reality TV:

Extreme Barn Takeover: Chicken Edition
This show specializes in providing the nicest henhouses you could ever imagine to people who need them. But make no mistake: It's not about charity - it's about chicken. When the barn doors are knocked down and the rooster weather vane is placed at the top of the coop, the proud owners of a new chicken farm are ready to provide chicken to half the free world.

Well, here we go. Venturing into the long holiday weekend. I know for a fact that I will spend at least the the next three nights in bed huddled under the blankets with Oscar, who will be shaking uncontrollably and terrified beyond belief. No one knows what Skittles will do. Given her deafness and reaction to loud noises so far, she will probably just run around the house barking. And knowing Zi, she'll just sleep.

Well, that was terrifying. Since it's so nice out today, I decided to let Ziyal outside for a while with the dogs. I put her harness on, clipped on the retractable leash and let her out onto the patio. She walked about 10 steps then laid down in the sunshine. My next door neighbor was outside in her yard so I walked over to the fence to chat with her for a while. After about 20 minutes or so, I turned around to come back inside. It was then I saw the leash with an empty harness still attached and no Ziyal. She had somehow squirmed her way out of the harness. I immediately threw the dogs inside, asked the neighbor to keep an eye out for her and started searching. I went down to the pond first because that's where most of the birds and critters are. When I saw no sign of her, I came back up to the patio and found her sitting at the back door. With the dogs. Inside. Silly cat had wiggled out of her harness to go back into the house, not run away. My cat is insane.

And so it begins. A few fireworks have been set off tonight. Oscar is running from room to room with his tail between his legs, panting and shivering. I closed the windows in here, turned on the radio and tried to get him to settle in his crate, but he was having none of it. Poor pup-pup. It's going to be a very long weekend. Oh, and just as I thought, Skittles is just wandering around completely oblivious.

Poor Miss Ladybug Luggage Tag is not feeling so well these days.

Honestly, given the state our luggage is currently in, I'm amazed she's even still attached.

Today, we took the muttleys to Forest Park for Skittles' first hiking adventure with us.

To say she was beyond excited would be a vast understatement. She and Oscar had a ball smelling and peeing on everything. Not sure Skittles has ever seen so many plants and trees before. We even let them lead the way for a while, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

As per usual, we did a little Geocaching.

There weren't very many flowers still blooming, but I found a few.

Since it was quite warm, it didn't take long before everyone was tired and it was time to head home.

Rather than getting her a regular backpack like Oscar has, I think we're going to look into getting Skittles a water bladder to wear so she can pack water for her and Oscar. It will be easier for her since she's bigger and has more energy to burn.

Mr Moo had an extra day off for the holiday today. Since it was so nice outside, we decided to take the pups to the dog park for a while. It was very hot so, after a little bit of running around, the rest of the time was spent hanging out in the shade. I didn't realize, until I went through this photo set, how camera shy Oscar is. The fact that it turned out to be a bunch of pictures of Skittles wasn't deliberate!

On Sunday, we had my in-laws and a neighbor over for a small get together.

It's so nice to have a patio large enough to accommodate everyone and then some finally. If we had all sat out like this on our old patio, it would have been completely full and the legs of my chair probably would have been in the grass.

This spring, our house appeared to be the place for baby spider hatching. We found dozens of these clusters all over the siding.

If you blew gently on them, the babies would scatter (and I would run away screaming like a little girl), but they always managed to find each other and gather into clusters again. So glad they've all grown up and moved on now.

Back in early June, we finally got the woodwork for the Great Landscaping Project of 2010 underway. We had hoped to have everything finished by the end of year last year, but budget, scheduling and weather reasons made it impossible. The woodwork is the final major project to be completed. L spent Day 1 digging holes, mixing concrete and setting brackets.



The cedar lumber arrived and smelled so good.

As did our custom gates.

There was a not-so-small problem with the double gates for the back. See the brackets?

They're six feet apart. The two gates they delivered were four feet wide each. ACK! After several minutes of sheer panic and trying to not have a heart attack, Mr Moo and I decided, rather than making them make us new gates, which would set the schedule back by a month or more, we would move the left bracket further out (see the stake) to accommodate the new gates. Not exactly how we had planned for this whole thing to work, but, in the end, it all turned out okay.

Every time we post something on Craigslist, I am amazed at how quickly people respond.

Large lot of used flower pots. Posted in the afternoon. Gone by supper.

Santino the goldfish has finally outgrown his tiny two gallon tank, which I've been keeping here on my desk. The "rules" of fish keeping say we should move him up to something only slightly larger, like a five gallon tank. However, since we didn't feel like spending any more money and already have two fish tanks doing nothing but collecting dust in the garage, we decided to move him out of his two gallon flat into a 15 gallon mansion. I got the tank out of the garage and cleaned today.

The bags on the bottom of the stand contain the gravel. In order to keep him from growing out of control and getting as big as a whale, we'll have to buy some new fish to join him in his new digs once we have everything set up and running. I'm excited to have a big fish tank going again. It's been a while.

You know it's been a good day of working outdoors when, upon stepping into the shower, most of your "tan" washes off and goes down the drain.

Day 2 of the fence build back in June involved setting the posts in the brackets and starting work on the privacy screen next to the patio.



L got a lot done considering he was working by himself and given how hot it was.

Watching the dogs at daycare via the webcam is a hoot. "Someone just did a poop!" "Quick! Let's have a town hall meeting!"

Listening to the announcers of the Home Run Derby and all I can think of is:

"Las Vegas. A city built of hot sand, broken dreams and $5 lobster. A city where you can get a happy ending, if you pay a little extra. A city home to a sporting event greater than the World Cup, World Series and World War II combined."
-- Cotton McKnight, Dodgeball

Several years ago, we bought a half whiskey barrel to use as a planter. It served us well for a long time. However, now that the landscaping is complete, we don't really have a use for it as a planter any longer. Not wanting to put it in a landfill, we came up with an idea to re-purpose it: a patio pond! We bought a piece of pond liner on Saturday and started putting it together yesterday.

We hope to have a fountain, plants and some goldfish in it soon. For right now, I've hooked up and tossed in a small air stone from one of the indoor fish tanks to keep the water moving a little to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in it.

Our forecasted high temp for today: 65F/18C. Any of you cooking east coast peeps want to come for a visit?

On Day 3 of woodwork for the Great Landscaping Project back in June, L finally had a work partner, V. The two of them made lots of progress. They started out by pouring concrete to set the posts for the pergola.

They then moved on to the privacy screen.

In the above photo, they are placing the first of two acrylic Shoji "paper" panels. There is a second one on the adjoining side. After they finished work on the screen, they moved onto the front gate and fence.



We are fencing off just that one side of the house in the front and back to make a dog run. Since we don't have any other fencing in the yard, we needed a space where we can safely put the dogs outside. It will also serve as a place where we can keep the recycling bins and other big yard things we don't want to look at. L and V headed home for the day after that. It was a long day for them, but they got a lot done.

Do you live somewhere that is desperate for rain? Seriously, invite me over to do yard work or anything else which involves being outdoors, and I guarantee it will be pouring within minutes.

Mr Santino is all moved into his new digs.

He seems to be enjoying himself. We also bought four new roommates for him.

They are in quarantine in Santino's old tank for at least a week. Yes, they are crazy crowded in there, but it's temporary. We've already seen a few spots on a couple of them so I will be running them through at least a course of medicine for ick. We have to make sure they are completely disease free before letting them join Santino.

I understand that kids are going to make noise while they are outside playing. Run around, hoot and holler. I'm fine with that. However, what is with the bloodcurdling screaming? Unless someone is out there hacking off your limbs with a dull and rusty ax, shut the #$!%& up already! </old lady rant>

June 7 was the fourth and final day of the woodwork/fence build. L and V got right to work on the fence section at the back of the house. First, they hung the double gates.

Then they worked on the actual fence and put the arch piece over the gates in, when it arrived.

Once that was complete, the dog run was fenced in and finished. All that was left to do was the pergola out front.



As you may have noticed, the bottom portions of the posts are not finished. We will be having the guy, who built our wall and back step, come back one more time to wrap those with stone to match the wall.

The pump/filter for our patio pond arrived today.

It has a couple different fountain heads for the output pipe. We tried them both and decided it was just too much for our little pond. Instead, we're capping off the vertical fountain pipe and just letting the water from the pump exit through the auxiliary outlet on the side. If we had a great big pond in the ground, the fountain options would be very cool. However, in our tiny little barrel, it was just too comical and dangerous for the fishies.

A few weeks ago, Mr and Mrs Ducky paid us a visit.

Skittles saw them, but wasn't overly concerned.

"Hey! Look! Ducks! Whatever." If she ever even had one, the prey drive in that dog is long gone.

Our new goldfish are doing well.

They've responded well to the medication and all of their ick spots are gone. They're still a bit weirded out being in such a small tank, but it won't be for much longer. I'll probably start moving them into Santino's tank after another week or so of quarantine. I've been trying to get a photo of all four of them together for a while now, but have been unsuccessful. They either won't hold still for more than a second or they turn away from the camera or both.

I've got lots of photos of blurry fish butts.