I Need A Pooper Scooper

We have a very loving and bizarre dog named Ginger who has many short commings. We adopted her when she was approximately 6 years old. Some of her habits are just unbreakable. For example, if she is pooping in a part of the yard you approve off and in your enthusiasim you attempt to praise her with an audible "Good girl!" she will immediately stop pooping and comming running to be by you side and recieve a petting. She will hold her business and forget about it and never finish it. The window of opportunity for you both has closed for about 9 hours. The same is true of course if you were to utter a disapproval, "Ginger stop going in the garden, PLEASE!". I have learned through her very thurough training to never give imput to her when she is pooping.

As a result of her trainging me I now have pile after pile of poop in two very undesirable places. The first is my front garden. There are weeds, and pine straw a would love to pull and replace even now, but the large brown piles shoo me away. The second is at the bottom of the stairs off our back deck. She has had the insight to offer everyone a two foot clearance right off the bottom of the stairs, everything beyond that has apparently been her toilet. One spot in particular seems to be her favorite which is evidenced by the dieing vegitation.

I thought I had done such a good thing by getting my dogs all this land, and a little for me to play with. Right now my dreams of adding azalea bushes to the front garden are fading. My visualizations of one day having a stone patio at the bottom of the deck stairs are challenged.

Add to this nasty delema the amount of rain we have recieved here all winter. I think we must be second only to Seattle for precipitous days. It is always damp and muddy outside. My visions of these turds drying up are starting to die also. Perhaps I can comfort myself with thoughts of fertilizer.

First Entry

Call it the night of the Kirby, call it what you will but we could not sleep last night. At 2:30am we both finally seemed to admit it without say a word. He sat up and left the room, I turned on the light and started trying to journal... then came a comfortable "Honey come here a minute."

We stepped outside to here some owls he had notice while letting the dogs out. At first all I could hear was the pitter patter of paws on the deck and the barking of a dog in the distance. I hurried our dog Ginger back inside and in the silence I heard them. Two Barred Owls "whoo whoo whooo whooing... " about a half mile or less off to the right of our property. It was wonderful to stand and listen to them as we took in the beauty of the fog rolling along the ground. The lights of the houses all around us reminded me of Stary Night, yet we could still plainly see Orion on the other side of our sky from where we usually say good night to it.

We went back to bed with my bird identification books in hand. We read through some descriptions and settled on the Barred Owl as the proper one. With all the sensory imagery in my minds eye I was calmed a little and I finally fell asleep. This morning I began fantasizing about looking more closey at some droppings I found in our yard that I thought might be owl pellets. I got out of bed kind of excited and on my way to the kitchen for a morning ice cream sandwhich (I'm pregnant) I was greated by our new Kirby. I reflected briefly on how smart and stupid we can be in the same instant. The good news is that I am no longer as depressed about the steep price tag, not with visions of regurgitated mole bones dancing in my head.

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