I just don't get tired of taking pictures of Blue on the front porch. He's come such a long way. I'm amazed at how much we've grown together over the last year and a half. He was almost a wild animal when I first got him; unconscious of being civilized. He didn't know the difference between a person and an animal. He didn't know that his food was on the floor and ours was on a table. He didn't know that running up and down the street chasing squirrels in the giant oak trees, barreling through the neighborhood at 90 miles an hour, was not appropriate.
We have a long way to go in some respects, but in some respects, Blue has very good boundaries. We had some people over for dinner the other night and I let him join us! Imagine that! He walked in and out among appetizers and people on the front porch and knew not to eat what was on the table. He knew not to bother anybody. He understood that as long as he stood by and leaned his chin on the ledge of the porch then he could join the party. And he did just that.
When it was time to come into the house to eat, he came in and laid down on the rug in the dining room. He didn't beg or whine. He's just content to be near me. And I'm content to be near him.
Yesterday on the 4th of July our neighbors, young kids, Sarah and Dan, had a party in their back yard. I made potato salad from a recipe I'd gotten in Cooking Light magazine. I chopped onions, green bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, green onions, fresh basil, fresh tomatoes, olive oil and seasoned rice vinegar. It was a lighter version of the heavy mayonaisey, boiled egg traditional kind. Nothing beats the mayonaise version in my opinion, but this was a colorful, tasty substitute.
Dan is an intern down at UTMedical and Sarah is an attorney. They're renting a house down the street. They're a matched pair. You know what I'm sayin? They're both tall and slender, young and sensuous, they saunter up and down the street together as they take their evening walks. They are friends. Companions. It's been fun watching them. They seem to be gentle people.
Billy and I had fun. When we came home I worked in the yard until dark, just pulling weeds, which is like getting a massage for me. Honestly, I feel my endorphins being released when I pull weeds. Billy watched a July 4th concert on television. After his show was over he went over to Kroger and bought some popscicles, just regular cherry, grape and orange popscicles without sugar. He bought soy ice cream for me along with chocolate sauce. We sat in the kitchen and had our late night desert. We listened to the explosions in the neighborhood. The Memphis Country Club puts on a spectacular fireworks display and we can see and hear it from our back yard. There were explosions all over the neighborhood, which, considering that fireworks are illegal inside the city limits, I would say there was a total disregard for the law! Thank goodness! What would a 4th of July celebration be without fireworks, legal or not. It was a good day.

I've been doing a good bit of landscape work this spring. My good friend, Victoria Holladay is the president of her little neighborhood association where she lives in a gated community. They have a common area that needed to be refurbished. She called me and asked if I'd be interested in doing some consulting on what would be the best way to get the biggest bang for the buck.
The association ended up accepting my suggestions. I hired a work crew through Tripp Smith with English Garden Landsacping(whom I would highly recommend by the way). The job amounted to planting, trimming and mulching. On the morning we started the job, Tripp called me and told me that he and the work crew were on their way whereby I hopped in my car to meet them at the site. Tripp and I talked for a few minutes about the materials. He introduced me to the leader of the workcrew, Pasquale and then I asked him if he thought we could finish this in one day.
"That depends on how long you're going to be here."
"I'm going to be here until the job is finished," I told him. I wasn't about to leave my responsibility with somebody else, or at least what I felt was my responsibility.
Well, within minutes Tripp was gone, and I was left with a work crew on my hands. Tripp had been over what needed to be done with Pasquale and Pasquale's memory is like a steel trap. Nothing escapes.
Even so, after Tripp left I was unsure of exactly how to proceed.I moseyed over to be with the guys, they were squatted down near the ground carefully pulling out tiny little weeds that were in a large clump of monkey grass. This went on for a good while, maybe 10 minutes or so. I wasn't sure if I should say anything. Maybe they weeded monkey grass wherever they went, but finally, after what seemed a very long 10 minutes, I said, "Pasquale?"
"Yes?"
"Pasquale, is Tripp gone?"
"Si, yes, Tripp is gone."
"Pasquale? Isn't it time we got to work?"
"Si, si, senora, we are waiting on you to tell us where to start."

I told Pasquale where to begin and once that was clear, those guys didn't stop, except for a 30 minute lunch break, for the entire day. They were so well trained and professional. It was maybe 5 o'clock that afternoon by the time we finished.

The job was a great success. I've missed doing landscaping work. I learned to do this type of thing by working for almost a year at Environmental Landscape Services. I wore a blue uniform, rode in the back of the landscaping truck, went all over Memphis. I operated a gasoline blower, a weedeater, and tiller, a chain saw, gas trimmers, you name it: in parking lots, shopping centers, hospitals and office buildings and malls. It was the most demanding physical job I've ever had, but I'm not sure that I ever had a job where I learned more about work, about landscaping, and about life.
Not long after that job I started my own landscaping company, but after Billy and I married I decided I didn't want to do that full time. But being out with these guys and getting all of this work done and seeing it done successfully really gave me a longing to get my hands back in the dirt so to speak.
I talked to Tripp about my friend Victoria's back yard. I'd done some work in it several years ago and the little courtyard area I'd planted was completely overgrown. The area didn't perk, which means that the water didn't drain there because the soil was too much clay. I'd decided to hardscape it. In other words, I was going to use nonliving design–rocks, statuary and bricks.
The guys dug out the entire area, hundreds of pounds of heavy soil and weedy mondo grass.Then I showed them where to lay the bricks and how. Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow the guys brought in a ton of pea gravel onto the flat space. We raked it and smoothed it, then we moved Pasquale's nueva novia (new girlfriend).
And here's the finished product! I should have take more before pictures, but one of these days I'm going to learn that.