It's all her fault...

It's all Myrtle's fault that I haven't been posting with any sort of regularity.  I keep telling her that I have this great big audience all rabid about hearing from me, but she doesn't really get just how popular I am out there in the great big world.  Okay, how great I might become if only I were given the chance.

What is my biggest news??  THE FEARSOME BEAST IS GONE!!!!!!!!!

Myrtle gets all weepy about it, so I have worked to contain my joy to moments when she's otherwise engaged.  Mostly, it is her fault, but I would never admit that to her.

Here is the FEARSOME BEAST when he first invaded my yard.  For over TWO years, he has hopped around the place as if he owned it.  No matter how many times I chased him out into the Great Beyond (as in beyond the fence), that cheeky fellow would sneak back when I was taking my ease indoors.

No place in the back yard was safe from his trespassing.  He even fouled the grass without a single thought for a puppy dog who is already stressed enough about venturing out onto said grass.  No thought of me AT ALL!  Instead, the FEARSOME BEAST would hop about the place as if he were the one supporting Myrtle, the one who keeps roof overhead, day in and day out.  The one snuggling with her, laying beside her when she's writhing in pain, the one who dries her tears, the one who kisses her awake when she faints.

I cannot find an earlier photo, but here is one taken last summer, when Myrtle applied her new (free) hedge trimmers to the grossly overgrown burning bushes.  They were near the windows up top, so you can see it was a bit of severe trimming.  In any case, what you can see are the remnants of the Snow on the Mountain ground cover.  The stuff gets about two feet heigh at its peak, and so makes an excellent hiding place for the FEARSOME BEAST.  Myrtle systematically ripped out the ground cover from the bed along the fence (you can see some bare ground) and the bed on the other side of the burning bushes that is in front of the back porch and wraps to the back steps.  But she PURPOSELY left the middle section so that the FEARSOME BEAST could have food and safe harbor!  Oh, the bitterness of betrayal.

Well, much to my utter JOY, this area is where Myrtle recently worked out some of her upsettedness.  Despite her increasingly failing health, she took shovel to hand and dug out all the ground cover that she had allowed to remain before the burning bushes.  By the time she was done, Myrtle filled up five yard waste bags, laid out 144 square feet of landscaping material, and dumped and spread twelve bags of hardwood shredded mulch.  My puppy momma was filthy, trembling, and had fainted three times, but her tears had stopped.  I, of course, was leaping about the entire time she worked ... in my mind if not in my body.  With each shovel full of chopped up plants, Myrtle was ensuring my total, complete, and (hopefully)  permanent victory over the FEARSOME BEAST, for neither of us has spotted him since.

At the end, she collected all the rocks in the others beds that were being crowded out by her thyme plants and plopped them down in the empty space.  I think they look just grand there, but Myrtle told me they were just a way to help her think about what she would like in all that empty space.  Being a kind fellow, I have watered each and every one of the rocks rather faithfully, as well as tended to the liquid needs of the burning bushes.  Oh, how I savor frolicking about the FEARSOME BEAST'S former refuge!

I have been robbed of my joy, though.  And it's all Myrtle's fault.   You see, my puppy momma announced that she has decided that she will be creating a rock river, wending from the back steps, around the pink floral bush, and on over to the empty space.  WE DON'T NEED A ROCK RIVER!

"Why," you ask, "am I objecting to a rock river?"  "Why has my joy been stolen by my puppy momma?"  Well, this is why:

ANOTHER FEARSOME BEAST!  In fact, Myrtle rather cruelly announced that it is her plan to invite many FEARSOME BEASTS in the form of rock turtles, frogs, and toads living in the rock river.

Again, WE DON'T NEED A ROCK RIVER!  AND WE CERTAINLY DON'T NEED TURTLES, FROGS, AND TOADS!!

Surely you agree?  Right??  Right!!!!

SIGH.  Myrtle cannot harvest the rocks from her friends yard until the current spate of what Myrtle calls stinking-hot-days ends.  Once it does, Myrtle plans to fill up buckets with the old rock cover in her friend's beds until the river is complete.  After that, THE INVASION BEGINS.

Sometimes ... sometimes I wonder if Myrtle really loves me.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!