oh hey so i turned 30 last weekend, it was pretty quiet.
pat offered to have a pool party cookout at his house, naturally i said yes.
there was swimming, volcano firepit, lots of food and grilling, and throwing stars. also rachel passed out on james' moped, then fell over onto the ground and just decided to sleep there. it was very LOL, oops.

i didn't take any pictures, because i didn't feel like it.
instead i got TWO cakes, and ate some of each of them, and made two sets of wishes when i blew out candles.

in addition to a SUPERFANCYNEWWEBERCARBEURATOR from andrew, the garden gave me lots of cucumbers

and lots of baby cucumbers to come

and nature gave me this really cool female stag beetle

as well as a huge cicada emergence all weekend

and craigslist gave me two new free midcentury chairs

so you know, in all the quietness, there was actually a lot going on.

man, this feels like the end of an era.

so many years ago i lived with my best friend in a glorious apartment, and got to enjoy her wonderful pugs wile i was there.

i'm so thankful for the time i got to spend with them, because yum yum passed away several years ago. a good amount of time has passed, so it doesn't feel as awful as it used to. its still hard to look back at photos of the past and see them hanging out with all of us, dogs and humans.


and then today, jenny had to put down soda.

i'm sad for her because she had to make the decision to lose a friend...its not an easy one, and even though she says she did him a big favor, i know its hurting her so much.


so i'm just gonna try to be happy, and remember that best friend dog pup for all of his awesome tricks. like how his stupid butthole poked out when he barked, and his silly snaggletooth, and the million text pictures of him i got from jenny sleeping, or not sleeping, with his tongue out. also, he would pee on things, it was funny to have folks over on the porch and warn them to not put their bike bags or beer cases on the ground, and sure enough he'd find someone who forgot or didn't listen and go pee on their stuff.

total comedy, all the time. you could always tell when jenny was home even before she was on the porch cause soda KNEW...he was up and at the door waiting. what a good dog.

we had lots of good times, and i'm gonna miss him.

ah, jes, so yesterday was the infamous birrsssday of one Dottie June, the finest of all lady boston terriers i know.

the cake was made

and they were soooooo hyped. i was pretty hyped too.

happy birsday to you, happy burrsday to you, happy burtsdaaaay dear Dottie, haaappy birtsday to you!
blow out the candle!

good job!

who wants cake?

any takers? anyone? cake?

are you sure? just a small piece?

this is what it looks like when a dog has lept into the air, high enough to peek onto the stove top. i would say yes, yes indeed, that maybe she would like some cake.

the kale/carrot peanut butter frosted cake was gone so fast, she threw some up then ate it back down in the grossest, most ladylike (?) dog party style possible. ew.

it was awesome, and they are so food focused now. they keep sniffing everything, like maybe there's more cake to be had.
i slipped em a little bit on lunch break today, its pretty hilarious.

this weekend was way too busy.

we decided to expand the garden a bit. bump it out another section of fence...so i called a friend that has a huge tiller and asked for borrowing.

sunday morning i prepared the yard for DEVESTATION. moved the rv forward a little bit, took out the old fence, and started TILLING.

naturally dottie loves loud two stroke noises and insisted on sitting close to me the entire time it was running. what a kook!

the garden went from this

to this!
and in a matter of a few hours. tilling with the mantis was a lotta work...this hugeass 5 horses power tiller ate roots and stuff for dinner.

i have so much more room now for vegetable wonderland!
all the plants are doing well. the watermelons are growing faster.

the squash is taking over, and the tomatos are tomatoing.

every morning the brussel sprouts catch the prettiest dew. its awesome.

oh, and the cactus is blooming and fruiting too.

its really pretty.
the other day a giant mushroom sprouted out of one of the logs from the cut down tree. over the course of 24 hours it got crazy huge.

and now its really ugly and dead.
i finally released all the scarabs that had transformed from hideous grubs. they were pretty cool. always exciting to grow your own bugs.

and they were really cute! look at those little antennae, like tiny flags.

lately the nature scene in our backyard has been out of control. all kinds of birds, gold finches even, tons and tons of bugs, and lots of cool plants.

these dudes are EVERYWHERE right now. two days in a row they were in the pool. they're my favorite i think, they look so fancy.

unfortunately, unless you are making them totally freak out, they are very boring.
today is miss dotties birthday, she is a staggering year old. best two years of my life so far, having mr. egon and miss dot. such good dogs, they make all my crappy days so so so much better. it is totally worth having a job that sometimes bums you out and always stresses you out to be able to take care of such wonderful loving pups. they're so cool.

can you believe that this little thing...

turned into this little thing....

that earned her namesake from the spots on her nose..

whose ears USED to curl backward....

and who has always been a huge ham...

even when sleeping...


the same little monster that grew up torturing her big brother....

and is now a ferocious beast...

and LIVES for snuffling around in the dirt in the yard....

that same monster is now a total grown up monster

and she's awesome. even though she doesn't have dots on her nose anymore.
egon helped me bake a cake for dottie last night.

even though he was tired, he stayed up with me.

even though he was falling asleep sitting up.

and so here we are, on the cusp of dog birthday cake partytime. they will get cake tonight for dinner...i will have a hundred million pictures, don't worry.