Sunday, February 11, 2001

Dogs, cats, and kitchen sage

Pterelas and Leila are wonderful dogs. Everyone thinks their dog is wonderful, I guess it's some kind of dog magic that happens. Both are some mixture of Labrador and chow, and Pterelas, the one whose nose is in the camera, probably has some shepherd or something on that order as well. More about them another time. It seems there are a lot of Lab-Chows in this part of Colorado for some reason, and that's fine with me. The camera didn't know how to handle the contrast here, but it's a nice picture of PT.

Here's Leila looking pensive - it's her usual look. She's built like a little bull and has especially soft fur and a very gentle manner.

I was really happy to finally discover kitchen sage for my yard. It looks droopy here in winter, but IT'S ALIVE. I won't have to re-plant it in spring, and it grows well but not out of control as many plants do here if they survive. Nothing really likes to grow under it, either, so it's a great discovery for weed control. I began planting sage all over the front and back yards, envisioning practically a sea of them when they matured. They seem to die after two or three years, but that's a heck of a lot better than planting annuals all the time. The purple flowers are beautiful, and you can cook with the leaves :)

The side yard of the house became a collection site for old wood and branches. Most of it ends up in our wood stove at some point. The chickens are gone now, having lived their happy lives, and we took out the fence so the side yard now connects to the back yard. There's Elvis checking up on things.

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