The news from When Pigs Fly Farm

When Pigs Fly Farm is EXPANDING!

In between building rockin' tomato fortresses, getting on Facebook and producing potentially viral gardening videos, Farmer Jim has staked out and is currently excavating When Pigs Farm 2.o.


WPF 2.o will be ready for occupation Summer 2012. Make your reservations now.

In other news:

The tomatoes survived four consecutive days of 70-degree sunny weather, but have now returned to their miserably normal state: Rain, cold and general dankness.

They're a pathetic looking lot, aren't they? But I have faith in them.

Sort of.

The arugula, carrots and fennel seem fairly oblivious to the general climatological cruddiness and are perking right along, and speaking of 2.os, Romaine 2.o has arrived.

Stay AWAY, Bastardly Birds.
And I MEAN it this time!

Over on Farmer Jim's side of things, he's got dill and onions in, lettuce looks good and his peas are simply p.r.e.c.i.o.u.s.


And, oh, while my corn is no way as high as an elephant's eye (more like a sheep dog's eye) -- WTF!! did you say corn??? -- Why yes. As a matter of fact I did.


I did not grow said corn myself. I paid cold, hard cash for it at Liberty Park Florist, Bermtopia's go-to nursery for already-big-vegetable-plants-since-no-way-hell-can-you-start-with-little-ones-because-of-our-freakin'-45-minute-growing-season-here. So the corn is in.

I am expedient if anything.

And, this week, I can't give my gardening report with a word about The Back Forty, my perennial project (literally and figuratively) at the Nine-One-Four. Welcome to the garden.

Peonies, daphne and lilacs, oh my.

The Wonderfully Patient Spouse gets a big shout-out here for almost single-handedly completing the Great Back Forty Clean-up of 2011. I think he might have knicked a couple cone flowers in the furor of his weed abating, but I won't tell the WPS if you don't.

(Note: I wasn't a complete lump in the clean-up process. Yesterday, I took on the taming of our 7-foot yellow shrub rose. Seventy-five scratches on my arms and one puncture wound to the inner thigh later, I can report he is tamed.)

(Sort of.)

And Ben? He has been of no use whatsoever in the garden. His "contributions" amount to this:

Yes, another hole.
Which the sparrows have now appropriated as their summer dust bathtub.

and attempting to entice us into playing ball with him by discreetly and delicately placing soggy soccer balls between our shoulder blades as we weed.

Old dogs, new tricks: The hole truth

Ever since Ben padded into our home and hearts in May 2002, he has been a dream dog.

I say without exaggeration he was housebroken in a day (or two) and learned to sit, stay, lay down and shake hands in about 45 minutes. Ben never chewed anything other than his toys. He's never wandered from our (fenceless) backyard -- even when he sees his two- and four-legged BFFs -- unless invited. He continues to amaze us with his quiet intelligence -- from waking us up when he's going to be sick to locking himself in the bathroom on windy nights. I suspect he might have done the Number Two Son's homework once or twice as well.

He is loving, affectionate, protective, a gentle friend and confidante.

See? Dream dog.

Except.

Except for the three holes that have appeared in my daylily flower bed over the last year.

Ben has never been a digger. In the 10 years he's been with us, there's been nary a hole in the flowerbeds or lawn. Ben's more than happy to patrol the Back Forty for an errant squirrel or cat or follow sunspots for the perfect nap. His soccer and tennis balls keep him endlessly entertained.


So imagine our surprise, one day last summer, when we discovered this big boy perfectly carved out under the arbor vitae by the backdoor.


And a sheep dog with dirty paws to boot.


Ben looked suitably guilty and contrite when we scolded him and told him "No more digging!" But then proceeded to add a master suite last fall.


He looked convincingly reformed when we scolded him (again) and told him (again) "No more digging!" And then went ahead and added a guest room sometime earlier this spring.


Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Look familiar?

Construction of the canine equivalent of Ben's man-cave has ground to a halt. My daylilies are making a noble effort to emerge from the piles of dirt and plant detritus Ben has flung all over the place.

And Ben? Even though it looks like he's dozing in the sun, paws twitching lazily, I think he's dreaming of (plotting) the next perfect hole.

Perfect dog. Hah.