The Neighborhood

At first glance, it may seem like we have no close neighbors, but after living in the Shanty for over two years now, I am coming to realize that we have quite a few neighbors. There's the whip-poor-will who formally introduces himself by name right outside our window every warm evening but is too shy to let us catch a glimpse of him. The pair of great-horned owls are also shy about personal appearances but carry on frequent conversations in the woods. The ruby throated hummingbirds are not at all shy and are quite happy to take up our standing invitation for "dinner at our house". There have, of course, been no dinner invitations for the bears, but every neighborhood has those characters who like to show up uninvited.

Thanks to Lily, we've also been getting to know some of our human neighbors better. At least twice in the past week we've received the "I think I have your dog" phone call. One night we returned home too late to return the call, and so Lily had a slumber party on the neighbor's porch. It turns out they live within spitting distance of us, and if they had just let Lily go, she would have been home in no time. In fact, Joe and I are thinking of putting a tag on her that says "Please do NOT restrain me, I'm on my way home right now!". We had our first obvious confirmation that Wilson really does like Lily by the joyous reception he gave her when I brought her home from her sleep-over. Lily just spent another night away from home, but this time she was at the vet getting spayed. Even Foxy missed her this time. He spent the whole day she was gone sleeping in her bed, soaking up her scent and looking forward to all of the slobbery kisses he would get when she returned. :) We are all glad to have her back, and even happier that she's "fixed". That means she won't get in to any more trouble, right?

Can you guess what we had for dinner last night? Our garden is growing exponentially with the plethora of rain we've been having. All of the extra time and attention we put into the soil surely can't have hurt either. Already our garden is doing twice as good as last year. And to think that I ever complained about having giant piles of manure sitting everywhere. The garden is already saving us money! We came in $25 under on our monthly food budget. :)