When we first moved in there was this huge semi-circle patch of dirt in the back yard that looked like a failed attempt at a miserable garden.  I got all excited about building a little wall and trying my luck at a flower garden.  I picked all the weeds, we bought the brick (which I'm now noticing needs a little adjusting here and there), we hauled it back, we filled the dirt, we shoveled, and I laid out THOUSANDS of seeds.   This flower bed was going to be the flower bed of the century.  I imagined having guests to our house and looking out our back door and saying "oh, what a beautiful flower bed".  I planted tall flowers in the back, and a whole box of mums my mom gave me from her garden, no exaggeration, literally THOUSANDS of seeds.  What came up?  One mum, and that lasted through the whole winter,and six daffodils (which I didn't plant).  So depressing.  Maybe I'll turn into one of those old grannies that plants fake flowers in the yard.  (Maybe not.... that's even more depressing!)  So there it is, a nice picture to all of you.  Evidence that I will not be winning the most beautiful flower contest at the state fair.  I do have some mighty good looking dirt though.

The other picture is a picture of one of the bushes in our back yard.  It is the happy home of a nice long (about two feet) black garden snake.  He likes to slither around our yard and taunt the dogs.  Last summer Logan was found happily trotting around the yard shaking it in his mouth.  Leo thought it was dead and got it away from him.  When he came back to get it in a garbage bag, it was gone.  Then a few weeks ago Leo was mowing the lawn, and he thought he ran him over, but again the sneaky guy got away.  Poor thing endures an awful lot of trauma!  Currently he is Koda and Logan's sought after prize and they scurry over to the bush to catch him if they can.  Even as I took the picture I could hear him moving around in the bush.  Maybe if we look hard enough we can see his tail.  It really wouldn't surprise me!

The last picture is of our gnome.  Again, very depressing.  I bought my mom a gnome thinking that every good garden has to have a gnome.  Plus there was this great article in the Missoula Montana paper about a gnome thief and hundreds of gnome were being stolen.  Then one day all the gnomes showed up on the city court steps with rally signs petitioning better work conditions for gnomes.  We thought that was hilarious!  So I couldn't resist.  I brought home the gnome and as I was taking it out of the car I dropped it and it shattered into a million pieces.  So back I went to get my mom a gnome.  She got the nice one for Christmas, and my dad spent a lot of time gluing the old one together for our yard.  So the gnome lives on, but he has a hard life.  We can always tell when our dogs are upset with us or we've been away for too long.  One (or both, we've never witnessed it) will run with the gnome in his mouth and throw it down in the middle of the yard with it's face to the ground.  I guess it's their way of showing rage towards us.  Every once in a while I have to go back out and reposition our sad garden gnome.... guardian of the dirt patch.  So sad.  If anybody has some gardening tips, gnome and I will be glad to take them!