Rainy Days and Puppies Always Make Me Smile

We planted five more nut trees last night (2 pecan, 2 chestnut, 1 almond), under the close supervision of our newest addition, Princess. Princess even tried to help her daddy dig a hole last night...or show him up. We discovered last weekend that she can get very intent and dig--she was digging around a tree, apparently for a grub or rodent, both of which we have aplenty. We couldn't call her off of the darn thing, and we couldn't believe how deep the hole was, nor could could we find most of the dirt she had dug up, she had spread it out that well.

So, last night, she dug a hole right alongside the one M dug. It was really deep, though not as deep as needed for a tree, she dug it MUCH faster than M dug his hole, even with his "fancy" new toy. Unfortunately, she doesn't fill her holes back in. :)

So far, she hasn't decided that any of these trees are sticks for her to play with, like she did with one of the paw paws we planted a few weeks ago. But every time I poured gravel into a hole, she ran over to see if I was pouring kibble for her. That's about all the help she offered, other than trying to pick up a terra cotta pot I was using for a scoop, but she was a careful supervisor...probably because she had already accidentally run into the shovel that M was wielding and didn't want to go through that again!

We are pretty sure now that she's either a Golden Pyrenees (mix between golden retriever and great pyrenees) or a full Great Pyrenees)...great herding instinct, very intelligent, very sweet, loves to announce her presence at ANY noise or distant "foe," and falls "deaf" when she finds something more interesting than what we're trying to do with her...especially if that something is a possible foe in the fields!

Today, I'm trying to convince her that the garage is better than outside during a thunderstorm. She's waffling on that...she loves being outside in the rain and seems to become energized by the cooler weather, but when the thunder hits, she's not sure whether to run into or out of the garage! (I'm not sure how she handled the somewhat-close tornado the other day--we didn't realize she was here until M left for work the next morning and found her right outside the garage door.)

* Stringham high: Ah, puppies!
* Stringham low: Where did the warmth of spring go?
* Stringham super-high: We have run out of room in our prepared orchard area for trees!