Reading

One of the fun things about being a mom for me is taking our son to the library. Basically, I will read anything that isn't nailed shut or trying to squirm away. (If you ever saw Bruce Campbell in "Army of Darkness" -- I would read that flying book!)

Anyway, when you're in the library with a kid, it's like a license to hang out in the fun junior and "young adult" book sections. There are a lot of great books in there: Diane Duane's "So You Want to Be a Wizard" series, anything by Diana Wynne Jones, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books, Terry Pratchett books . . . I'm always finding new things to read. I love science fiction and almost anything with magic in it.

This weekend I read Debi Gliori's Pure Dead Batty (the US title -- the UK's is Deep Water) and Dinoverse by Scott Ciencin. So I didn't get much knitting done.

We did our weekend chores, plus my husband took a section of our chain-link fence down, so the LP gas company can come and get our empty tank.

Having the fence down means I have to put Ajax and Truffles on the leash and walk them out to the "new" fenced section, instead of just letting them out the door. They don't know quite what to make of this. Usually "leash" means "car ride" or "walk". Instead we are just walking across a section of the yard where they are normally loose, and then I take the leashes off.

When we first fenced our yard, we fenced a smallish section by the house, so we could let Truffles in and out and keep her safe from the road. After we got Ajax, and as he began to grow, this small section started to get pretty beaten up by doggy footprints. So we fenced three more sides, starting from the east-west fence line of the original.

When we fenced the second section, our plan was to remove that middle fence and turn the two squarish parcels into one big rectangle. But we ended up leaving the middle fence, because it made the dogs run more, slowed them down, and kept them from beating paths straight out the door.

This also turned out to be handy when we were doing something in one section, and could leave the dogs shut in the other section. For example, if I try to dig, say to plant or move perennials, the dogs love to come and help me! Having dog paws in my shovel hole is not really "help".

It also defines the yard. I mow all of the "old" fenced section, but I mow paths and certain areas of the "new" section. That gives the dogs a somewhat shaggy, slightly wild place to sniff and explore. And I don't feel obligated to keep it as trimmed up as the part close to the house.