Today when I came home from work, I had a late fall fairy moment.
When I got out of the car, oldest son hollers at me from upstairs that
I'd better check my front garden, because apparently he'd not been
paying attention and both dawgs were outside. But the worst part
wasn't that both were outside, because Rose is a good girl. But Rose
doesn't tell Sugar not to do things.........

This was bad news to me because I had come home with the intent on
getting some beautiful unusual fall weather garden stuff done. I
walked along the front looking and stopped short when I came to where
the yellow, and the orange kniphofia HAD been planted. And the clump
of geraniums that had resisted my diggings a few years ago and have
graced me with fleeting blossoms.....and lord knows what else.
Because there was a hole going to Australia (Hi Pen!!) and about
three foot wide.................................arghhhhhhhhhh hh

Mike comes out the front door and informs me that Sugar and Rose had
been out all day since his brother had gone to work this morning at 8.
I pointed to the massive hole and he dropped his jaw and I then told
him to get Sugar for me. Apparently she KNEW she'd done something
wrong like she always does, and had been hiding under his covers ever
since he'd discovered them outside and gotten them back in the house..
So I called her and dragged her dawg ass out the front door over to
the pit she'd dug and dragged her muzzle thru the dirt yelling at her
"what did you DO????? BAAAADDDDD DAWG, NO" about 30 seconds of this
with her curled into a grubworm position I then picked her bodily up
and handed her to Mike, no small feat since she weighs 50 pounds now
and I have no business doing this at the moment.

I then tell him to put her butt in the house and please go get a bag
of the topsoil under the black cherry tree, and I filled up the pit
with the whole 40 pounds of soil, and unpotted an aster and some other
plants that somehow have survived despite the frosts lately. So help
me if she digs these up I'll have her for dinner............(not
really, but eventually she'll figure out this is NOT the thing to do
or "mama will be torked off"

After I got over the initial rage, I was done with it and happened to
look over at the Mexican Sage I have gotten from the lady down the
road and was blessed with the sight of the most incredible fairy.
Flitting about thru the Blue Enigma and the sage. I had Mike go get
the camera and I proceeded to try and capture her beauty. I have some
awesome shots of her on the sage. The underside of her is breath
taking, but I finally got the outer side of her and the orangeness of
her against the soft lavender and darker lavendar fuzz of the Mexican
sage is unworthy of words.

There are still a few flowers going, the Gaura has dark pink and
burgandy flowers hovering above dark burgandy and green leaves in a
pot, two Tequila sunrise coreopsis have sprung up in another pot. The
Enigma is going in both spots, the Mexican sage, a little yellow
composite I can't identify. The arum lilies are all leafed out now
and stand out with their silver and green mottled leaves.

The mimosa that died six years ago in the fence row gave up a whole
section and just missed my Diablo ninebark, Loripedilum and Wine and
Roses weigelia, and there are fat buds on the old lilac that reminds
me I need to take out another older branch before next spring to get
larger blossoms.

I will plant the burning bushes, pieris and rhodie tomorrow as it will
be the last day of 70 degree weather until the weather goddess decides
to grace us with warmth. After tomorrow, rains move back in, followed
by temperatures in the low 20's and highs barely getting to 50. The
bulbs might get planted too, but I have to find a place to tuck them
into a spot where Sugar won't uproot them. I'd hate to go thru all
this to have her uncover my efforts. She has a bad habit of returning
to the scene of the crime and recommiting it. It took several digs in
the NSSG where the departed pulmonaria lived before she got that I was
going to kill her if she unearthed the remaining plants again.

The spot she persisted at now houses Ruby slippers lobelias and an
Itea bush. If I have to I'll lay chicken wire down on the soil to
prevent her from digging up the soil where it's seemingly bare.

Thanks for letting me share a more "normal" moment with ya'll. I hope
everyone has a great holiday. anyone wishing to see the pics I took
today just give me a holler and I'll JPEG 'em to you.

,madgardener up on the ridge, back in fairy holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36