(I know, I know. It's been over two weeks since my last post. NaNoWriMo conspired with the worst illness I've had in years to make highly behind on things. This still continues and will for the rest of the month, but this had to be posted today.) So local friends will know about the two ugly, yipping dogs that moved in next door. The ones that bark when we're in the yard, the ones that bark if we're talking at the dining room table with the window open, the ones that now bark at me when I'm in my garage. The ones, that instead of training them to not bark an adult that hears them will yell at the kids, who then yell at the dogs, who ignore the kids so now we have two dogs and two to four people now going full blast. Yeah, those dogs. We love them so. I was eating a late lunch when I looked up and saw one of those dogs in my back yard. Turns out it dug under the fence over behind the jasmine. Well. I chased it around the yard a few times for comedy styling and by then I could hear the kids yelling for the dog so I went next door and told them to come get their dog. (In hindsight I should have opened a gate and chased it to the gate and out, but I didn't realize it wouldn't go back to the hole it dug. Stupid dog.) So then I had to get out some potting soil and a bag of mulch and cover up the hole on our side. I made the neighbor make some weak-ass attempt to cover the hole on their side but I think it's all loose stones over there and pushing back a bunch of small rocks by hand isn't going to deter the dog. (When I found the spot I went over and told her I knew where the hole was and asked if she wanted me to show her and she said "No, I know, I'm fixing it now." It only took her five minutes or so to find it after that so I'm pretty suspicious that she was lying, but hey, she did something, so I'll call it a win.) I used a shovel to tamp down the soil on our side, so the dog would have to at least dig through packed-down ground. I don't think it will come back anytime soon, it was pretty scared by the time it got out of our yard. Of course, I can't say the same thing about the other dog. If we're lucky it will at least dig under some other side of the fence next time and be somebody else's problem. Maybe in the spring I'll think about putting some of those root guard sheets down by the fence line. It's too late in the year for that kind of big garden project now. (And back to NaNo. Away my typing minions!)