The neighborhood dog parade passes each day, but two of my cats aren't fans

Two of our three cats are grumpy pusses this summer, because our neighborhood is a favorite route for dog-walkers. Benjamin BadKitten and Abigail Grump have figured out, accurately, that, wherever a dog-walker goes, his or her dog will be prancing, strutting, or otherwise proceeding in an annoying way directly past our front yard. My husband Lee and I like dogs very much. We think the view from our kitchen window improves when a dog and its owner walks past. Benjamin and Abby beg to differ, vocally and repeatedly, even though a leashed dog has never behaved aggressively toward either of them in our six years here in Moscow. (Our third cat, Tessa the Vague, has embraced, from birth, a laissez-faire philosophy toward nearly all creatures great and small. Tess has never been the brightest flame in the feline candelabra, but she seems to understand the need for love and acceptance of others, even if they woof and wag their tails, instead of purring and leaping onto the nearest lap.)

The daily parade past our house might include Syd, a black and silver Norwegian elkhound; Baci (Italian for “kisses,) a sweet black dachshund;a beautifully groomed, long-haired collie; a cocoa-colored miniature poodle with a bouncy tail; a pair of massive mastiffs; a dignified boxer;a cream-colored Anatolian shepherd (a very big guy;)Tiger, a well-loved cocker spaniel; and two friendly golden retrievers. (“Friendly” golden retrievers seems redundant; I've never known an introverted golden.)We also see many adorable mixed-breeds walking past with their owners – and I still miss the impromptu visits from Jericho, an exuberant black Labrador who, during his puppyhood, often broke out of the slammer for late-night visits to the cat door at our house. Two copper-colored Rhodesian ridgebacks walk by often with their mom – and a black and white Newfoundland puppy has already grown to the approximate size of my Subaru.

For Benjamin and Abby, warily watching these dogs invade our sidewalk – sometimes pausing to sniff the rose arbor or the towering maple tree in our yard – is enough of a trauma. But several of our regulars are dogs attached to owners who are neighbors and friends. If Pick (for “pick of the litter,) a golden Lab, and her person walk by when I'm gardening in the front yard, we might have a lovely visit, with the two humans talking and Pick lying obediently (and patiently) at her owner's feet. Abby, our black and white long-hair, will make a show of rising from her favorite napping spot among the phlox and, with a loud cat version of “Harrumph!,” stalk inside. Benjamin BadKitten's bird-hunting days have begun to wane (thank the Garden Goddess,) and he no longer camps out under the birdbath or the bird feeder. Instead, he's usually curled up on his favorite chair in our living room, plotting his next midnight reconnaissance mission to the nearest mouse nest or bunny burrow. But if he has waddled outside to supervise my gardening and spots an approaching dog, he'll skedaddle back through the cat door.

Neither cat is interested in becoming buddies with the neighborhood essence of sophistication: Lola, the black standard poodle. This gorgeous dog is unfailingly polite and charming – unless she spies a squirrel, when she might have a brief but entertaining nut-out at the base of the maple tree. Benjamin and Abby have eavesdropped (from a safe distance) on enough conversations to know that the elegant poodle is an athlete who hikes and backpacks with her people. This sporty dog presents a dreadful threat in our cats' minds: What if Lola mistakes BBK for a chubby, black and brown bear cub, or Abby for a slender little skunk and feels honor-bound to defend her people? Becoming a bonked bogus bear cub or a shredded pseudo-skunk,victims of mistaken identity, seems too tragic to risk for my two delusional fur balls. And it's best not to remind them that Lola recently acquired a live-in pal, a sociable white standard poodle.

We miss seeing the three sleek, silver weimaraners, Truman, Nixon and Kennedy, and our neighbor's elderly dachsund, Doc, all of whom except Truman have left this earth. As we wistfully watch dogs and their owners walk past our house, Lee and I often think of Rags, our dearly loved Old English sheepdog, who died this spring. I've always been a cat woman, but Rags and our late golden retriever, Kaylee, also had my heart. For Lee, it's been hard not having a dog waiting to greet him, to lie at his feet in the evening, and to wag its entire body in joy over the promise of a walk. We talk about adopting a dog after Lee retires, but we keep our conversations private, away from the tufted ears of the easily offended BBK and his opinionated buddy, Abigail. Imagine what they'd do if they knew we're considering getting a puppy. Maybe two.

Check out this lifelong bookworm's reading list for late summer and autumn

July 23, 2016

I'm stepping out of the garden and settling into my reading chair for this column, with a a recap of many of the fifty books I chose for a reading challenge I finished recently. Some of my fellow bookworms have asked me to write about the book list and its categories for this column. So, if you need a beach book or a volume that will spark your mind or your heart, you might find these categories helpful. I've included comments about some of my choices – and Benjamin BadKitten, that furry connoisseur of the written word (as long as it spells “tuna,” offers his literary thoughts at the end.

• A book with more than 500 pages: The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser. Takes Anglophiles from the Romans to the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
• A book that became a movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. A favorite of my teenage youth group, but it felt dark and heartbreaking to me.
• A book with a number in the title: The Second Confession by Rex Stout,1949, part of Stout's classic Nero Wolfe mysteries.
• A book written by someone under 30: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy. Blunt, coming-of-age novel about overweight teenager, whose mother is former small-town Texas beauty queen.
• A book with nonhuman characters: The Easter Egg by Jan Brett. Already read The Hobbit, so chose this beautifully illustrated picture book for my grandchildren.
• A funny book: Small Victories by Anne Lamott Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, Lamott might offer you hope and grace, with her honesty, power and wit.
• A book by a female author: If You only Knew by Kristan Higgins. Two sisters' lives intertwine in New York.
• A mystery or thriller: Betrayed by Lisa Scottoline. Legal thriller in the Rosato & Associates series.
• A book with a one-word title: Unforgettable by Scott Simon. Colorful memoir of his mother, by the NPR correspondent.
• A book set in a different country: On Rue Tatin by Susan Hermann Loomis. American family buys fixer-upper in French countryside.
• A nonfiction book: Drama High by Michael Sokelove. I write plays for teenagers and was inspired by this inner-city memoir.
• A popular author's first book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. I've read the Hogwarts series several times.
• A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet: Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon. Latest in her Mitford series.
• A Pulitzer Prize-winning book: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960.)Scandal in the U.S. Congress, still relevant today for political junkies like me.
• A book based on a true story: Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden. Two young, New York society women in 1916, travel cross-country to teach school in Colorado. Delightful.
• A book at the bottom of your to-read list: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Excellent election season reading: Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War Cabinet members.
• A book more than 100 years old: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I re-read it every few years.
• A book based solely on its cover: Nearly any garden book, especially Tasha Tudor's Garden.
• A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Silas Marner by George Eliot. Decades later, I realize I have missed two feminist classics and will read each of them.
• A memoir: Journal of a solitude by poet May Sarton.
• A book with antonyms in the title: Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman (1964.) Jolting look at the complexities of a teacher's life.
• A trilogy: Dark Witch, Shadow Spell, Blood Magick by Nora Roberts. I love Roberts' passionate Irish witches.
• A book from your childhood: The Beany Malone series by Lenora Mattingly Weber (1950s.) These beloved books about a motherless family were my girlhood escape.
• A book with a love triangle: Grace Valley trilogy by Robyn Carr. Country doctorand her patients.
• A book set in the future: Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine. Steam-punk. Printed books are banned and the Great Library controls all knowledge.
• A book set in high school: The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Brilliant.
• A book that made you cry: The Promise of Rest by Reynolds Price. Southern family's pain and reconciliation over the personal toll of AIDS and racism.
• A book you own but have never read: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Catholic guilt and grace in aristocratic British family in 1923.
• A book that takes place in your hometown: Heavier than Heaven by Charles R. Cross. Biography of grunge rock star Curt Cobain, born in Aberdeen Washington.
• A banned book: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Then I re-read all of Salinger's work.
• A book you started but never finished: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Benjamin BadKitten enjoys helping me read. When I'm cozy in my chair, with my latest book and a nearby cup of tea, he hoists himself onto my lap. His arrival topples my book and makes reading nearly impossible, because my cat takes all the room on my lap and overlaps at the sides. He doesn't feel guilty about this, because he knows that the world's greatest literary masterpiece has not yet been written: BBK: My Lives. He's still waiting for a ghostwriter.

I'm tipping my red umbrella to the welcome rainfall in my flower and vegetable gardens

July 16,2016

A gentle rain is falling on my gardens as I write. I've just come in from checking on the vegetables in the raised beds. If pumpkin plants could smile, mine would be grinning. In early June, I bought three jack-o-lantern plants on a whim and settled them into the former asparagus patch. Those little dudes have all survived and seem to be setting fruit. I think their good health is due to all the rain we've had so far this summer. It's way too early to start planning a pumpkin-carving party, but maybe I can give our grandchildren orange, softball-size squash this October, instead of my typical golf-ball pumpkins.

The rainy, cool weather gave our summer perennials an early-season boost, especially for the new plants I added this month. If I walk into a garden center and see blue delphiniums, I will grab a cart and load up. In the past few weeks, I've filled in the curving flower bed in our front yard with new delphiniums in cobalt, aurora, and sky blue shades, which blend well with the white, mauve, deep purple and lavender blooms I planted last spring. Before the rain fell, I also transplanted pale yellow and pink foxglove and snapdragons, once hidden in corners, to bare spots in the main garden. “See how much money I saved us by transplanting, instead of buying new flowers?” I asked my husband. (I'd casually draped myself across the bow of my little green wheelbarrow, in a burlesque attempt to hide the new plants I'd brought home from the garden center. Even after transplanting, I still found delphinium-size empty spaces.)

Wet weather has spared the neighborhood rabbits from another late-night visit by their bunny-buddy, Benjamin BadKitten. For the next few nights – after Ben brought in a scared but unharmed baby bunny, – I lay awake, listening anxiously for the thwap-thwap of the cat door and imagining our latest house guest. A baby raccoon? The two squirrels that hang out in our apple tree? Or – I'm shuddering here – a young skunk? Baby skunks are called kittens, so maybe my BadKitten wanted to examine a black and white impostor up way too close. But the rain kept him indoors, warm and dry in his favorite chair overnight, instead of on the prowl for new buddies. BBK believes rain turns his long hair frizzy and unmanageable.

As the rain fell and the sky over the Palouse turned purplish gray, I felt thankful that we have rescheduled my family's reunion to the Seattle area in early August – instead of at our house in Moscow last weekend. Lee and I have lived here for seven summers, and neither of us remembers rain in early July. If I'd stuck to my original plan and insisted the reunion be here, we would have been in trouble. Last weekend, I watched our yard turn wetter and greener in the chill rain and quietly hummed the chorus of a country song: ”Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” Garth Brooks was singing about a lost love, but he probably would have been even more fervent if he'd ever faced my family en masse. There are not enough homemade ravioli in all of Italy to deal with a crowd of soggy, travel-weary adults and high-energy, cooped-up children for three days.

On Monday the sun came out, and I spent the afternoon weeding part of an overgrown garden in the backyard. It's the spot where, I've told myself, the soil is too clay-like for planting tulip and daffodil bulbs. But as I knelt at the edge, pulling up clumps of tall grass, I realized that the weeds slid easily through the still-damp dirt. Over seven summers, Lee and I have planted hardy, flowering shrubs there, and we must have worked that bed well enough to turn it into usable soil. Later this summer, instead of wrenching my spade through hard clay, I'll spend a couple of afternoons digging and planting bulbs, for springtime waves of tulips and daffodils, in as many colors as that small garden will hold. Where did I hide my fall bulb catalogs?

I welcome birds, butterflies and bees to my garden, but BBK brings in an indoor surprise

July 9, 2016

I took a little walk around my flower garden this week, as I do many mornings before I have my tea and toast, and paused to watch a hummingbird. The tiny, iridescent green hummer flitted around the lavender flowers of the catmint and the dark pink blooms on the bee balm (monarda).Every spring and summer, when I choose new perennials to add to my garden, I think about which plants might attract bees, birds and butterflies. The hummingbirds are particularly attracted to red, which is a lucky horticultural break for me. My gardens have always featured a color palette that includes shades of red, purple, and blue, with yellow and white accents. The busy little birds also prefer tubular-shaped flowers, so I'm glad I've planted plenty of columbine, foxgloves, penstemon, fuchsia and hollyhocks.

Butterflies are partial to phlox and delphiniums-- longtime stars in my flower beds – and sunflowers, asters, coreopsis, drought-tolerant blanket flowers (gaillardia) and – this will not be a shocker – buddleia, commonly known as butterfly bush. I love watching the beautiful black and yellow, tiger swallowtail butterflies float gracefully through the garden (and I don't want to hear any slanderous information about the less pristine matter these lovely insects are also attracted to.)

My husband Lee and I always hope to see honey bees in our yard every spring, because we have small fruit trees that need pollinating. I've planted perennials from the mint family, including oregano, flowering salvia, lavender and catmint, to draw bees to our yard. Late this summer, we'll probably need sturdy bushel baskets for our harvest of Gravenstein apples, a few dozen Italian plums, and one Bosc pear. The raspberry bushes, all of which were gifts from friends' gardens, have needed daily picking lately – but our cherry harvest is down from last year's bounty: three cherries in 2015; zero in 2016. (I blame the crows. The neighborhood rabbit can't climb trees.))And the blueberry bushes produced bupkis.(Still, compared to the previous four years, our total fruit yield of apples, raspberries and one pear should qualify us for commercial agriculture status.)The bees have never let us down – beastly little caterpillars are the villains when the apple crop goes bad.

Besides being hummingbird-, butterfly- and bee-friendly, our front yard garden also includes a leafy apple tree, from which I hang three feeders. They hold a cafeteria of seeds for varieties of finches, mourning and Eurasian collared doves, chickadees, sparrows and (not very often) evening grosbeaks. The apple tree is my nemesis every summer, when its tiny,tasteless apples drop like lime-green hailstones onto my head and into the flower beds. But it's a haven for the birds and for two cagey squirrels, who have become big-time pros at extorting handfuls of peanuts from me every few days.

The formerly fierce bird hunter, Benjamin BadKitten, has become more of a homebody. My 10-year-old Maine coon cat suffered a painful and mysterious leg injury months ago. He limped for several weeks, had difficulty climbing onto his usual perches, and mewed pitifully whenever he tried to jump onto my lap. He also developed a phobia about going outside into the front yard, especially in daylight. I think he was grazed by a car or truck, maybe a bicycle. He has no lasting injury, except for slight stiffness and major hesitation about crossing our street, for which I'm very thankful. That arrogant cat used to saunter out into the middle of the street, sometimes pausing for a sunbath, and expect passing vehicles to yield for him. I'd rescued him more times than I want to remember, and am probably lucky that I didn't join him in becoming an unwilling pavement pancake.

BBK had not brought a bird or mouse into our home since last year, and he seldom even attempts a balletic grand jete' to snare a moth anymore. But at midnight a few days, ago, one hour after I'd finished what I thought was the final rewrite for this column, I heard loud, squeaking cries coming from inside our house. I screamed for my husband, and we both stared as Benjamin trotted toward the hallway, carrying a baby bunny in his mouth. The next ten minutes remain a blur, but I know the bunny escaped into Lee's home office. We shut the door to keep my beast cat away, Lee went to the garden shed for gloves, and I crawled under Lee's desk, where the little guy huddled in a corner. I spoke softly to the bunny and thanked it for not being a mouse. By the time I'd crawled out and Lee could kneel under the desk, the bunny, unhurt, had sprinted to the office door and was hopping around, looking for an escape route. While I stood guard over our three cats, Lee gently cradled the bunny in his gloved hands and carried it to a safe place outdoors, near where we think the mother rabbit lives. My BadKitten remained incarcerated for the rest of the night. Just when I thought he was mellowing....

Guess who's fired (again) – and who's gleeful about a new garden

June 18

As springtime's final week blew away under blue-gray skies and chilly winds, I spent some time making a short list of garden projects for the rest of this month. My husband, Lee, has set up the connector hoses for the drip-watering system in our raised vegetable beds. My job is to bury the hoses an inch or so under the soil, so they'll water the vegetables' roots. I have a good reason to keep the hoses on the beds' surface, though. My chief garden staffer, Benjamin BadKitten, used the lettuce bed recently as his personal outdoor hygiene site. Maybe I could rig up a squirt gun linked to a BadKitten motion detector. Knowing a hose could spew water at him, just as he's taking care of business, might motivate him to find an off-site pooping patch. Unless I decide to follow up on this ingenious invention – or replant the raised bed and drape it with protective plastic netting, – I'll be buying my lettuce for awhile. The possibility of E.coli. is never funny. And I have fired that cat. Again.)

When the hoses are buried, my next task will be dead-heading the flowering perennials in our front garden. Most of the tall, flamboyant oriental poppies' petals have dried to fragile tissue-paper wisps of red, pink, orange, white and purple. I will clip some of their seed pods and let others dry and scatter. There is always room for more poppies in my garden. The roses will need care, too, and I will remember to prune off each dried bloom down to a cluster of five petals on the cane. That's the best spot to encourage more buds. The Canterbury bells will re-flower after a dead-heading, and some of the sweet williams will need snipping, so more of their spicy, fringed flowers will bloom deep red, purple and pink through the summer.

After the flower dead-heading, my list includes weeding the backyard flower beds. Then, I thought, I'd be looking at a summer of simple garden maintenance, with plenty of time to stop and smell the roses– literally. I told Lee recently that I'd decided to be sensible and not expand the flower garden near our front walkway, (even though I could easily imagine a lovely froth of delphiniums, roses, and Canterbury bells around the plum tree.) Last autumn, I wrote in this column that I would not plant another tulip or daffodil bulb anywhere, especially not in our backyard garden, (even though there's a perfect planting strip in front of the peonies, and Lee and I could look out at a blooming springtime flower show from our living room window.)

But last weekend, Lee came in from mowing the grass and said maneuvering the mower around three tiny quince bushes, and the flimsy white fencing around them, is a pain. So is trying to squeeze the mower down the narrow path between the raised beds and the climbing roses, sweet peas, hollyhocks and honeysuckle along the fence. So my husband wondered if I'd be interested in expanding that garden a bit, from the fence line, to include the quince bushes and the pear tree at the front end of the raised beds. My eyes brightened and my tail started twitching, as if Lee had just told Benjamin BadKitten we were thinking of getting a flock of canaries and letting them fly free in the house.

Another garden. The sunlight is great for planting roses there, and a flower bed would be a welcoming entrance to the vegetable beds.(I could also plant some tall delphiniums and sunflowers, which might hide evidence of another epic vegetable failure from passersby.) In my imagination, I was doing a wild happy dance, but I remained outwardly calm and mature. Sure, I could make us a small garden there, I said. (I know Lee will offer to dig up the sod for me, because my knees are not always trustworthy. But his to-do list is longer than mine. I'll wear a knee brace to keep my digging leg strong and steady, and will remember that I don't have to shovel all the sod in one day. I can dig a bit each day – and when the new patch is ready, I'll have my reward: buying a flock of canaries. Pretty, petaled canaries, with a fragrant song and graceful wings of leaves and flowers.

Later this summer, after I've made and planted our new garden, I might take a little walk in our backyard and wonder, just for fun, how many tulip and daffodil bulbs would fit in front of the peonies.

Another fine mess: How hard can it be to transplant tomatoes?

June 11, 2016

The potted tomatoes on our patio love the recent hot and sunny weather. All of them, even the puny seedlings I ordered by mail, have plumped up and grown significantly taller this week. Like children whose shoes have become too tight, some of my tomatoes suddenly seemed in danger of being pot-bound, with their roots twisted and jammed into a dense web that stunts their development. I had to rescue them. The big, affordable pots I ordered online had not yet arrived, so I checked the patio and scavenged the garden shed for substitutes. By transplanting two big pots of herbs into smaller containers, I found roomy new homes for two of the tomato plants. Moving the rosemary, lavender, Italian basil, lemon thyme and English thyme into new pots, separating the used potting soil into two big buckets – one for hardened root clumps, destined for the dirt-mound cemetery near our back fence; the other for transferring usable soil back into the empty big pots. And I still hadn't transplanted any tomatoes.

Under a shelf in the garden shed, I found two more big pots, filled with years-old soil. I decided to use a long-handled spade to scoop out the cobwebbed potting mix. After only a few shovels, my spade hit plastic. Years ago, I'd heard a gardener suggest turning a smaller plastic pot upside down in a big planter before filling the larger pot with soil. This technique saved soil, and the plants could spread their roots underground, over the upturned pot. The suggestion did not mention that, over time, a buried plastic pot will disintegrate upon contact with a shovel, and its pieces will shatter, making the used potting soil unsuitable even for compost. I also learned that a larger, often-used plastic pot, in which the small one had been buried, will also disintegrate when a shovel hits it – even if the shoveler is a wimp with no power in her knees. All the dry, granular potting soil will leak onto the patio as the big planter gasps its final, plastic breaths. The shoveler, meanwhile, will realize she is close to sunstroke because she has been struggling with those danged pots for several hours on a concrete patio, facing south, on a hundred-million-degree afternoon. (Why, yes, I do spend a lot of time volunteering with elementary school children, who understand the value of creative numbers and hyperbole.)

After a retreat to the kitchen for water, I dragged the big pots into the patio's scant shade and began the transplanting. I didn't consider that transferring two-foot-tall tomato plants, with leggy stalks and fragile new blossoms, into more spacious containers required coordination. I carefully tapped the bottom of the original pot until the tomato, with its skirt of soil and root ball, started to slide free. Then, with one hand, I laid the plant on its side, with its head bent over the edge of the big pot, while freeing its soil ball. It's lucky I've had some recent experience holding my newborn granddaughter, because the delicate tomato plant needed gentle handling. Finally I settled the plant safely, right side up. The last step was refitting the tomato cage over and around the plant. The same cage that fit loosely when the tomato was a fledgling now needed careful maneuvering to avoid breaking off the stalk.

After watering all the plants on the patio, I staggered inside and drank more water. I found my chief garden staffer sprawled, belly up, on the rug, directly in front of the air conditioner vent. Benjamin BadKitten looked quite cool and comfortable. “Do you know where I've been for three hours?” I asked my favorite slacker. He yawned. “I've been getting heat stroke on the patio, transplanting tomatoes, and now I have to cook dinner in the hundred-million-degree kitchen!” BBK flicked his tail. Dinner. He knows that word. He requested poached salmon, with a piquant bearnaise sauce, buttered rice, and fresh, long-stemmed blades of grass. For dessert, a mouse mousse would be delightful, he added. He waddled after me to supervise dinner preparations, until I informed him that salmon and rice were not on the menu, he would have to forage for his own blades of grass – and if he ever tried to bring a mouse mousse into my kitchen, he'd end up as a barbecued BadKitten – with a tomato on top.

I remove the netting, and somebody sunbathes in the broccoli patch

June 4,2016

The neighborhood rabbit had been hopping around and looking impatient recently, so I laid fine-mesh plastic netting over the vegetable beds to discourage him. Protected by their net canopies, the sugar snap peas, lettuce, carrots and broccoli seeds finally germinated and turned into seedlings. Then I worried that the rabbit might be female, a single mom with baby bunnies to feed and a support system that relies on the kindness of strange gardeners. So I decided to cut short this season's save-the-vegetables project and take off the netting. Setting the seedlings free was easy in several of the raised beds, because the lettuce, broccoli and carrots had barely poked their tiny green heads above the soil line. I'd set short plants stakes at intervals along the beds and rested the netting on top. So all I had to do was remove the weights, lift off the plastic, get my feet caught in the net, mutter a few words a Sunday school teacher like moi should not use, and disentangle myself – and then those seedlings were free.

The pea patch was even more of a challenge, because the seedlings had taken a growth spurt and pushed up through the tiny netted holes. Liberating them meant carefully cutting away swaths of the netting, gently disengaging the pea vines, and then inching down the eight-foot bed to the next row. While I was struggling to parole all the peas, my chief garden staffer, Benjamin BadKitten, joined me, probably drawn by the colorful language that I usually direct at him. Purring, he rubbed against my jeans, deftly avoiding trapping himself in the netting. When I did not immediately pet him (I had not deftly avoided wrapping myself up in the mess,) he stalked off. He'd gone, I assumed, to his favorite spot in the shade of the tall flowers in the front garden. Finally, the peas were free, and I'd rolled up the blasted netting and bundled it into a tightly tied bag for safe disposal. (If the netting could win a tangle match with me, imagine how much harm it could do, floating free among fish, whales and dolphins, after being dumped off by a garbage scow somewhere at sea.)

I uncoiled the hose to water the vegetable beds, turned, and discovered my chief garden staffer, eyes closed and sprawled, belly up, smack on top of a row of tiny broccoli. Benjamin, a hefty Maine coon cat with wide hindquarters, slitted his eyes at me. Apparently I was blocking the sun, and he wanted an even tan. I told him to move. He flicked his fat tail and flattened more seedlings. I decided to water the broccoli bed first.

Rehiring my BadKitten as chief garden staffer actually has been a comfort to both of us, I think. We are missing Rags, our Old English sheepdog, who died recently and was BBK's best friend. It helps to settle back into familiar routines, including having my BadKitten keep me company in the garden again. I can talk to him about happy memories of Rags and my latest plans for the flower and vegetable beds. He lies nearby, or on my lap while I'm trying to plant, and seems to listen. Benjamin is more tolerant of my conversation than Abby, our black and white, long-haired cat. She often spends time among the flowers, too, but if I greet her or, Garden Goddess forbid, try to chat, she lays back her ears, offers a crabby meow that sounds remarkably like, “Buzz off,” and stalks away to a more secluded spot. Tessa the Vague, my former garden chief, was neither a sidekick nor a conversationalist. She seemed startled whenever she found herself in the front garden, and hightailed back through the cat door into the house if I smiled at her.

The pink plastic, cylindrical sails I wrapped around my smaller tomato plants are back in dry dock in the garden shed. This week's sunny weather has made the tomato plants happy about going commando. Some even have set yellow flowers. I'll transplant the more fragile plants as soon as the big, affordable pots I ordered online arrive. Our patio is an old-fashioned slab of concrete, crumbling into rough scallops at the edges. Spending major bucks for beautiful pottery planters is not part of the garden budget. Our pots are humble green plastic. Using fancy ceramics would raise the pressure I already feel at growing tomatoes. If the neighborhood rabbit is brave enough to hop onto our patio, I will offer her a BLT.

Take a walk in my springtime garden with me

June 1, 2016

As the calendar page turns to June, I want to share photos of my springtime flower garden, with its tulips, daffodils, oriental poppies, pansies and columbine. I planted most of the bulbs five years ago and gradually added more of my beloved oriental poppies, with their tissue-paper petals and dramatic colors. When I created an addition to our front yard garden last summer, I lined its curving borders with more bulbs. All the sod-digging, hauling and soil amending was worth it as soon as the new bulbs and green shoots started lifting their heads to the sunshine.

The oriental poppies began to bloom mid-spring and quickly became the garden's divas.

I have never made a garden without including bright-faced pansies. They remind me of my Italian grandma, who loved them. Seeing pansies in our front-porch planter and smiling from the garden always helps me feel closer to her.

Which flowers do you grow for their memories as well as their beauty?

My tomato plants face the wind and rain in their pink plastic bonnets

May 28,2016

I've lost some perennials and drowned a lot of innocent seeds by planting too early. This year, after an unfortunate no-show, no-grow result in the pea patch, I reined myself in and waited for May to set in most of my vegetables and flowering plants. I bought six bushy, healthy tomato plants and gave them new homes on our south-facing patio, and set pink plastic, ventilated cylinders over six smaller tomato plants to boost their growth. The plastic-wrapped pots looked like pale pink Easter bonnets with ruffled topknots, which I created to tie them off. Then I planted broccoli, carrots, salad greens in our raised beds, and smiled with a wee bit of smugness during their first weeks. All the plants and seedlings thrived in the warm May sunshine. I even got cocky and added three pumpkin plants to the under-performing asparagus patch. By then – late May – the calendar had caught up with my impetuous nature. I felt proud that I'd waited patiently to start my summer vegetables until consistently warm weather had arrived.

Can you hear the Garden Goddess snorting with laughter? It's been raining and chilly here on the Palouse for a whole lot of days. Windy, too. The pink plastic cylinders have protected the more delicate tomatoes' roots from drowning, by limiting the amount of rainwater that could enter their pots. But – there always seems to be a “but” when I try a new gardening gimmick – the plastic, which encircled the pots and was held aloft by their tomato cages, also turned the poor little guys into pink-sailed schooners. Strong gusts from earlier this week toppled all six and sent one of the full-rigged pots sailing over the side of the patio and running aground in the peony bed below. When the wind died, my husband tried to rescue all the shipwrecked pots. He saved five. The sixth pot yielded its soil, wire cage and intact pink plastic sail, but not its small tomato plant, which rests now, somewhere in the depths, among the peonies.

The pumpkin plants are still alive, but some of their leaves are turning a sickly shade of pistachio. I'm considering temporarily transferring three of the pink plastic cylinders to the pumpkin patch, and anchoring them around the plants with tomato-turned-pumpkin cages. No matter how this brainstorm turns out, it will still seem more logical than draping banana peels on the canes of our beautiful rose bushes, in a daft effort to outsmart the aphids. (I actually did that several summers ago, and realized I'd been had when the little green bugs sent an emissary to our kitchen, asking for ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup and maraschino cherries for their banana-split party.)

I'd had great affection for the asparagus bed early this spring, because we tried to eliminated their roots last fall, after they had gone to seed so fast. When slender stalks appeared by surprise last month, guilt haunted me for trying to snuff them out. But when the new growth immediately sent up plumes,too, I decided we'd wasted a raised bed. So I used a spading fork to dig up as many remaining asparagus roots as I could find, and planted pumpkins for our grandchildren. Faithful readers already know there almost certainly will be a major pumpkin pratfall by October, but for now, my imagination sees jack-o-lanterns.

After his recent reinstatement as chief garden staffer, Benjamin BadKitten took some personal days off (paid, of course, with benefits intact) as a health-related precaution. Working in Moscow's torrential rains and hurricane-level winds (neither of which actually happened) might put him at risk for pneumonia, he explained. And getting his fur wet would make his paws cold and his tail less fluffy, both of which he considers inhumane working conditions. So BBK has spent most of the past two weeks curled up on my lap or alone in his favorite chair. He must have risked his delicate paws and stylish plume of a tail for a little while, though,because I recently found an intact squirrel's tail on the living room rug. I do not think my ten-year-old Maine coon cat magically morphed into Simba the lion and bagged the rodent. Instead, it's likely he retrieved the poor little guy's tail after a car ran over it on our street. The BadKitten has gone mum about all squirrel-related details and, instead, wonders which garden beds need more fertilizing. Maybe it will keep raining.

The pumpkin plants are still alive, but some of their leaves are turning a sickly shade of pistachio. I'm considering temporarily transferring three of the pink plastic cylinders to the pumpkin patch, and anchoring them around the plants with tomato-turned-pumpkin cages. No matter how this brainstorm turns out, it will still seem more logical than draping banana peels on the canes of our beautiful rose bushes, in a daft effort to outsmart the aphids. (I actually did that several summers ago, and realized I'd been had when the little green bugs sent an emissary to our kitchen, asking for ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup and maraschino cherries for their banana-split party.)

I'd had great affection for the asparagus bed early this spring, because we tried to eliminated their roots last fall, after they had gone to seed so fast. When slender stalks appeared by surprise last month, guilt haunted me for trying to snuff them out. But when the new growth immediately sent up plumes,too, I decided we'd wasted a raised bed. So I used a spading fork to dig up as many remaining asparagus roots as I could find, and planted pumpkins for our grandchildren. Faithful readers already know there almost certainly will be a major pumpkin pratfall by October, but for now, my imagination sees jack-o-lanterns.

After his recent reinstatement as chief garden staffer, Benjamin BadKitten took some personal days off (paid, of course, with benefits intact) as a health-related precaution. Working in Moscow's torrential rains and hurricane-level winds (neither of which actually happened) might put him at risk for pneumonia, he explained. And getting his fur wet would make his paws cold and his tail less fluffy, both of which he considers inhumane working conditions. So BBK has spent most of the past two weeks curled up on my lap or alone in his favorite chair. He must have risked his delicate paws and stylish plume of a tail for a little while, though,because I recently found an intact squirrel's tail on the living room rug. I do not think my ten-year-old Maine coon cat magically morphed into Simba the lion and bagged the rodent. Instead, it's likely he retrieved the poor little guy's tail after a car ran over it on our street. The BadKitten has gone mum about all squirrel-related details and, instead, wonders which garden beds need more fertilizing. Maybe it will keep raining.

Helping the BadKitten accept loss of his buddy Rags

MAY 14, 2016

Thank you from my heart to readers who sent emails, letters and cards of compassion – and a lovely white rose bush – after the recent death of our beloved Rags. Our family is still adjusting to losing our Old English sheepdog, and Benjamin BadKitten has been grieving hard. Our 10-year-old Maine coon cat was Rags' best friend. I have written about Benjamin's many mishaps and acts of civil disobedience, as well as his delusions about his own magnificence. That cat even declared himself a candidate for President and received donations to his political action committee, before his buddy's health took a steep decline. Now Benjamin has permanently suspended his imaginary campaign as he realizes that the big, shaggy dog he loved is gone.

After Rags' death, my BadKitten completely lost his mojo. When he wasn't prowling our entryway and living room, checking to see if Rags had reappeared, he retreated to his cat perch in my study. He had no interest in plopping himself onto my lap, dislodging my book or newspaper, and demanding total attention. In the evenings, he lay on the rug directly below Rags' now-unoccupied leather couch, and stared at me with sad green eyes. Sometimes his gaze turned angry, as if demanding, “What have you done with my puppy?” (Accuracy compels me to add that grief did not affect Benjamin's appetite. Since I supplemented our three cats' diet with canned food, my already hefty Maine coon cat seems to have added a bit more bulk to his hindquarters.)

Gradually, though, Benjamin has begun to accept the finality of his buddy's absence. He has resumed his rituals – winding his long, fluffy tail around my legs as I cook dinner, stretching up onto his back legs to see if he can use my jeans (while I am wearing them) as a scratching post, nightly stints on my lap, and visits to my husband's home office, to interrupt Lee's work by rolling onto his back and demanding to be petted. And last weekend, for the first time in months, my BadKitten joined me in the garden. I've spent as much time there as I can manage lately, planting broccoli, carrots, lettuce, and a second sowing of sugar snap peas. Last weekend, I used a spading fork to stir up the soil in a backyard bed before I planted sunflowers and hollyhocks there. As a knelt to gather stray roots and weeds for the compost pile, I felt a familiar disruption. Benjamin climbed onto my lap, shedding his long, black and brown fur onto my shirt, and leaned against me, purring.

I set aside the weed bucket and stroked his soft head. “The three of us had good times out here, didn't we?” I asked my cat, as I remembered Benjamin, Rags and me enjoying summer garden days. “But now it's just you and me. I do rather miss you as my chief garden staffer.” (Our other cats, Abigail Grump and Tessa the Vague, each had the job for awhile, but Abby said I talked too much, and Tess had trouble finding the garden.)My BadKitten head-bumped my chest and seemed to consider his options. His political career was history (brief, imaginary, and extinct as the dodo.) He could return to the living room and continue the life of a sloth. Or he could accept this renewed – and soon to be rescinded – job offer, which he knows he can perform lying down, with his eyes closed.

While I continued digging and becoming dehydrated in the springtime heat, my once and future chief garden staffer strolled away. (“Waddled” is such a harsh verb, although more accurate.) He settled in the shade under the blooming hawthorn tree, lay down and closed his eyes. Text if you need anything, he seemed to signal. (I do not text, and my wily beast knows it.) When I moved to the side yard to plant the vegetables, BBK trotted at my side and remained, awake and alert in the nearby grass, watching while I set in the seeds. I spread fine wire netting over two of the beds, to deter the neighborhood bunny and a murder of crows from early snacking. I kept the lettuce and carrot bed uncovered, because I'd left half the bed empty for a later planting. This week I checked the vegetable garden and discovered someone had pooped in the only uncovered bed, in the middle of the newly sprouted lettuce patch. Welcome back, BBK.

Farewell to Rags, our great-hearted sheepdog

MAY 7

Most dog owners tend to think ours is the best dog in the world, and, of course, all of us are right.

 

We bought him nearly 14 years ago in Seattle and named him Winston Ragsdorf – a suitable British moniker for a pedigreed, Old English sheepdog puppy. He bounced around our living room, wiggling his rump and his nonexistent tail as he made friends with our golden retriever, Kaylee. He'll grow into his dignified name in time, Lee and I told each other. He was bred to be a large, responsible, herding dog, in charge of protecting and guarding his flock. Soon, our curly-haired, gray and white clown would mature and become an example to the older, excitable Kaylee. Winston would show Kaylee how to walk on a leash in a stately, docile manner – instead of mimicking her headlong sprint around our neighborhood, zigzagging to sniff every tree and telephone pole along the way.

This, of course, did not happen. Instead, the three of us – a small woman, clutching a double leash and being towed by an exuberant puppy and a manic dog – drew slowdowns from drivers and grins from passersby as we careened down the block. But I was grinning, too. I loved our dogs' joy. And what was the harm in letting little Winston bound onto my lap at night and settle in, cat-like, while I read? How could I know he would continue this tradition long after he had topped 80 pounds?

On Winston's first Christmas Eve, our family left to attend an evening service. We returned to find our little sheepdog, hunkered down under the library table, with a partially gnawed loaf of sweet bread between his paws. I had left two loaves cooling on a kitchen counter and hadn't considered our puppy's athletic ability. Finally Lee and I accepted reality and rechristened our sheepdog. He was Rags, as adorable as a big, living stuffed animal, buoyant of spirit, loyal and loving of heart, and lacking even one mean – or dignified – bone in his body. We reserved the stern call of “Winston!” for rare times when he did something unsafe – lunging at his only enemy, the UPS truck, for instance.

When we bought a house on two country acres in Kingston, a ferry ride away from Seattle, Rags and Kaylee believed we'd moved them to dog heaven. We hung up the leashes and let our dogs run free, chasing each other down the lane every morning as we collected the daily newspaper, and again in the afternoon for the mail. Long after dark every night, those two would eye each other and race to the back door. We'd let them out and hear them racing down the trail, barking with joy, in pursuit of trespassing (or possibly imaginary) deer, raccoons, or bears. They'd return, bright-eyed and unharmed, ready for their nightly treat and lavish praise for protecting us from wild beasts.

Rags was four when Lee and I were given a tiny, black and brown kitten, with the don't-mess-with-me attitude of a Rottweiler. Kaylee was horrified; Rags, delighted. Our big guy could have flattened that little upstart with one swipe of his large paw. Instead, he allowed Benjamin BadKitten – no other name would suit the trouble-prone fluff ball – literally to climb all over him. Their friendship grew and endured until the final morning of our good dog's life. Those two adored each other, seeking each other out for comfort and support. When the Winter Olympics were on TV, the huge dog and baby cat loved to watch figure skating together. Rags would lie on the floor, staring intently at the moving skaters, and Benjamin would perch over the edge of the TV, watching the action upside-down. As Rags grew older, he and Lee watched Seattle Seahawks football together, but we suspected our sheepdog's heart still belonged to the sequins and skates.

When we moved to Moscow six years ago,he easily cleared the four-foot backyard fence to find us in the front yard. He didn't run away; he wanted only to be near us. Our sheepdog never wanted to be the alpha dog. He deferred gladly to Kaylee – and to his BadKitten. Lee was the true leader of the pack, and I was Ragsy's first sheep. He guarded me fiercely (unless someone actually entered the house.) Our brave dog hid behind me only when confronted by water (he couldn't swim and feared the bathtub) or by any dog who was not Kaylee. When our three young grandchildren arrived, Rags whimpered if they scattered or resisted being herded. He always chose first to protect the smallest, the one he felt needed him most.

I keep a mental picture of him in his “Ragsy pose,” lying on the couch, with his chin resting on his front paws, floppy, white hair in his eyes, and black nose gleaming. I see him gallumphing around our backyard, crashing against my side in the garden and slurping my cheek. I see him bounce up with joy when Lee came home, to begin their nightly bear hug and wrestling match. I hear Rags sigh patiently as the BadKitten waved his tail across his buddy's nose. Our shaggy dog loved us with all his great heart. The final act of love we could give him was to let him go peacefully into the beyond. Rest now, Ragsy, and then jump a fence and race Kaylee down the lane. You were the best dog in the world.

I find surprises in the garden and help Benjamin BadKitten duck a disaster

APRIL 23

Oh, me of little faith. I've spent parts of two recent columns bemoaning the epic failure of the bed of sugar snap peas I planted early this month. Last week, I blamed the neighborhood crows for the legumes' no-show. Those birds with the shiny ebony wings have been hanging around our raised vegetable beds since planting day, and they're smart and wily enough to find and pilfer the newly sprouted peas.Today, though, I'm eating some figurative crow, because at least 14 (of the 100 peas I originally planted) have sprouted and are growing. (It's very lowering to be able to count the number of one's seedlings.) Maybe another few dozen will shoot up in this warm, sunny weather.

I've been neurotic about this because peas are so easy to grow, and I'm a wee bit superstitious about my relationship with the Garden Goddess. Every growing season, I expect her to raise her graceful arms skyward, conjure a small but fierce rain cloud, and center it directly above my head, while chanting, “You are a washout at growing vegetables. Save the peas. Save the pumpkins. Save the zucchini – and, fer pete's sake, find another hobby!”

But the goddess has never actually drowned me, because I think she understands that gardening is more than a hobby for me. Gardening -- from busting my knees as I turn over heavy clods of soil with a spading fork, to kneeling to plant the seeds, to watering and weeding, to doing a happy dance as each tiny seedling emerges – brings joy and peace to my soul. The goddess knows I call it the Church of Dirt and Flowers because my garden is as much of a sanctuary for me as the beautiful church of brick and stained glass where I spend my Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings teaching and helping to mentor children and teenagers.

After the peas had punted for weeks, the Garden Goddess must have known I needed a boost of hope, and she offered a double shot. First a few pea seedlings emerged, and then, in the next raised bed, I found slender green and purple stalks of asparagus. For the last three summers, as soon as the skinny stalks popped up, they seemed to go immediately to seed. I could pick barely enough to use as roasted garnishes on pasta or seafood, and the bed couldn't be disturbed because of the plants' shallow roots.

 

So last fall, I decided the asparagus had to go. My husband rototilled the entire bed, removing long roots and adding a covering blanket of fallen leaves. I planned to grow pumpkins there this summer. But the surprise appearance of healthy asparagus stalks this week sent me into another dance of joy and served as a reminder that patience in a garden can result in small miracles. Those plants' roots must have gone far deeper than we expected and had survived a machine-made invasion. I tipped my garden chapeau to the feisty asparagus and promised them permanent welcome. (I also wondered if the Garden Goddess was trying to prevent another pumpkin-related humiliation. With that bed filled, I have nowhere to grow jack-o-lanterns this year, and my three grandchildren are all old enough to know that real Halloween pumpkins are bigger than golf balls.)

As I was leaving the raised beds, I turned toward the front yard in time to see a mated pair of mallard ducks waddling across the grass. Ten yards away, in full crouching-lion stance, my Benjamin BadKitten was poised to end up foiled again. The drake, with its iridescent teal colored feathers and broad chest, looked like one tough duck. My Maine coon cat, once a swift and powerful athlete, has lost a couple of moves – and gained a bit more girth – as he nears his eleventh birthday in October. Earlier in his life, if I'd tried to intercept him mid-hunt, he would have streaked away from me and maybe caught the bird. This time, he flattened himself onto the grass and waited for me to hoist him up and cradle him up against my chest. He didn't struggle while I carried him into the house and murmured, “No duck soup for you, pal.” Meanwhile, the mallard couple placidly searched for snails and fallen bird seed, and munched a bit of grass. I hope they found some duckweed.

Afternoon in the garden brings peace to my soul

April 16

Without even a flicker of guilt, I left the chaotic jumble of unpacked boxes in the kitchen and spent a sunny afternoon in my flower garden this week. I needed to clear thoughts that had become as scattered as the disorder on the table, and knew exactly where I'd find clarity and peace: on my knees in the Church of Dirt and Flowers. As I planted red and purple anemones among the newly flowering tulips and daffodils, I could feel the anxiety drift away. It's nearly impossible to hold onto stress when I'm holding a new plant in my cupped hands, ready to set it gently into prepared soil.

As I scooted backwards into the next planting area, I imagined making a new bed of “Blue Diamond” and white “Guardian” delphiniums, to add their clear colors and lacy greenery to the garden this summer. Half an hour later, I'd planted and watered them in a spot where they would stand out among the nearby dusty rose potentilla and purple shades of oriental poppies. Then I rose slowly, because my fragile knees are much older than my spirit, and stepped onto the stone path that winds through the garden. Where would a calming froth of white-flowered “sun roses” be most welcome? Yes, right there, between the coreopsis, with its red-tinged, yellow petals and the lavender Canterbury bells. Part of gardening for me is making pictures, mixing colors and textures of flowers and leaves, while knowing that nothing will ever be – or should ever be – perfect.

As I worked, several neighbors passed by and stopped for brief visits. One offered a reassuring, misery-loves- company story about her own pea patch, which failed to germinate, just as mine did. We compared notes and realized we had probably planted out rebellious peas on the same sunny day – just before a hodgepodge of rain, snow, and cold weather hit Moscow. I also told her about a column I'd read by Susan Mulvihill in the Spokane newspaper. Ms. Mulvihill started her pea plants indoors this season, she wrote, to prevent neighborhood crows from plucking them out of her garden as soon as the peas started to sprout. In our raised beds, my husband had noticed a couple of crows hanging around the newly planted peas, Those birds wily birds were all but polishing their halos in an attempt to look innocent of pea thievery. So maybe, my neighbor and I decided, this one wasn't our fault. (The next day, I bought bird-discouraging garden netting and will spread it over the raised beds immediately after I've planted the next round of vegetables, including another packet of peas.)

Throughout the late afternoon, a flock of finches, many of them bright-feathered, twitted around the bird feeder over my head as I worked. I felt joy and thankfulness that they didn't seem afraid of me. The finches also apparently didn't feel the need to decorate my head as I knelt in the soil below them, as they have done several times to Benjamin BadKitten. I still remember him climbing onto my lap a few summers ago, mewing piteously, as I inspected the glob of bird poop on his brown and black head. I had to shampoo him twice that low-comedy day. After all traces of his first humiliation were gone, my BadKitten returned to the same hunting spot under the bird feeder, and was bombed again. (And this cat thinks he has the mental capacity to run for president.)

By 5:30 that afternoon, my knees were creaking insistently, but I decided I had another half hour of energy left. I put away my planting tools and used a sturdy rake to scratch up and loosened the top layer of soil, and then hauled and spread a light layer of compost over the newly prepped areas. Later in the week, I scatter-planted sweet William, Canterbury bells, delphinium, poppy, and hollyhock seeds in those patches, hoping for an informal, cottage garden look this summer. By the time I'd washed off the clinging bits of compost and garden dirt, I had also washed away the last traces of stress. I was ready to face the kitchen jumble with an organized mind.

Still willing to give peas a chance, but it's deadline time for the lazy legumes

April 9

Over the last few years, I've written about the humiliations and outright failures I've met in trying to grow vegetables. Unless a minor miracle occurs before my column's mid-week deadline, honor compels me to share a lollapalooza of a gardening blunder. Not even one of the sugar snap peas – three rows, planted two weeks ago in a 4x8-foot raised bed – has shown its little green head above ground. Peas like cool weather. They're hardy legumes. They take no special gardening skill: Hoe a straight-ish row, drop in the dried peas at two-inch intervals, cover with a mix of soil and peat moss, water, and, in a few days, as the British say, Bob's your uncle. Those peas are up and climbing.

I planted my peas, however, in late March, just before the Garden Goddess threw down snow, sunshine, wind, rain, snow, rain, graupel, and sun again. I think my peas got confused. (Graupel, by the way, is a weather term I'd never heard of, and surely not experienced, before we moved to Moscow nearly six years ago. Veterans of north Idaho know it's a soft hail – tiny ice balls that fall thickly enough to look like snow on the ground. Graupel is cool – except, apparently, if you're a pea.)

From the day I planted them, I've walked out to the garden bed every afternoon and encouraged them. At first, I didn't try too hard, just offered a confident assurance that I knew those peas would show themselves soon. By week two, they must have heard the desperate note in my voice: Listen, guys, I'm feeling extra pressure this year. We're hosting a reunion of my family here in early July, and most of my relatives are excellent Italian cooks and expert gardener. I'm fine with my cooking cred – planning to make about a thousand homemade ravioli for them – but maybe you've heard that my gardening skills are a little shaky. So I started easy, with you guys, to boost my confidence and make sure I had at least one thriving bed of vegetables when the family's here. So, c'mon, help me out here. Grow, dang it. Grow.

Somewhere under their peat moss blanket, an entire packet of peas was laughing. By late morning of my deadline day, those stubborn little legumes still refused to sprout. Maybe I'll have good news to repeat, pea-wise- next week. More likely, I'll be thankful to have another packet of the same peas in reserve for a second planting.

BadKitten for President update: I'm relieved to report that Benjamin BadKitten has received no further financial contributions to his campaign for the presidency. (Last week a deep-pocketed donor sent a dime and five pennies to the BBK political action committee. My theory is other readers think my black and brown, Maine Coon cat isn't worth two cents.) I've also reminded him about his less than stellar employment history. Fired multiple times as chief garden staffer. Even now, when he's in the public spotlight (a dim 25-watt bulb, but still), he can't be bothered to hoist his ample backside out of the chair and help me rally the peas in the garden. This is not the behavior of a winner.

Major financial donation boosts Benjamin BadKitten's political delusions

April 2

Faithful readers, we have to step out of the garden for today's column. Please loudly hum the CNN fanfare that precedes breaking political news: A spokeswoman for presidential candidate (in his own mind) Benjamin BadKitten announced today the receipt of an unexpected cash donation to his PAC (political action committee.)The mail-in donation was addressed to Benjamin BadKitten PAC, c/o Rozen at the candidate's home. One dime and five pennies were taped to the enclosed note and arranged in a pyramid design. The donor's message read: “To BBK: In your campaign for a Presidential nomination, your campaign must have more funds. TV& newspaper ads are costly. The generous donation enclosed should put you over the top.” The 88-year-old mega-donor received a phone call of thanks from the BadKitten's spokeswoman and manager of the BBK PAC.

BadKitten's spokeswoman noted that the campaign is diligent about following all pertinent federal, state and intergalactic election laws and is meticulous about updating its donors' list as the money rolls in. Besides the cash haul from MegaDonor, BBK also receives weekly in-kind contributions of canned and dry cat food,which he shares with his two feline associates, Tessa the Vague and Abigail Grump. Both cats have been lobbying for appointment to Cabinet posts. Ms. Vague is angling for the cabinet spot where the cat food is stored. Ms. Grump is eager for a position away from the riffraff, where she can lie under a flowering phlox plant, consider environmental policy, and meow crabbily if anybody walks too close to her napping spot.

BBK's choice for secretary of state, Winston Ragsdorf Rozen (an elderly Old English sheepdog, known to his friends as Rags) must decide whether his health will allow him to accept such a stressful position. Rags has barely recovered from the anxiety of having his food and water bowls moved during an ongoing remodeling project. But he is the only one who can calm the BadKitten during a crisis or return him to reality. BBK's spokeswoman has been counting on Rags to persuade the candidate to abandon his latest delusion and retire from politics on his own terms, instead of letting the voters do it for him. But now that big money is in his PAC, the egocentric politician might decide to continue his head trip for awhile longer.

With the receipt of this significant bankroll, the BadKitten expects more donations to flood the Rozen mail slot. (Everybody loves a winner, no matter how unsuited the “winner” is to be leader of the free world.) Because of MegaDonor's intelligence, wisdom, and perspicacity – and not, of course, because of the donated moolah – President-to-be BadKitten has offered her first choice of an ambassadorial post. MegaDonor has chosen Bangladesh, and is doubtless already compiling a travel list of suitable clothing and accessories for her upcoming diplomatic assignment.

While the candidate hallucinates, he has tasked his spokeswoman to come up with a catchy name for his PAC: a name that will inspire trust, hope, and fat wallets. His spokeswoman, however, is more concerned about her candidate's own increasingly fat silhouette. Since he began sampling the in-kind donations of canned cat food (purchased originally to improve the health of Tessa the Vague,) the BadKitten has grown downright tubby. When his spokeswoman suggested a PAC slogan politically refreshing in its honesty, her boss gave it an emphatic four paws down. What's wrong with “Finally, you can be a fat cat AND vote for a fat cat. A real cat. And fat, too”?

Note to readers: My BadKitten's first real donor is a personal friend, who made her donation of 15 cents in a spirit of humor and fun. Any donations BBK receives – and I wouldn't recommend encouraging him – will be donated to a local animal welfare organization.

Finding springtime in new-planted peas and snowflakes on pansies

March 26

 

Before the springtime snow fell, I spent a recent afternoon planting peas in one of our raised garden beds and filling our front-porch planter with bright-petaled flowers. For weeks, I've felt like a goldfinch shut inside a canary cage, wanting so much to fly outside, but needing to take care of a mountain of indoor tasks instead. But finally I could layer up with flannel and fleece and breathe in the familiar scent of peat moss as I gathered my tools from the garden shed. The first raking of soil showed the value of adding fallen leaves and other dirt-boosters, which my husband had tilled into each bed last fall. The soil was damp but light, easy to rake into smooth rows for the “Sugar Lace” snap peas I planted. True to an impetuous gardener's nature, I bought two packages of the peas. The first pack perfectly filled the three rows in the raised bed. So I will mark my calendar and plant the other packet in a few weeks.

Earlier in the day, I'd bought a big bag of peat moss, with an anti-crow strategy in mind. Those beautiful black birds with the raucous caws are very intelligent and observant, and they love newly sprouted peas. I saw a couple of crows (too few to be a murder, but they still made me uneasy,) hanging out in our nearby oak tree and probably noting my pea-planting date on their smart phones. (I use a paper-and-pen planner, which probably tells you who's more likely to outfox whom in the coming pea wars.) To distract the crows, I tossed handfuls of shelled peanuts at the base of the oak tree, out of sight of the raised beds. While my nemeses swooped, cawed, and snagged peanuts, I sprinkled a thin layer of peat moss over the newly planted rows of peas. Let's hope the extra protection will give the defenseless seedlings a little extra time to muscle up.

Rain started falling just as I finished with the peas, so I didn't have to water them, but could move on to my next project: setting pansies and ranunculas into the brick planter on our front porch. The flowers seemed to glow clear red, deep purple, buttercup yellow and misty pink, and I felt the joy that always rushes through me at the season's first planting. For most of my life, autumn has been my favorite season. I love the vivid jewel colors of the leaves, the deep blue of our Idaho sky, and the tang of wood smoke at early dusk. But I've come to see autumn as a foreshadowing of death, the once-glorious leaves browning dry and scattering in a bitter wind; the plants of summer, bare with lost petals, going dormant to their season in the underworld. Now I celebrate the hope of springtime in my garden and my life.

Our Old English sheepdog, Rags, has lived to see a new season, although “see” is an unkind word to use for our blind and frail dog. Rags sleeps through his days now, waking only for slow, unsteady walks to the backyard or to his food and water bowls inside. He still perks up every night when my husband, Lee, comes home from work. But Rags' daily routine has been upset lately because of a remodeling project at our house. His water and food bowls are in new places, and he has to use a different door to reach the backyard and come inside again. Add the whine of a power saw to the disorder, and our big, shaggy dog has reason to be confused. When the noise of the saw seemed too close, Rags howled in fear. So he lay on his couch, with his head on my lap and my hand massaging his neck, until the power tool finally shut down and our good dog could drift into sleep. (Rags later recovered and told his best buddy, Benjamin BadKitten that, if only we had given him a tool belt, he could have helped the remodeling crew.)

After my planting was done and while the rain still fell, I went looking for springtime in my garden, I found it in the tiny red buds of three flowering quince bushes, only thin, slender twigs when I mulched them in October. They, like so many of nature's miracles, are tougher than they seem – and some new spring day, not this year but maybe the next, they will bloom crimson, with golden centers . Near the quince, our blueberry bushes are coming back to life with their own buds, which I hope will flower into berries this summer. I walked into the front garden, bent low and found the surprise of fringed delphinium shoots, pointed threads of phlox , filaments of coreopsis, strawberry-leafed hints of potentilla, and scalloped clusters of poppy leaves. A young man in a vintage Bob Seger t-shirt passed by with two small, leashed dogs, and then turned back to ask about the poppies, because similar plants were growing in his yard, he said. I pulled up a small plant marker, with the “Heartbeat”poppy's Latin name (papaver orientalis) and a photo of deep red petals ringing its black center. He smiled and said, “I thought they were carrots and kept pulling them up.” As he and his friendly dogs went on their way, I paused to feel grateful for another of springtime's gifts: small, memorable conversations with people who pass by while I'm in my Church of Dirt and Flowers.