The one where I talk about the weather and my plants and my pets

It is raining- again. I think all the lawns in Utah have gone into shock. This is unbelievable. We're talking nearly 3 straight weeks of rain. I've endured this in Texas, Florida, and Virginia. But never here in the mountainous desert of Utah. I have three animals BEGGING to be let out of the house. But they can't, due to the monsoons. I swear the animals are going to rise up in mutiny against me any moment.
Between downpours today I ran outside and took some pictures of my plants and so-called garden. Mostly because I was jealous of Cousin Karena's awesome garden pictures on Facebook. (I have no idea if her album is public or not. But I predict she reads this faster than most of you. So Karena, let me know if you want me to pull the link down.) Her vegetables are incredible, growing, and huge. I have, well, 2 tomatoes showing signs of life.
Here's some pathetic pictures (from my cell phone) of my "garden."
Obviously, there is a watermelon plant dying somewhere in this picture. See the chunk of rock concrete towards the right? Yeah, lucky me, my yard is full of rock concrete chunks and rusty nails. (Which is why the dying plants cannot entirely be blamed on me.)

 

Next up we have tomato, cucumber, and squash plants, and possibly another watermelon plant. I bought the starters at Costco, and I think the little labels may have been out of order. Either that, or cucumber and watermelon plants look a lot alike. Most of these are alive, or at least not showing more signs of death than they were when I bought and planted them. 

 

 

Tomatoes! This particular plant (Big Boy Tomatoes, if you must know) was one of the first things I planted. And shockingly, it has lived and is even producing some fruit! YEAH!!!

My white hydrangeas (and if you look closely, a pile of what appears to be cat poop, or a small dog's poop, either way, not my dog's). I have a lovely large (and living) pink hydrangea in the backyard I didn't get a picture of before today's monsoon hit. These white ones are right by my front door, and doing well. I can't wait for them to get big and full and as tall as the front porch. 

My front flower garden. These poor flowers have endured it all now. From bizarre up and down temperatures, hail, freezing rain, and ridiculous amounts of rain, I'm not surprised they aren't thriving. However, in spite of their pathetic appearance, most of them are currently alive. I know you can't see much, thanks to the cell phone and overcast day. In the very far back of the picture there is a tall jasmine plant (which smells wonderful), a few petunias (mostly bloomless thanks to the hail), 2 delphinium (I think that's what they are called), 1 marigold that has survived and grown stronger than everything else in the garden, shasta daisies that have not yet come into bloom, and are driving me crazy!, and some purple daisy-like things. I originally had planted several other plants that all up and died on me. So I dug those all up and started over again. This round has been in the ground 1-2 weeks each.

In other boring household news, here's the update on my pets. (CAN YOU TELL I'M FREAKING BORED IN THIS THUNDERSTORM???)

Kaya (my dog) now has 2 boyfriends in the neighborhood. As soon as my front door opens and she is allowed out, she runs straight to the edge of the yard and starts howling for her favorite boyfriend who lives 3 doors down. If he is out, the two of them start up a very loud racket of howling and barking to each other. As soon as I start following her, she makes a beeline for one of her two boyfriend's houses. And then she whimpers outside of their houses, until I drag her away. One of her boyfriends is a freaking huge mastiff that likes to sit in the picture window at the front of his house. We walk past his house 2-3 times every day (because I spoil my dog and take her on 5 or more walks a day). It is not unusual for the big dog to sit in the window and howl and bark at my dog, and jump on his back legs, trying to break free. Kaya eggs him on and howls and barks back. (This is the only time ever that she barks- for this one dog. Otherwise, she's practically mute.) My biggest fear is that one of these days that big dog is going to just bust right through that picture window and come bounding down after us. (Hey, it happens in movies all the time.) I swear its just a matter of time till it happens. Okay, I do have to admit, its pretty funny to see this big huge dog fill up the whole window, begging to get out. Maybe I'll sneak a picture of it one of these days.

Stinky, aka Big Kitty, has still not forgiven me for bringing a dog into the house. He may also still be holding a grudge against the kitten, I'm not sure. He prefers to leave the house first thing in the morning, and only come back late at night. I've had to put a stop to this because he's getting some nasty bug bites on his legs that swell up, burst, and are all together just plain nasty. And I don't have the money for the $75 weekly vet visits. So he's under house arrest for a while, and he's pretty mad about it. He spends 90% of his time hiding in my closet, or sitting on me. The rest of the time he sits at the front door, begging to be let out.

Tiny is not so tiny anymore. She's getting much bigger, but still looks like a dirty sock on the floor. She's still the little shadow of Stinky, except she's afraid of grass and refuses to venture far outside. Kaya and Tiny get along great. Kaya even bathes Tiny on occasion. However, Kaya's boyfriends are not as kind to poor Tiny, and Tiny had a rather traumatic experience two days in a row with the doggy boyfriends chasing her up the porch, and into the house. I haven't managed to get her to go back outside since.