A Fox or Two

These pictures are about a month old. I am trying to get caught up:

O the Chickens, they are a-changin:

Part of my ceaseless war against gophers is defensive, primarily in the form of chicken wire baskets that seedlings are planted inside of, in the ground. They are a real pain to make and install, but not as much of a pain as finding within an hour of waking up that gophers have sucked another one of your plants into the bowels of their vile hollows: 

I planted Asparagus crowns, which look like large roots. You have to let them grow for a year before the crown has gathered enough energy from the sun to produce spears large enough to eat. Our adolescent Asparagus will be running free until next spring:

At the time of writing, most of these potato plants have already been harvested for potatoes. But you can see the original five rows of spudly blessedness here:

Here is an overview of the entire garden from its southwest corner. On the bottom right, above the decrepid sheet of plywood, you can see where I prepared a bed for tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. On the bottom left, you can see the above-pictured potato plants. On the top left, the astute observer will notice our small herb garden (sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano), some of the lettuce, and a small bed which was being prepared for cornrows (not the Snoop Dogg-ee Dogg variety). On the top right is our original winter garden, which at the time of this photograph still nurtured broccoli, carrots, peas, kale, and garlic. Currently, the only remaining plants from the first winter garden are the onions, parsley, and leeks.

In the last couple months, we've also gotten a puppy! Her name is Matilda and she is a whippet. which basically makes her a small greyhound. Whenever we take her to a vet or puppy class, we have received comments about how rarely whippets are seen on the west coast. She came from a breeder in Georgia. Here you can see her playing with what we call her "frienemy":  

We are really working on getting her to not bite our skin, even a little bit. The puppy class teacher told us that when she bites us, we are to either make a high-pitched "yip" (like another dog would) or an ominously-fierce yawp (like a mother-dog would). Marijke can do the yip pretty well, but my problem is that my voice is not high enough to yip nor loud enough to yawp.