Annivers---wait, chicken? (or, Anniversary Part I)

This past weekend, Joe and I celebrated our very first wedding anniversary! Yay! Our celebratory plans were grand at first, but then we remembered we're newlyweds (or have we officially passed that description?!?) and have limited funds. The "Plans" were therefore pared down until they became the following:

Saturday (day before anniversary):

Morning: Stay at home. Build a garden fence. Plant a garden for the fence to protect. Hope the fence withstands giant dog and discourages small dog. 

Afternoon: Recover from doing rare physical work. Clean selves and try to look somewhat nice. 

Evening: Off to Park City! Overindulge at Ghidotti's, because it's delicious Italian food and that's what one does. Immediately walk next door to the theater. Commence watching Iron Man 3. Go home. 

Sunday (actual anniversary):

All day: Wing it. 

Our Plans actually worked out pretty well. We slept in gloriously late, and then got to work on the fence. About a month ago the greenhouse across the street, which has been neglected since before we moved in, got some new management and they started cleaning up the place. And then...then!...they started throwing out pallets. SO many pallets. So we sauntered over and asked the clean up guys if we could have some. We could (for $1 a piece, which I'm pretty sure they just made up on the spot so they could buy some cigarettes. That's not judgey, they told us they wanted some.) $10 and a trip across the street later, we had a stack of pallets in our backyard. 

Fast forward to this weekend. The pallet plot came into play! We saw this video on how to make reasonably cute picket fencing from pallets without having to pry them all apart. Then we realized we have no power saws and that would take forever, so we decided to just throw that whole plan out and use the entire pallet. Then we planted our little garden. It's no masterpiece, but we're mighty proud of our morning's work.

Quaint, isn't it?

It's definitely not the most beautiful fence,
but it has a certain..."rustic" charm. 

Our little garden! It's mostly peppers. Joe likes peppers. 

We also spent a lovely chunk of time lounging on our new hammock, enjoying the view of the fence/garden and watching our ridiculous dogs.

The Hammock, and Joe.Also featuring bright sunlight.

Here they are. 

Want to see what silly dogs do with a spraying hose? Ok! 

Magnus is my favorite, so slow and methodical. Especially pawing at it at the end. Also, forgive us our weird laughter. :)

One more view of our lovely garden. 

The crooked piece is our temporary door. We don't know what to do about a gate so we just keep that piece loose and prop it back against the fence to keep out the dogs. So far it works. 

Speaking of dogs and fences, here's a story. We went out yesterday to check on the garden and admire our handiwork. I was looking at my (sad, wilty) tomato plants when I spied a chicken by that purpley tree! I suppose I should explain that this wasn't really that surprising, as the mechanic behind us keeps chickens on his lot and we hear/see them all the time back there. I don't know how that chicken got into our yard but for a brief moment I saw that chicken and was just delighted to have him visiting our yard. And then I remembered we have dogs. 

Magnus and Sawyer didn't immediately notice the chicken, but when they did they were extremely excited. They'd been staring through the fence slits for weeks at their feathered "friends," in a way that seemed friendly but I now believe it was decidedly more ominous in nature. The two pups charged at the fence, but stopped when they couldn't get in (it works!). Then Sawyer realized that, wait a minute, he could get in, and the chicken FREAKED OUT. Chickens can be really squawky, guys. Not that I blame him. 160 pounds of puppy were chasing him down after all. Then the not-so-bright bird fled the relative safety of the garden. Sigh.

Our dogs took off in earnest after that poor, dim animal. They were going to EAT that chicken! In seconds they had trapped him against a fallen branch as I watched, hopeless and horrified and certain we were about to witness fowl murder. Miraculously the chicken escaped, unscathed except for a few lost feathers (one of which hung from Magnus's mouth as a nice, horrifying touch). That's about when Joe and I realized our backyard was going to become a crime scene if we didn't do something. So I caught Sawyer (50 lbs) while Joe literally tackled Magnus (110 lbs) and had to lie on top of him to keep him from lunging after the chicken. We muscled the beasties inside...and the chicken disappeared. It was a bit mysterious, really. I was relieved that he was out of our dogs' reach, and not a little disappointed that our pups turned out to be violent, chasey, chicken-craving carnivores. Darn.

A few hours later I was placing my most recent project in our kitchen window (post to come!) when Joe said "the chicken! the chicken!" Sure enough, there he was, sauntering around our frontish/side yard. We ran outside and for a good thirty minutes we chased that ridiculous animal through our yard, our neighbor's yard, in and out of bushes, and finally he sneakily "hid" himself in a small flowery plant. He was plainly visible, but obviously thought he had been very clever and would never be found, because he didn't budge when I stood over him and picked him up. Silly chicken. We released him back over the fence to his home.

And that was our adventure with the chicken. 

Well, this is much longer than I expected. I think I'll post about our actual anniversary celebrations another time so you don't have to read too many words all at once. How exhausting that would be! Til next time :)