Please Fence Me In

If you ask Maggie, our now fully fenced backyard (hooray for us!) should be called Dogcatraz.  She is so depressed about not being able to run the neighborhood anymore.   Not that we would  let her run loose on purpose or very often.  Most of the time we had to let her out and stand there with the back door open, watching her while she did her business.  Usually, if she knew we were watching her, she was good and would stay in our yard.  But on her particularly rebellious days, she would just take off, trotting jauntily down the street, without a care in the world, and oblivious to our bellowing at her to come home RIGHT NOW YOU STUPID DOG.

Those days are over for her.  All the joy of going outside has been quashed for her.  She is paranoid that we are going to leave her out there, and with good reason because we probably will.  She is, for the first time in her nearly fourteen years, a caged bird dog.

What is really stupid though, is now that we can let Maggie out without having to watch her, we still don't.  We still stand there with the door open and gawk at her, just to revel in the glory of her captivity. 


We are all reveling in our captivity.  The kids have been jumping on the trampoline in various states of undress, and if you take note of Will in the pink robe, cross dress, just because they can.

And so far, most of our weekend entertainment has been going outside in the wind and the cold, just to stare at the fence. You know, just to make sure it's really there.

Yep, still standing!

There is no rest for the weary around here though.  We have already started scheming and dreaming about a deck!  That will have to wait until next spring though.