Garden Guard Dog

My father has been working the garden plot in the back yard. Each year he sows his garden then lovingly tends it through the summer and takes great pride in the harvest. We eat potatoes from the garden at least until December. The beans we can and freeze. The peas don't last.

When I was about three years old my Great Auntie Jenny told me that I had a wonderous gift that, in the future, would give me moments of such joy that I would share it with others, just to spread the joy. She then proceeded to teach me how to raid the pea patch.

To this day I only eat peas out of the pod, fresh and uncooked. I'm not sure if it was a gift, but it certainly gives me much joy to raid the pea patch. So much so that when my daughter was three, I taught her how to sneak in and steal the peas and eat them. Oddly enough, she only likes to eat fresh peas as well. I guess the frozen and canned ones just pale in comparrison.


The dogs have the run of our entire yard. They can go anywhere they want. They can, and often do, accompany us as we putter about the yard. Even into the pool area, which for safety reasons we have fenced off from the rest of the yard, is open to them when we are in the pool.

The only area of the yard that is off limits to the dogs is the garden. They know it, and, though often tempted by the neighbours cat, do not jump the small fence that is the garden's perimeter. Whenever my father works the garden the dogs lay at the gate, guarding either the garden or him.