With the exception of our first dog, all of our dogs have been rescue dogs.  They were, and Sandy still is, wonderful.  But if I had to choose one and only one dog to be able to clone, I think it would be Darby.  We found Darby online.  He was classified as a female by accident, which was in our search criteria.  Darby was definitely meant to be ours.

Darby and I clicked from second one.  He was impish and just a tad stubborn and was absolutely adorable.  He was an Irish terrier, mixed with, we think, a border terrier, and ohhhh, was he a terrier.  He had definite opinions on how things should be, and bees were not part of that plan.  It was worth it to Darby to get stung, even in the mouth, to kill a bee.  Yah.

One day we were headed out the door on a walk, his absolute favorite thing to do, even above eating.  He was pretty excited.  We opened the screen door and Wowee!  Bees on the sedum!  Jump!  Chomp!  Four tall sprigs were sacrificed.  Mommy was not pleased.  A shout of “Darby!!!” could be heard around the neighborhood.

At this point, a little extra explanation is in order.  This was not an ordinary sedum.  It was a sedum my Dad had given me.  It, along with another,  was planted around the same few days as my hosta “experiment” (see “Dad’s Hostas” blog).  It was, like the hostas, doing fabulously, getting huge.  I was not pleased with Darby’s disregard for the sedum’s welfare.

If I recall, my huband moved us along and onto our walk.  But when we got back, I did not toss the split and broken sprigs.  I concocted another “experiment”.  I trimmed them and put them in soil to see if they would root.  Root they did!  So I planted them in a line in front of the air conditioner – four of them.  5 and 6 years later they looked like this.

 

They did well.  So much so that I was getting concerned that if they got much bigger, they would be too close to the  air conditioning unit.

This spring I made a few big decisions regarding the gardens.  Spirea were out, and sedum were getting more spotlight.  (I did try to find a home for the spirea, with no takers, so I sent them to compost.)  Two of “Darby’s” sedum replaced the two remaining spirea out front.  It was my Mother’s Day gift from Robin and Missy to do the digging and replanting.  Soooo awesome!!!  Saved me hours!  Now 2 of Darby’s hostas are out front, close to their Mama.  (1 went to my sister and one stayed in place.)

Darby would give me a dirty look, I would suspect very similar to the one below.  That would not suit him at all.  But they make me smile 😃