Throwback Thursday ... back in time to May 14, 2005

Throwback Thursday ... back in time to May 14, 2005

In May 2005, Kane was five years and six months old and our garden had been in full swing in our backyard in Des Plaines IL for about 4-5 years. I have posted elsewhere on our web site about our native garden which is comprised of mainly Cook County indigenous plants. We started with those because Laura was a bit of a black thumb (i.e. she killed pretty much every plant she had touched up till now) and figured the natives would be hard to kill. Mission accomplished! as you can see from the photos.

In May 2005, our pond (shown) was about three years old and was pretty mature. Pond building story and more photos are available for those who'd like to find out all about building a backyard pond. This pond was rather small, as it needed to fit nicely into our city-sized standard lot, fully surrounded by our 6' privacy fence (the neighbors on both side were slobs/hoarders of inanimate junk; we also backed into a highly trafficked alley.) We loved the privacy fence.

Kane loved spending time near the pond and so we spent a considerable amount of time making sure he knew how to swim and tread water in a local pool in case he ever accidentally fell in. We did try to keep him under surveillance at all times but he is a typical boy!


In May 2005, Daisy was just one year old and Ares had been gone for exactly one year. Ares was my soul-mate and dearest pet APBT (registered) who passed at the ripe old age of almost 16 years on Mother's Day 2004. That was a very sad Mother's Day.

Shortly after Ares passed in May 2004, we adopted Daisy a black and white "who knows??" who had the medium build, short coat, whip-like tail and blocky head we like but no ancestry that we knew of. She had been found at approximately 4 weeks old at a McDonalds drive-thru somewhere in Iowa. At the time, Iowa had a pit-bull specific ban (aka "Breed Specific Legislation" or BSL) and because Daisy sort of met the profile, she was too hot to keep in the state. You can see how silly BSL is from the photo of Daisy here as a one year old dog: Clearly not a pit bull. Certainly much more "something else" than pit bull. Which proves that "looks like a pit bull, kind of" is much too vague and much to subjective on which to base a law banning a type of dog from being a part of someone's family.

Fast forward almost nine years from when these photos were taken in May 2005 to  March 2014: We have an eight-year-old, larger pond at our home west of Elgin IL, Daisy is now an "older" dog at ten and Kane is a 7th Grader and 13 years old! Is it also interesting to note that the fishies you see in the photo are for the most part still alive, but bigger and live in our pond today here on Prairie Corner Farm.

Please visit our family web site!