I'm not sure my self-imposed deadline thing is working.  I started with a bang, then began to get serious side effects regarding the dry eye problem, which is getting worse instead of better.  It's hard to concentrate on developing a character and plot when every time you blink it feels as though the edge of a knife is being dragged across the surface of your left eyeball (then add feeling like you have several sharp shards of sand in it besides).  We're going to try a call to the opthamologist tomorrow and see what, if anything, can be done to get our insurance to allow me to see him again... assuming such a visit would actually accomplish anything.  Eye drops burn and make the eye blurry, thereby making me even more cranky and miserable.  ::hmph::

In the meantime, the living things in the yard are enjoying the warm days and cool nights that have finally arrived.  A few pictures from the Spring 2007 Gallery:

  

  

There's more if you follow the Gallery link above-- I didn't want to bog down the LJ. 

The baby bunny?  It was in play-dead mode and our highly hunter-oriented dogs (especially Ghost, who theoretically has a much more developed sense of smell because she's deaf) literally walked right over it.  The only thing that would have been funnier would have been if they picked up their toes like it was a mud puddle.  The bunny could have fit in my cupped hand.

Upper right: Flying Saucer Cactus.  SEVEN blooms at once.  The cactus was much chubbier originally, and the blooms sucked everything out of it.  If you click on the photo, you'll note the stick I had to use to prop it up because it was literally bending in the middle from the weight of the blooms.  Oh, and at this point it was still in the way small pot we bought it in, because we were afraid transplanting it during the bloom would harm it.

Top left: Ghost.  She appreciates the flowers, too.

And finally, bottom right (no, I don't have to go in order, so there): CHERRY TOMATOES in our potted containers!  Three of them on this plant, one on another, buds on yet another.  And we have jalapeno buds on our pepper plant!  Clearly we need to buy 80 acres and start farming.

And overalls.  Yeah, we need overalls.