It all began earlier in May when I brought home my first batch of flowers.
This is the ninth spring that Hunter, our canine from hell, has lived here in the black hole outside of Harmony Grove with me and my Sweet Sven.
As to what he did the first four in that apartment in the city we do not know. But that was so long ago and so far away it no longer matters.
Hunter looked at my box of flowers and immediately disappeared.
"Well, we don't need him anyway," I said to Tuna. "You can help."
Tuna is a teenage tuxedoed punk of a cat who just moved in with us a couple years ago and refuses to leave.
He took one look at all my flowers and slipped underneath the tarp I was trying to spread out on the deck.
"Whatever."
I lugged pot after pot of heavy solidified dirt by myself from the back of the house to the front where I mixed old and new together in a dry wall bucket. I filled each pot with the updated soil and the pretty flowers, despite the lump in the middle of my workspace.
But Tuna was sitting on top of the tarp by the time it all came about and he was staring across the yard in the direction of the Stephen King bush, the bush in the front corner of the yard that goes on for miles.
I followed his gaze.
"WTH."
I looked at Tuna.
Tuna looked at me.
We turned our heads back and watched in amazement as a tyrannosaurus rex strolled along the other side of the bush.
And then around the last tentacle of Stephen King, Hunter emerged with his newest and deadest friend protruding from his mouth like a periscope.
He waltzed into the yard and proudly dropped a dinosaur skeleton onto the grass.
Tuna and I sprang from our seats and went over to inspect Hunter's latest archeological find.
"Wow," was all I could manage.
Tuna was stoked.
Hunter was puffed.
I haven't seen him this proud since he caught that turtle a few years back.
It is hard to impress that jack ass little brother of his in the tuxedo.
But Tuna was in awe.
"I hope you are not planning to keep that thing here," I said to Hunter.
But he was.
So.
You know how it is always a good idea to pick up the sticks before you mow your lawn?
Well, it is an even better idea to remove the bones.
"Hey!"