You "Sago" What?!?!???

Since we have closed on our house and we are the "official" home owners of our "Doublegate Escape" it's time to do a little landscaping. I have been out of commission the past few days with some awful stomach bug aka "The Stomach Flu" but now things are back on track and the work shall begin...

Earlier this evening Mike and I were out in the back yard trying to figure where we were going to place Brody's playground, make a dog run for our fur babies, make boxes for my garden beds, build his work shed (and my "dog house" as Mike so eloquently called it) and extend the entertaining area around the pool for the humans of the house. We have been blessed with a very large back yard so we have plenty of room to make all of the above happen but making it happen on a tight budget is where we butt heads. My wants and our needs are two totally different things but with Mike's analytical thinking we always seem to make it work. He usually drives me CRAZY when he draws things out on paper or over thinks things for hours on end but in certain cases  I truly  appreciate it (ouch, that hurt to type). Hmmm, maybe opposites *really* do attract? Noted.

While drawing the "map" < insert my MANY eyerolls>  of our plans for the backyard it became evident we would have to use part of our neighbors privacy fence as backing to our dog run. We will have to nail boards at the bottom of their fence due to gaps where the land has settled and could possibly be areas where our dogs would/could dig out. Thanks to good timing our neighbor came home and we were able to ask him for his permission to nail boards to his fence and he gave his consent after we told him about all of  the things that would take place in the next couple of weeks. Whew, I was relieved he gave the go ahead because sometimes you can get the "neighbor from hell" who agrees to nothing. Check that off the list!


Mike and our friendly neighbor were chatting it up about  their careers in the Marine Corps and somehow we got to talking about dogs and landscaping they had done recently. The neighbor had mentioned that their young Labrador had eaten two of the plants they had discarded from their side yard recently and it made her very sick. He wasn't really describing it all that well so Mike pushed a little further because he was concerned since we also have dogs that will eat anything and everything. As this man starts to describe this mystery plant it becomes evident to me he is talking about a Sago Palm plant. 


Now, I know most of you probably do not know or even care what a Sago Palm is but being the Southern girl I am these plants are like heaven on earth. It has "SOUTH" written all over it's prickly leaves and body. It's a sure sign your in the South or somewhere tropical and that is somewhere I want to be! 


After I recovered and pulled myself together from hearing him say he "threw the bushes out back" I excused myself because all I could think of is how I would have loved, loved, loved having those beautiful babies somewhere in my yard (away from the animals, of course). I atill can't stomach hearing them called "bushes"....seriously, dude, bushes??? Sago's do not come cheap so he basically threw $200 worth of sunshine out into the wooded lot behind his house. Too bad it's days since they were uprooted and tossed  aside because I would be stealing those things from their final resting place and put them in pots for my front steps!  


It also occurred to me afterwards that I was actually a tad insulted he did it...did it make me feel bad??? Nah, it's just another reminder that I am a true "Southerner" through and through.