Life with Sampson and Delilah has been keeping me very busy of late.

Sampson gets a walk in the morning and a walk at night, while poor Delilah has been limited to one walk in the evening.  The other night I was totally insane, feeling adventurous, thought maybe I could walk them both at the same time and then I could up Delilah to two walks a day also.

Walking one injured dog and one healthy dog.  Epic Fail.

Sampson is on a special harness designed to help him with not pulling, it is shorter than Delilah’s leash.  That’s the first challenge.   It works (mostly,) unless it’s a person that Sampson really wants to see or a bush he really wants to pee on and then nothing in the world will keep him from pulling me.  Delilah who walks amazing when it is just she and I also becomes a pulling machine when she’s competing (in her mind) with Sampson.  I found myself cursing profusely, came close to tears at least once and am pretty sure I yelled a couple of times.  I decided it was not worth the aggravation to try and save myself 20 minutes of time, so I went back to walking them singly.

With Delilah’s jaunts around the neighborhood I’ve been noticing all the little signs that indicate spring has arrived.  From the lush green of the grass that sparkles like diamonds after the rain, to the daffodils peeping their yellow faces upturned towards the warming sun, to the lovely forsythia bushes that take me back to my childhood having our Easter photos in my grandmother’s back yard.

So intent have I been on watching other people’s yards, I failed to notice the beauty in my own yard.

Saturday I was walking Delilah up the hill towards our house when I noticed my one of my rhododendron trees had flowered.  The poor trees took a horrible beating from the heavy winter snows and Hubby and I had to trim them quite extensively, yet they resiliently returned this year.

Sunday after a frustrating morning where Delilah 1) sat on me pinning me to the bed 2) licked at the box of necks I was defrosting and 3) drank my Irish Whiskey laced coffee, I determined to try and get a photo of her in front of the rhododendron tree.

She watched as I took two cookies and put them in my pocket and then she quickly followed me out the door and up the stairs to the back yard, where I positioned her underneath the tree and told her to stay.  I climbed down over the wall and she jumped down after me and looked expectantly for her cookie.

I brought her back up and told her again to stay.  This time she did.

I was trying to get as much of the tree as possible in the photo, but it required Delilah being too far away.

Even though she can be totally frustrating at times, there are other times when she shines like the diamond that she is.  Diamonds really are a girl’s best friend.