Sometime yesterday, Dixie tried to get into the small planters, and completely destroyed every single plant along an eight foot stretch. She couldn't possibly get her 70 pound self in a six inch wide container, but she apparently tried, and when she couldn't fit, she kept trying all along its length. Nothing escaped her.

The marigolds were totally trampled, all the blooms ground into the earth. The big, beautiful dicentra, my pride and joy, was snapped off halfway up the largest branches. The wallflowers, which had just put out their first flowers since Dixie sat on them in their other location two months ago, were crushed and twisted. The fuchsia was bent over to the ground. The smaller plants, the lobelia and fairy snapdragons, weren't even visible any more. There is nothing left to salvage.

John held me while I cried, sobbing like a child, so grief stricken that he was uncomfortable. "I'm sorry you lost all your hard work, but you can buy more plants," he said helplessly.

I cried silently all the way to the train station, miserable at the loss. I'm still red-eyed and mournful. It's not just that the dog destroyed a months old project. She destroyed my artwork. I planned, and planted, and arranged, and fussed over textures and colors. It was just like painting with living things. I can't recreate it quickly, even if I went out today and bought all new plants. Some of those plants don't bloom again until spring. Some were annuals or would have died back for winter anyway, so the planting time is all wrong. To replace the level of maturity some of them had achieved would cost quite a lot more than what I paid originally. The root systems of the columbine and dicentra were developing well; all gone, dug up and left to rot on the cement. I can't replace the integration and solidity of the plantings. I can only start over next spring.

I feel like Demeter.

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