Page 55 of It's Not PMS, It's You

Ruth lifted her head and glared at me.

I thought it was sweet that she was talking with Karma and petting her, even if it did include the little dig at the end. Ruth had a soft side my ex rarely showed. Crystal hadn’t liked dogs. Hadn’t liked any animals, for that matter.

“Some dogs dig out of curiosity,” I said, hoping to explain what had happened. “But I know what caused this and it’s actuallyyourfault.”

Oops. That came out wrong and a little too strong.

“Excuse me?” Ruth crossed her arms, another famous move that showed me she had just put her guard up and was ready to fight to the death. She wanted to distance herself from me and let me know that what had come from my mouth was complete nonsense.

In other words, I was an idiot.

I happened to agree with her.

My bad.

Now, it was time to recover from my mistake.

“Sorry,” I said to start. “What I’m trying to say is that your roses are dying.”

“Of course they are. Your dog killed them!”

“Okay, first of all, Karma is not my dog, although if Idoget a dog one day, I would love to have one just like her because she’s adorable.” I reached over and stroked her golden coat along her back. “Second, nobodykilledyour roses, although they were not in the best of shape before Karma went digging. You haven’t been taking care of them properly. That’s why the leaves have been turning brown and look scorched. We have already discussed that stress kills. Well, your roses are seriously stressed out right now. You’ve been over-fertilizing them.” I pulled one of the leaves off and handed it to her.

She inspected the leaf. “Over-fertilizing them?”

I nodded. “Yes. And third, you have most likely been over-fertilizing them with chicken manure or blood meal.”

She nodded. “Blood meal. How did you know?”

“It doesn’t matter. It isn’t such a bad idea, unless you overdo it. Ammonia is good for healthy plant growth, but too much of a good thing can result in death. Plus, dogs are attracted to the smell of blood meal. They think there’s something dead below the surface, andthatis why they try to dig it up.”

She looked at me, then the leaf, and glanced at Karma, speechless.

Ruth being speechless leftmespeechless.

I wasn’t expecting it at all.

I cleared my throat, ready to share the three surprises that hopefully would put this all behind us, in order to move on. “I brought in a soil expert today who diagnosed the rose problem and told me exactly what I needed to do. We were able to clear out most of the old compost without damaging the roots and add something that had less ammonia to balance out the pH level. And you’ve been giving them too much water as well, especially since they aren’t getting enough sun.” I pointed to the neighbor’s tree that had been growing over her fence. “I trimmed back that tree to give the roses more sun in the afternoon. I also added a drip irrigation since you had been watering them by hand, obviously, and getting too much of the foliage wet. Not good when it doesn’t get enough sun. No charge, by the way.”

Ruth was still speechless.

I gestured behind us. “And your waist-high planter boxes are done.”

“What?” She flipped around, her mouth dropping open as she approached the planter boxes against the other fence. “Oh, I love this.”

“That makes me happy. As you can see, it also has a drip-irrigation that is ready to go. You can start planting those organic vegetables whenever you are ready.”

I’m pretty sure I heard her sigh.

“And one more thing . . .” I walked over to my toolbox and bent down to grab the small folded red towel sitting on top, handing it to Ruth.

She looked down at the towel and then glanced up at me. “What is this?”

“Look inside. It’s something I found. Well, I need to give credit where credit is due.” I chuckled. “Karma dug it up. Not sure if it’s yours, but . . .”

Ruth unfolded the towel slowly and looked inside. “My . . . locket.” It only took a few seconds before her eyes teared up. “You found it.”

A good sign because I hoped I had found something special that she had lost. It indeed was a locket, most likely sterling silver, considering how well it held up after being buried in the dirt for who knew how long.