TOP STORIES
� Weeding Bee: cats rack
brains, plants get whacked
� Pawprint in snow could
belong to ancient Viking
puss
� Edgar pleads for a tattoo
� Edgar's Lyrical Yowls:
"Don't Let the Cats Out"
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The yard is now quite sparse, after Marlowe, Edgar Allan and Teddy repeatedly misspelled the names of plants and flowers growing there during a heated spelling bee competition.
Each time they got a word wrong, mom ripped out the corresponding plant. The effort filled 14 big plastic bags full of greenery.
"It was a set-up," complained Teddy. "How the hell am I supposed to know how to spell azalea?"
His ignorance, however, caused two of the colourful budding bushes to get yanked out of the ripe earth and tossed into a yard waste bag.
Teddy was also responsible for the demise of three rose bushes. "You don�t spell rose with a 'z,' idiot," snapped Marlowe after the little guy�s blunder.
Marlowe had no room to criticize, however, after he caused the yard's nourishment to disappear after incorrectly inserting a hyphen between "crab" and "grass."
When the fat cat grumbled something profane under his breath, Mom ripped out the last patch of digestive aids as a penalty.
The entire idea for the day was moms. She thought combining two traditional annual events - cleaning the yard after a long winter and a spelling competition - would be a clever way of killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. Mom also ruled this must be a family day.
The three boys have witnessed several spring-cleaning efforts in the six, seven and eight years.
"But I don't know nuthin' bout spelling no words," griped Marlowe before the match.
"The only bees I know about are the ones that go buzz buzz," echoed Edgar.
Mom had her heart set on the duo-event day, though. "Now, now. There�s to be no bumbling today," she chuckled, hauling out work gloves, a rusty hoe with duct tape around the handle, a note pad, pencil and weathered dictionary.
The spelling bee took place on the top stair of the back porch, where the cats took turns trying to put letters to words Mom barked out from the yard below.
One by one, Marlowe, Edgar Allan and Teddy took their place on the makeshift stage to rack their brains trying to spell the names of plants, while Mom busied herself whacking the foliage whenever a cat misspelled the corresponding plant word.
