My day 52 pic of #100happydays is a picture of the foo dogs guarding our back door. They make me happy because they look so big and goofy, but there is a funny story behind them.
I was in St. Louis for one of my visits this summer and had the opportunity to go by my friend Melissa Losos’s house. Every three years, the Missouri Botanical Gardens hosts a garden tour of private houses and this summer Melissa’s was part of the tour. Her backyard is amazing; it was a basic blah large suburban backyard just a few years ago and Melissa dreamed up this fabulous, lush, garden of eden. There are now paths and huge boulders, water features, a yoga pavilion, lots of places to sit – it just is gorgeous.
After my little private preview, I was really inspired to do something BIG in my own backyard. The next day I went to Gringo Jones which is a weird import store in St. Louis that has all sorts of garden and house things – it is hard to describe if you have never seen it, but it is fun and there is a lot of cool stuff.
They have a ton of concrete sculpture things in the front and this summer they had tons of foo dogs. Foo dogs, if you aren’t familiar, are Chinese guardian lions that come in pairs and “guard” entrances to buildings. And they must be in a pair – it is really back luck to have just one – sort of like just having one of those Staffordshire dogs, except the only really bad thing about that is the value of the things diminishes greatly when there is just one. Foo dogs, on the other hand must be in pairs and must have proper placement. There is one female with a cub under her paw and a male holding a ball representing the world, under his paw. When you are facing the building entrance from the outside, the female should be placed on the left and the male on the right just because that is the way it is.
Female foo – see the cub under foot
So, still amped from Melissa’s awesome yard, I decided a huge pair of foo dogs would be perfect for my backyard. The darned things are three feet tall and are solid concrete and weigh a TON. I was just taken in at the moment or something. I bought them and some beefy guy showed up and slung the two things into the back of the spousal units car, which I was driving for this trip. Two days and 700 miles later I show up at my house with the car decidedly riding lower in the back. My husband came out to say hello and help me unload. He opened the back of the SUV, took one look at the enormous dogs, slammed the door again and said, “Please get those out of my car as soon as possible”.
Male foo – the ball represents the world
I had to hire two large movers to come over and haul the things into place. Now if and when we move from this house, I’m not sure the foo dogs will accompany – they may just live here forever!
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