The great Hollyhock Massacre

I went out this morning to water my garden. The heat had backed off just a little and there was a slight breeze moving the humid air. It was quite pleasant. In fact, if I closed my eyes I could almost convince myself I was standing near the coast feeling the morning fog burning off.
As I walked down the driveway I glanced over to the little corner at the far side of the yard and saw:
Now, to the untrained eye, it might look like just a nice little ordinary corner of the yard.
But with my level of expertise I immediately noticed that something was awry.
Something definitely missing in this picture.
There should be bushes in that corner. Tall stalks of hollyhock bushes.The ones I planted there last year and have been babying for months. The hollyhocks that had rows of big buds just days away from bloom.

Bushes just like these!














But there were no hollyhock bushes in the corner of my yard, just a big empty space.



















What happened?! Bushes don't just get up and walk away! (Well, maybe in San Francisco they do but I'm not in San Francisco am I!)

They were so close to blooming. I was so excited. I have wanted to grow black hollyhocks for so many years.
But there will be no hollyhock blooms in the corner of my yard this year
because there is a pasture just behind the corner of my yard and living in that pasture is one of these:













and one of these:
















and so I have
.