Hi again. It’s me, the dog, Chess. You may remember me from such posts as “Dear County Assessor” and “May Day”. They were truly excellent, as I am a purebred border collie who knows excellence when he sees it. This post is going to start out like it’s not about me, so in other words not so interesting, but then it will be about me, and get a lot more interesting, because we made a movie.

I’m supposed to post this picture of Allium cardiostemon because the guy I live with said to. That’s hardly a good reason if you ask me, but here it is. It isn’t even blooming yet.

So anyway, the guy I live with spent most of the day planting things, some in the side yard where I couldn’t see him working unless I got up and walked outside and stared through the gate, which seemed like a lot of trouble to me.

He planted and planted. The reason he can do this is because he digs up plants and puts new ones in their place. If you ask me, this is silly. But as I’ve said before, the guy I live with is kind of a nut, and when he says that he’s entered his declining years I can believe it.

He was talking about watering tomorrow, which is the day he can water, since the plants he put in are dryland plants and not annuals or vegetables, and can only be watered on certain days, which I think is called irony. We were contemplating this irony when the day got really, really scary, and that’s why there’s a movie.

Now, the guy I live with, though he cuddles me a lot during times like this, and gives me Rescue Remedy, which helps, also says that I could have been sold to a family who herded sheep out in the middle of nowhere some place in eastern Colorado and might only have a lean-to with straw to lie in when it thundered, and what would I do then? Of course the answer is that I could tell when the guy I live with and my mommy showed up at the farm where I lived, that they would take me to a nice home where I could sleep in a bed and get cuddled when it thundered. He says I was lucky, and I guess so.

After it stopped raining I went out to eat some dirt. The guy I live with says purebred border collies shouldn’t be eating dirt, and he’s right; it’s potting soil, which is different. He took this really out-of-focus picture to try to embarrass me, but it’s not going to work, since I’m not the one who can’t focus. He says I look like a dirt-eating maniac but I prefer the term casual geophagist.

That was my day. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, hopefully without thundering, and I can hardly wait to go on my walks and track lots of mud in the house.