Greetings, fellow earthlings. It’s me again, Chess the purebred border collie, provider of excellent posts. You may remember me from such wonderful posts as “The Barrow of Fear” and “Tick Talk”. I’m sitting in for the guy I live with, who’s busy gardening, though I suspect sometimes he just sits out there and pretends to garden.

It’s 85 degrees, ten percent humidity, and windy. Here I am on the patio cooling off some. The guy I live with has been brushing me a lot so I look all fluffy. No more ticks.

I’ve said more than once that the guy I live with is kind of a nut. Well ….. I know he posted about his success with seed of Maihuenia patagonica, using GA3 or chipping the seed. Today he was out in the seed frames, with the watering can, and what did he see but these funny winged things that he didn’t recognize and had to bend down to identify them without knocking over all the other seed pots. His writing is hard to read (he can’t read it either, so I don’t know why he bothers), but you can see the seed was sown February 15, 2012. (The pots are his fancy-schmancy BEF Grower’s Pots that he got for 25 cents each back in the late 80s or early 90s and has kept outside ever since.)

So, he has more seedlings. I would remind him that he also has this cactus in the garden, but somehow I think he would just look at me with his usual blank stare. If he already has plants, and seedlings downstairs under lights, what’s the big deal about seedlings outside?

Speaking of which, it looks like the little seedlings of Asclepias cryptoceras are still alive after he transplanted them into the trough “gently”. If they grow up and flower, I’ll never hear the end of it. It’s that little thing right in the middle of the picture. Very impressive.

Now some pictures of Echium amoenum. I know the guy I live with has shown this before, but there’s a special reason for the pictures today. Supposedly special. Here’s the regular one.

Almost wine colored. My buddy Slipper liked red wine. One time the guy I live with had a full glass of red wine sitting on the kitchen table and he heard these lapping sounds, and it was my buddy Slipper emptying the whole glass. The guy I live with doesn’t drink any more, and I hear you’re not supposed to give alcohol to dogs, but occasionally we did get a small dish of stout or porter once the fizzing had stopped. The fizzing was scary.

My buddy Slipper also liked coffee, but only with cream and sugar. He also liked toast, but only with butter and jelly on it. If he was given either of these things he would wait until the necessary extras were added. He wasn’t spoiled, just particular. I don’t care about wine or coffee, but I can hear when the guy I live with eats honey-flavored Greek yogurt with a spoon, even if he does it really quietly and even if I’m asleep.

Where was I? Oh, the echium. Look at this one. Yes, I know, there’s a problem with focusing here, and we’ve talked about that, but this is what we get.

The echiums have been seeding all over the rock garden. They’re a little bristly for my taste. You can see the cherry-colored one right in the middle of the picture. The guy I live with spent some time weeding this part of the rock garden but the weeds have been growing really fast; there’s a bindweed creeping under the dwarf bristlecone pine on the right.

So that’s the news for today. I should also mention that my mommy’s butterfly and moth collection is going to the Denver Museum of Natural History, and that even though I don’t drink coffee like my buddy Slipper did, I do like a cheeseburger from time to time.