Hello again everyone; once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to fill in for the guy I live with after what seems like a long absence. You may remember me from such posts as “Watering–The Movie” (in which I starred, playing the role of me) and “The Happy Elephant”, among others.
One of the reasons for the long absence is the, to me, excessive amount of thunder we’ve been having, which I don’t care for at all. Here I am in a characteristic pose, not enjoying thunder.
The guy I live with says this isn’t really such a characteristic pose, and claims that this is much more like it.
Kind of insulting, don’t you think? Well, the weather has been really scary, so I shake a lot. I get cuddled too, in case you were thinking the guy I live with just ignores me.
There’s also been a lot of planting going on. You can tell by the flags he puts up. These are to remind him to water plants. He’s run out of flags now. The lighting is weird because it was all stormy and thundering when he took these pictures.
The flags, of course, are soaking wet from rain. He plants, puts in the flags, runs around like a maniac with the watering can, and then it rains. As you can imagine, he calls this fairly pointless behavior a metaphor. If it’s stupid, then it must be a metaphor.
Which brings me to my point. Yes, I have one. You may recall the pictures he posted of his baby cactus, and all the chest-thumping over the microscopic triumphs. Not to mention the declaration that treatment with gibberellic acid was the only dependable method, then the declaration that it had no effect, then the declaration that chipping was the only practical method. So here comes another metaphor.
Back in January, the guy I live with sowed a bunch of cactus seed in pots, outside, and put them in the seed frames, and forgot about them. Two days ago he was watering the pots in the seed frames, right before it rained, and this is what he found.
These are seedlings of Pediocactus winkleri, a rare species which really isn’t all that exciting except that it’s rare and supposedly difficult to germinate.
Pediocactus despainii. (He blames “hands trembling with excitement” for the lack of focus.)
Sclerocactus whipplei.
There are also seedlings of P. knowltonii and Sclerocactus glaucus. Imagine the chest thumping and declarations that followed this discovery. But of course, they just came up. All of these baby cactus look kind of alike to me.
He didn’t even know anything was happening until he noticed it. Kind of a Schrödinger’s Cactus thing, if you ask me. Of course, what he now says is “Doing nothing is the best practice”, which I think will lead to nothing but trouble, but we’ll see.
So this is what’s been going on. Practically nothing, if you ask me, except for the constant thunder. Oh, the guy I live with saw a spider “as big as you are” on our walk, and I didn’t like that idea very much at all, but today I got to see it, and it was an exaggeration. No surprise there. It was really, really big, but not as big as me. We aren’t going to show pictures of it, so don’t worry.
I hope this wasn’t too boring. I’ll leave you now, with a nice picture of the sunset. Off to the right, an owl is hooting in the tree, but, like so many other things, you’ll just have to imagine it.
the miserable gardener 
P. despainii. That’s a rare one. I even know Kim Despain! I gave him some Crocus cartwrightianus and C. sativus last fall. I’m thinking now that I should have asked him for some of this seed in exchange.
You can get it from Mesa Garden. They have a permit for selling the seed, which comes from stock plants there.
Hot damn. I’m gonna git me the salmon flowered one.
The sphaeralcea? Good luck.
Oh, rain, oh, but the thought of rain! Thunder, lightning! Four inches, if lucky, here on the coast per year. I lust for a cistern, I jest at its filling. You lucky dog, you, Chess. On the other hand, fireworks here every summer night on on the beach. You’d hate that, too, Chess dog, and who could blame you. Yoga on the Beach at Full Moon, I can see you at Down Dog, and afterwards chasing waves and flying sparks from the fire rings. Such a pretty sunset you have at home — do you look for the green flash as we do here?
We don’t have green flashes, only lightning flashes, all the time. They’re scary.
Chess – missed your posts. Congrats to the guy who lives with you on his cacti babies!
Thanks, well, he has a couple hundred of them now. And no place to put them. One the other hand he has a couple of years before they’re big enough to go outside, so he can think about it until then.
How about a plant sale? or – There’s lots of space in your yard for more cacti – but tell the guy you live with to be sure not to put them in the paths – the spines would be tough on your paws!
You’ve inspired me to start my own blog. Blog thoughts are always running through my mind anyway, so thought I might just as well try it. Have to write my own thoughts though, as I just have the yard boy living with me!
The guy I live with says he took baby cactus, about the size of a grape, to a plant sale, but no one wanted them. It was pretty sad.
He rarely has any useful thoughts going through his head, which is why he lets me do the posts. ….
He should try riding a bike – the brain gears spin as fast as the bike gears!
I love baby plants – love to nurture them & watch them grow. Those folks at the plant sale didn’t know what they were passing up!
I’m sure you are the best to write all the posts – since you aren’t occupied with digging in the dirt (or maybe you are….) you have more time to be observant!
Border collies don’t dig holes. We herd things. And I help move the hose around.
Some people don’t like cactus. I guess there’s no accounting for taste, huh.