Hello everyone; yes, it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to provide you with the high quality posts you have come to expect from me. (As opposed to the ones done by the guy I live with.) You may remember me from such superior creations as “A Close Call” and “Weeding Day”, among many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose, enjoying the play of light and shadow on my excellent face.

Today the sun came out. That’s a funny thing to say, isn’t it? Like the sun wasn’t there before. It was there, we just couldn’t see it. So, today the clouds went away, and we could see the sun. Much better.

Up north, there’s still flooding. Here, things are sort of back the way they were, though everything is soggy and there are mushrooms popping up here and there. I’m not supposed to eat them. The guy I live with ate a “destroying angel” mushroom when he was two, and the doctor came to the house (that was a really, really long time ago), and I guess that was his introduction to gardening, but since he told me the story, I’ll stay away from mushrooms in the garden.

There are some plants he says are interesting. Here’s Daphne jasminea in bloom again. This is supposedly the “Delphi form” where it hangs off the cliffs above where the Pythia predicted stuff. Whatever. It’s been here for a very long time; planted when my grandpa Flurry ruled the back yard.

And this unimpressive green thing is what he says is the foliage of Biarum tenufolium. There are a bunch of these things in the rock garden and almost nothing has ever happened. Except last year.

In the picture above, you can see a bunch of green bean things. The guy I live with thought it was starting to hail yesterday, but it was Earl up in the tree, eating locust pods, and dropping down a rain of beans onto the garden. I thought squirrels would eat the beans but maybe there are so many the leftovers just fall to the ground. They’re everywhere now.

The other thing that’s happening, which I can’t do anything about, is that the guy I live with has totally surrendered to one of his obsessions. Cyclamen. He was worried that none of them would come back after the awful winter we had, but, as usual, he was wrong.

It’s important to me that there are things that make the guy I live with happy, because it’s better to have him happy than sad. I’m happy almost all the time, and I know he likes that. He’s also excited that there’s a new book on cyclamen which he doesn’t have, though it does cost £90, which he says is a lot in our money. He and my mommy would have discussions about expensive things, but now that she’s gone, which he still kind of can’t believe, he just buys stuff without consulting me. I guess that’s okay. He hasn’t bought a new kitchen floor, though, and we could use one of those.

This is Cyclamen coum. With locust beans, too.

Another coum.

He claims this is a seedling of Cyclamen cilicium or mirabile, because of the scalloped leaves.

This is Cyclamen purpurascens, extra fancy form, from Seneca Hill Perennials (now closed). He really enjoyed ordering cyclamen from them.

Finally, one blooming under a bunch of shrubs. Maybe this is Cyclamen hederifolium. He couldn’t creep in there far enough to look at the flowers. It was sown by ants.

Okay, well, these are the things that make the guy I live with happy. Cyclamen, cyclamen, and more cyclamen. I bet he shows more pictures when they grow up; maybe next month.

I guess that’s all for this evening. See you next time, then.