Greetings and salutations, everyone; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to tell you all about my day. You may remember me from such posts as “Windy And Warm” and “Weeding Day”, among so many others.
Here I am looking slightly resentful after a very rough day, in which I almost died, according to the guy I live with. I really didn’t, but that’s what he thought was happening. It was kind of stupid, really, and he made up for all this foolishness by giving me some Brie later on. I like Brie a lot. 
It all started yesterday. The guy I live with says things always start yesterday, but I think he’s just being pretentious. Things start today for me. Except this time. So, last night I was forced to get all harnessed up and go for a ride to the Bad Place in the dark where I got stuck with a needle for no reason I could see. The guy I live with said they had to test my blood eleven hours after my morning pill, to see if the dose was okay, and that’s why we went so late, but I didn’t like it at all. I did like the ride there, though. I was too traumatized to enjoy the ride going home.
The blood test turned out fine, so I was okay, thanks for asking, and then, of all things, the guy I live with decided it was time to clip my toenails, and he got way too far into the quick, and I bled and bled. He used a styptic pencil, that didn’t work (maybe because he didn’t know how to draw with it), applied pressure, and I still bled. Eventually it stopped, but of course not before the guy I live with had come to the conclusion that I was going to bleed to death, which I didn’t do. The bleeding started again on our walk; the guy I live with said he could see red spots on the cottonwood leaves strewn along the path and he said he felt like a tracker, which I didn’t think was uproariously funny, since he wasn’t the one with a toenail cut way too close to the quick.
Even with all this commotion, there was some gardening. The guy I live with noticed that Gentiana verna was blooming, which he said, in his erudite vocabulary, was “totally weird”, which it might be, but I got stuck with a needle last night and so I don’t care.
There are better pictures of the gentian here but blooming at the “right” time of the year. (“Verna means spring”, he says.)
And here is Crocus speciosus. 
And another picture of Crocus cartwrightianus ‘Halloween’.
And then, to balance out all this talk about being cut to the quick and stuck with a needle, here are some garden pictures. The pictures could be better, I think. The garden will look more or less like this for the next couple of months, unless it snows, and then it’ll be all white.
The guy I live with raked some leaves onto the new sand pile in order “to create an impression of unity with the existing garden”. I have to listen to things like this, and get stuck with needles too. The pickets on the new fence do kind of lean to the right because when he was putting up the fence, the guy I live with was being jabbed with branches and twigs (not nearly as bad as being stuck with needles, I might add), but he says you don’t notice it as much in real life. I’m not entirely sure that he knows what “real life” is. 
Oh, and you can see that the Havahart trap, which isn’t set but is just there “as a warning of what could be” is on its side, because Earl (the squirrel) was climbing up on it trying to get at the bird feeder hanging “completely out of reach of any squirrel”, which it turns out it wasn’t. That’s why the feeder is empty.
And finally, here I am trying to figure out what plant this is. I do this by smell, of course. I know it wasn’t a cyclamen, which you can see a bunch of near me, but I finally decided it was Centaurea montana. I was right, of course. He says that’s a weed here. There are also some tiny maple seedlings visible to my left, which are weeds too. And of course the inevitable locust pod. 
The guy I live with went to the health food store today to get some more freshly ground peanut butter which he puts out in the garage (not all of it, just some) so the mice will spend time eating peanut butter there instead of getting caught in the Tin Cat in the kitchen, which is absolutely terrifying, and makes for a sleepless night for the guy I live with, who had to take the Tin Cat out into the garage night before last because it was “full of mice” (there were two), one of which, when they were released, ran over his bare foot (“it tickled”), so hopefully I’ll have a better night tonight. I do appreciate that. The guy I live with doesn’t know how the mice get into the house, since my mommy totally mouseproofed the kitchen several years ago, but, if I hadn’t been stuck with needles and then almost bled to death after having my toenails clipped, I might point out that leaving the back door open all day long might have something to do with mice getting into the house.
I think that’s about all. If I’ve forgotten something, or said something I already said, well, it was a rough day, and I can’t help it.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
A rough, ROUGH day, Chess. A day such as you experienced deserves two “rough”s, one for the needle stick, one for the cut to the quick. You were bleeding! And it didn’t stop, not for a long time! Although — brie! Good for your guy for giving you brie. You do seem guarded in today’s official portrait. And, yes, a bit resentful. As who wouldn’t be?
Crocus cartwrightianus deserves a better name than ‘Halloween.’ I can see why the crocus earned the name – duh! – but the bloom’s delicacy with those colors setting off the white, that’s what needs recognition.
Seems the person you live with misjudges squirrel range as well as location of the quick. Earl’s already eaten his reward — I say ask for more brie.
The guy I live with claims there’s an issue with me getting “too much Brie”. I’ll let you figure that one out.
Misjudging things is kind of what he does. Expecting rodents to behave rationally is extremely ridiculous, if you ask me.
There’s such a thing as “too much Brie”??? Be still, my heart–this must have typed in error!
Well, there is, according to the guy I live with. Not to me, of course, but I face the window when I sleep, if you get my drift.
Awfully sorry Chess got stuck with a needle!
Stuck with a needle. Then stuck with a new nickname, Redfoot. Such indignity.
Hang in there, dear Chess. Soon some significant snow will fall and all will be well in your world. Around here, we can’t wait to start playing in the snow!
Well, the only problem with that is that until 2006, Denver wasn’t a city where snow lingered for very long. People always thought it was (some people think it’s in the mountains, too). The last five winters we’ve had snow on the ground for months, and it even rained three times last winter. I liked it, but you should have heard the whining.
Here’s hoping today is a better day!
It seems to be, though my toe started bleeding again after my morning walk, and I got spots on the dhurrie rug in the kitchen, which the guy I live with had washed yesterday. He sighed, heavily.
We really appreciate how you offer up your rough days for our reading pleasure, Chess! –Anyway it’s good the guy you live with at least *tried* to clip your nails. Long nails on a purebred border collie just won’t do.
No, they won’t, and since I’ve started pawing the guy I live with, for more attention, he decided to do the pedicure himself. Next time, they can do it at the Bad Place. So he says.
I hope that you at least got toasted brie for all your suffering, dear Chess. There is enough suffering in this world without a suffering purebred border collie to boot, which is why I always have a bottle of champagne in the fridge because these rough days can come up out of no where.
Wow. I’d read, in Beverly Nichols, that there is not flower bluer than gentiana and boy, he was right (as usual).
Before I did watercolor I used to love designing gardens for embroidery…I saw that photo of the dormant garden and saw so many luscious textures that would look fabulous in embroidery stitches. I picture a tapestry in shades of grey-green and pale chartreuese, so tactile that you could close your eyes and “read” the landscape. So beautiful.
I never liked champagne. It fizzed up my nose, and that was scary. Brie, however, is excellent.
I don’t think I see blue correctly, but the guy I live with says that once he saw Penstemon caryi growing in the display garden at Colorado Alpines in Avon (down the road from Vail), and it was the deepest, deepest blue he’d ever seen. But he says gentians are great, too.
I had to take one of the dogs I live with to the Scary Place this week for routine needle pokes, too. It always makes me feel bad when they tremble in the waiting room. It never occurred to me to give them Brie to make up for it. Just lots of hugs. The fact that they don’t seem to hold it against me is one of the things that makes them exceptional beings. I also find it exceptional that even though they tremble, they know the routine & automatically turn right and get on the scale (without being told) so the tech can get their weight before putting us in an exam room.
I noticed a single bloom on a Mazus reptans the other day — usually a spring flower. I have never understood the second blooms, but I like the last hurrah aspect of them.
I planted one of those gentians (or a very similar one — I didn’t look at the name, just saw it & said, “oooh! Blue! Must. Have.), but it didn’t make it through the first winter. I love the blue-ness of delphiniums, too, but I’ve never had much luck with them, either. Hmmm. I think I’m noticing a trend. And I smell a 2014 gardening goal emerging. Uh oh. Am I person enough to juggle garden AND landscape?
The guy I live with got some Brie from Whole Foods, in a round wood thing (it has a picture of a guy with a sock-like hat on it), and that’s pretty good, though I do prefer Brie de Paris (which he got from the same place) and a couple of other kinds. He says the kind in the round wood thing costs less than a wedge of the Brie I prefer, and so that’s what I get, for now.
I like Camembert too.
He says “they” say that lots of gentians are mountain plants, and like high light intensity and low humidity.
There aren’t any delphiniums here. There used to be, D. przewalskii and D. pylzowii, both pretty easy to grow, and very blue.
You look so dejected Chess, what a horrible time for you. At least you enjoyed your car ride one way, your tests were fine and there was brie at the end so it wasn’t all bad. Of course if your guy had clipped your toenails first you wouldn’t have had to go to the bad place because he could have just taken that mass of blood from your poor toenail instead of you.
On the garden front that Gentiana verna is so vibrant I like it and the sandpile garden looks good, as you do bonding with the garden. Hope you have a good sleep sans mouse noises.
That’s funny, I did bleed a lot and he could have saved me the indignity of being stuck with a needle.
The guy I live with says the weekend (he doesn’t have weekends, really, but he has to talk to other people, so he says “weekends” when he really means “the next couple of days”) will be devoted to more mouseproofing. What fun.
There is a white form of Gentiana verna, and the more-or-less famous yellow one, Gentiana oschtenica. At one time the rock garden known as “Mount Zot” (so named because according to the guy I live with it’s “an exact replica of the rock formations on Mount Zot in the Tatras”, but I’m pretty sure he’s making all that up), there was Gentiana alpina, G. clusii, G. acaulis (some of those are still there), G. pyrenaica, and a few others. It was very blue there, in its season.
ps I am a funny one because I don’t mind the bad place, I look at it as a place to meet new people, cats and of course my kind and my favourite bad person really likes me.
They like me at the bad place, too. My doctor even came to my house one time. I knew who she was right away, and I wondered if I was going to get stuck with needles, but no, she was there to pick up my mommy’s bug collection, which is now in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.