Hello everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to tell you all about my day. You may remember me from such cutting-edge and dazzling posts like “Watering–The Movie”, in which I played the lead.
Here I am in a characteristically horticultural pose. You can sort of see what my mommy called my “devil horns” which are one of the many unique features I possess. I’m really an angel, though, if you didn’t know. 
I came out into the back yard to see what the guy I live with was doing, but he wasn’t doing anything. He was just out there. Sometime he is. You know, not doing anything, just out there. That’s probably why his socks get wet all the time, and why he complains about it constantly. My paws get wet, but then they dry off. I wasn’t doing anything, either, and in the picture I’m not doing anything, just looking at stuff. So, I thought, why not do a post about nothing?
I mentioned books last time and this one is kind of interesting. I know this is a post about nothing but I’m going to show this anyway. It was the guy I live with’s grandfather’s, who liked to garden (he would weed on his hands and knees when well into his 90s), and after he died, the guy I live with found this book of his. He forgets where it was, because it was all chewed and stuff. It might have been in his mom’s garage, just lying around doing nothing. It’s an Everyman book and has the date 1916 written in it. 
Well, I guess that’s not entirely nothing, but fairly close to it.
People who remember my mommy and the guy I live with together sometimes wonder how he makes it through each day, especially in the winter, when you can’t do much gardening. He has me, of course, and a computer. (I bet you guessed both of those things.) He’s also quite content doing nothing. Yesterday, though, he read about the Himalayas a lot. They sound pretty high to me. He doesn’t think he’ll be climbing mountains any time soon, though.
Today he spent a lot of time reading about volcanoes, while I took a nap. You would be surprised, he said after I woke up, at how many volcanoes there are. He says not to worry about the “supervolcano” in Yellowstone that could possibly erupt and blow up half the world. I guess I won’t, then. I’m sure there are plenty of people who do, so they can worry for me.
He also says to notice how effectively the new sand pile blends in with the rest of the yard. You can see that it does. I’m not in this picture. 
My afternoon walk was excellent. That’s me, looking at something, as the sun slips behind the mountains. (It doesn’t really do that; I was just being sort of poetic.)
I guess I’ll go now. This is me walking off into the sunset, like in a cowboy movie or something, but really, my walk goes all the way past the big tree in the center background and then we turn around and come back. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
You mentioned Farrer so I chose to read The Dolomites again because there is nothing to do here either except watch snow accumulate, temperatures fall and look up methods of seed germination especially some Cylindropuntia species.
I’m waiting to see your guy’s photo of pots in his handmade seed frame under the snow. Chess, do you get to check them out for possible critter invasion?
Supposedly, the frames are pretty safe against invasion. Voles are the biggest threat. The frames are either on the flagstone patio in the back corner of the yard, or on the patio. The guy I live with says cylindropuntia seeds are not so easy to germinate. They like heat. Though they do germinate underneath cylindropuntias in the garden.
Your photos today, Chess, are wonderful. I like the first, the one where you show the misleading devil horns. Has your coat grown shaggier, er, thicker in winter weather? One thing I know, your garden shows to advantage in snow, and I love the light, low and bright.
I believe I have the grandfather book, or one just like it. I bought it because of the opening pages, so very William Morris. I’ve recognized a bit of Morris in photos of the place in which you live, so someone there admires Morris.
Off to read now. Keep your paws dry, Chess.
Let’s say my coat has grown shaggier. That sounds good. I suppose my mommy liked Wm. Morris. She liked most artists.
That book is a great find!
I’ll do some worrying about that volcano since I doubt Chess will.
I guess somebody has to worry about the volcano, huh? The guy I live with found out about it while researching less super volcanoes, though he’d heard about it before. He worries about stupid stuff, instead.
Greetings from the unusually cold Piedmont region of North Carolina. Chess, you and the guy you live with have interesting books and the gal I hang out with had to look up the term Everyman. She particularly liked the quote from John Milton that appeared on the first page of Boswell’s Life of Johnson “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life.” Speaking of life beyond life, since we don’t have your wonderful snow for insulation, the gal I hang out with had to cover several of her garden plants with sheets last night. In a way, they look like piles of snow yet they’re not. Hope you and the guy you live with are safe from the affects of the polar vortex. We’re staying inside today until the thermometer moves from its zero position.
It got to -8F a couple of nights ago, but we just ignore it. The guy I live with had planned to protect some of the marginal agaves and stuff in the front garden, but didn’t, and so they’re showing signs of not having been covered when it went below zero (F, that’s -17C) for six nights in a row early in December, which it hardly ever does here. He says, though, that what they’re really showing is signs of being cooked by bright, hot winter sun reflecting off the snow onto the leaves. In other words, it gets really cold, and plants die from heat. I think that sounds weird to me.
Ah, nice book, heirloom.
And this grandfather spurred your interest in gardening? I guess he must have at 90 on his hands and knees pulling weeds…I saw one of my Dad’s favorite Uncle’s on his hands and knees in his huge vegetable garden, planting potatoes, he was in his nineties. He had a bicep the size of a softball. (Kent and Ruth Bone; rural Illinois, farmers) Ruthie came in the house one day after being in that same vegetable garden and sat down and died…
I’m off to Timberline to help get things ready for the Cactus Succulent Show…I think I’m gonna be potting-up some yucca/agave seedling of yours as well this week;-)
Oh, I’d forgotten about the seedlings. Better in a greenhouse than in a laundry room. The guy I live with’s grandfather spurred the interest in gardening. See here. https://paridevita.com/2012/05/03/yesterday-today-and-tomorrow/
I often wonder how any of us get through each day. Thank DoG for Law & Order re-runs and vodka, eh?
I did not know about the Yellowstone super volcano until you mentioned it. And to think of all this time I’ve wasted, worrying about the sun exploding in five billion years, when there’s THIS almost right in my back yard, Mother Nature’s “Big One”. “Wiping out civilization” might not be such a bad thing except that, like Randy Newman says, we wouldn’t want to hurt no kangaroos.
It is 6 degrees here on the shores of the Long Island Sound, which is headline news in these parts (coldest day in 98 years). I’m supposed to be illustrating the day I went to the Majorelle Garden on a very cold May morning last year but I’m not a good enough painter or gardener so I’m checking the TV listings, making sure I’m not missing an SVU marathon. Oh well. Only 228 minutes until Judge Judy comes on.
I guess lots of people are worried about the super volcano. The guy I live with says to make a list of the times the world has been predicted to end, just in the last 15 years. Okay, like, if the whole planet was going to explode, and someone came around saying that it was going to right before it did, what would you do? In fact he grew up during the time when everyone said the Russians were going to bomb us. There were drills in elementary schools where all the kids had to hide under the desks in case a H-bomb was dropped near by. He says that only happened here, not in California, when he was little. According to the National Geographic website, the odds of the volcano erupting are “1 in 730,00”. That’s what it says. One in 730,00. I don’t know what kind of number that is. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131218-yellowstone-supervolcano-eruption-magma-reservoir/ Six degrees? Practically summer.
Chess, it is interesting that the guy you live with spent the day reading about the Himalayas. All the blue from the book jackets in yesterday’s post (plus I googled Reginald Farrar) reminded me of the art in the Nicholas Roerich Museum in NYC:
http://www.roerich.org/
I revisited in the museum in December with a friend because I wanted her to be as overwhelmed by the blues as I was in my first visit. She thinks he mixed in lapis lazuli with the paint. The guy you live with should check out the “Master of the Himalayas” gallery of paintings online in the museum website. It will add color to his day (or at least lots of blue).
Why don’t you and the guy you live with adopt a Siamese? You will have very few moments of boredom or even free time, ever again.
We know who Roerich was, because my mommy did. She liked him, and Mucha, Bilibin, etc. Even have a book of Mir Isskustva. The guy I live with has probably told this story before, but one time the two of them were at a museum, maybe here, maybe the Met, and my mommy got really close to the painting, and was looking at it intently, and started describing the way the paint had been applied, to the guy I live with, in all this technical detail (which went completely over his non-painter head), and suddenly they turned around and she had attracted a whole crowd of people who were listening to what she was saying. She got all embarrassed and crept away.
Hello Chess, just wrote a comment about today and yesterdays posts only to have a message saying comment couldn’t be accepted when I tried to send it, very annoying, so rather thatn type all those wonderful words again I will instead just say love you Chess…
Thank you. Computers are weird, aren’t they? Sometimes there’s a whole post done, and when it’s previewed, most of it is gone, and everything has to be done over again.
Well how frustrating, it just accpeted this one as usual no problem…groan…
I can’t help myself: http://www.georgerodrigue.com/originalbluedogpage/originalbluedogs.html
Uh huh. Blue dogs. Except green ones, too.