Hello everyone; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with once again, and here to bring you the latest and wettest news from our garden. You may remember from such equally damp posts as “The Rainy Season” and “It Raineth Every Day”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a rather damp, yet still respectable, pose.
I don’t know why the guy I live with wanted to get up at the ridiculous hour of 6 a.m., instead of letting me sleep in until 8:30 or 9, but we did, and it was raining. Waking up to rain is really rare here.
Elaeagnus commutata, the silverberry, looked especially silvery today.
Then it started to snow. Of course I had to go on my walk, and that’s how I got so damp. That part was truly excellent. The creek was running pretty high.
So was the canal.
There were still plenty of things to sniff.
Back at home, the squirrel had to use his own personal umbrella. He didn’t look very happy. 
Some time in the afternoon, while we were just sitting here doing nothing, which is what we do, there was this terrific crash out on the back patio. About an hour later, the guy I live with got up to see what had made the noise, and he yelled “Grapevine down!”, because the grapevine had fallen down.
You can see that it’s still snowing.
Another hour or so went by before he decided to see why the grapevine was knocked down. It hangs on a hook, because it had to be taken down off its chicken wire “trellis” when the house was painted. My mommy built a little nesting box up in the corner where birds could be safe, behind the grapevine, but when the guy I live with looked at the nesting box, this is what he saw.
Anyway, that’s our news for today. It’s still snowing. Not a lot, but it is May, and so I have to hear a bunch of stuff about it. Eventually the snow will stop (they say tomorrow), and so maybe there will be less complaining. About the snow, at least.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Those squirrels look very cute as well as dry. I hope you let them stay in their nest. Did the guy you live with rehang the vine?
Yesterday was a gorgeous, hot summer day here in NYC. I went to a recycling event and was able to turn in two years of used syringes from my diabetic Maine Coon. I now know how to dispose of them in the future. The whole city had magically changed over to summer mode, and the sidewalk cafes were full.
It’s still snowing here, so, no, the grapevine is still down. The squirrels are still there, at 8:43 a.m. (You would be too; it isn’t nice outside, except for purebred border collies who like snow.) Spring comes early here, but winter doesn’t want to leave for a long, long time. A gorgeous, hot day in NYC sounds so utterly delightful that the guy I live with is jealous. He doesn’t get jealous very often. As he’s said, he took my mommy there in January 1999 and she was so enchanted with the place she tried to talk him into getting an apartment in Manhattan, like that was the easiest thing in the world to do.
Your snow is from Zephyr — the last of the winter storm names; so that must mean the end of winter, right?
End of winter for everyone else. The guy I live with says we just have a brief interlude before it starts again in September.
Almost all melted, for what that’s worth.
Not particularly related to this post, but I want to post it before I forget because it does relate to earlier posts & comments:
Now what shall I —
Stay home or roam?
“Roam,” Pleasure said;
And Joy — “stay home.”
~~ W. H. Davies
I stayed home all day yesterday . . . and made motel reservations for the Lavender Festival in Sequim, WA. Best of both worlds.
Nice poem. The guy I live with likes staying home, because that’s where I live. He would never put me in a kennel, and it makes him shudder to think about it. You could visit The Desert Northwest and some other nurseries while in Sequim. They don’t pronounce the E, by the way.
We had another hot sunny day (until about 3 PM) today. On my way to the train, I passed two flatbed trucks laden with young Kwanzan cherry trees in bloom. They are being planted as part of MilliontreesNYC to replace the ones brought down by hurricanes Irene and Sandy. I’m very excited as it means that future springs will be awash in pink blossoms.
Oh, the train. The guy I live with’s grandfather, paternal, used to take the train into work, in NYC. Cherry trees in bloom in NYC in spring sounds like almost too much, doesn’t it? The guy I live with thinks it’s an enchanting place.
Oh, Chess, you are so *stalwart* in your photos today, both in damp-dog mode and listening-to-the-complaints mode. And the thought of rain, and the beautiful wet garden are thoughts I hold against the heat wave we’re currently experiencing; supposed to last through Thursday, the day SD Floral Association cleans up a school garden. Good thing I have invested in *pots* of sunscreen. Saturday is our historic garden tour. A rain between now and Saturday would be lovely. Won’t happen, alas. Enjoy your wet while you can.
Those squirrels must have been surprised when the grape vine thumped down. Evidently not surprised enough to move, though. They do look cute peering down at the mayhem.
Thanks, I can be kind of stalwart, at times. (The guy I live with says “mostly when you’re snoring”, which is a bit rude.) The rain and snow comes with a price, though, and that’s the low we’re expected to suffer tonight. Otherwise, the garden is soaking. Maybe we got almost an inch (2.5cm) of rain. There’s a lot to be said for rain. Oh, the squirrel picture was cute, which is why it got taken, but there have been terrific fights over who gets to sit in the nesting box. As I guess could be expected. The grapevine was hanging from the hook by a thick rope (not duct tape, which is the usual way of attachment around here), and someone, I don’t know who, chewed through the rope to get to the nesting box yesterday. That’s why the grapevine fell down. It’s still down. It’s the native grape, Vitis riparia, which just came up there. We have grapevines all over the garden. Speaking of grapes, the grape bush, which I guess I don’t write as grapebush, Vitis acerifolia, made it through the winter. So now we have grape bushes too.