Hello everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here, well, not to bring any news, really, but to complain about the weather. You may remember me from such posts as “A Wet Afternoon” and “The Weather, Again”, among so many, many other weather-related posts.
Here I am in a characteristically weather-related pose. Don’t you think I look ultra-sad and pathetic? I had my dinner; the guy I live with fed it to me while it was thundering, and now I’m waiting, wondering if I’ll ever get to go on my walk. 
Maybe I even need to look sadder. 
The day started out nicely, all sunny and everything, but then the clouds rolled in, like they have almost every single day in the last three months, but unlike most days, where it just thundered and thundered and sprinkled a tiny bit, something else happened today. I have a movie to prove it.
And, not only that, I have a movie that shows what it’s like to be in my fort. Almost, anyway.
The guy I live with went out after this and took one whole picture, out in the way back. That’s the blue lyme grass, Leymus arenarius. It does spread like crazy, but that’s what we want.
So, okay, true, the guy I live with did get a little rain water for the house plants, but I’m really, really, really tired of all the thunder. It’s nice to think it could snow here next month. (The guy I live with disagrees with this sentiment.) I did get to go on my afternoon walk. I am ready for winter, though.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Wow, torrents. It almost looks like the PNW! We could use some of that rain around my place. Cute pics of you despite the thunder, dear Chess.
Thanks; I am pretty cute when I’m sad, aren’t I? My afternoon walk was okay, but we had to cut it short because I heard thunder, and didn’t want to get hit by lightning and see my skeleton. (The guy I live with rudely said it would take a considerable amount of lightning to see my skeleton.) It was an okay walk anyway. Yes, it rained, though we don’t know how much, because we don’t have a rain gauge. (We used to, but it was empty so much of the time the guy I live with couldn’t figure out why we had a gauge to measure nothing.) I don’t keep records of thunder, but I would say I’ve heard thunder at least 75 out of the last 90 days. That’s way, way above the average for here. Staying in my fort helps a lot. Two funny things happened today. (Funny because they didn’t happen to me.) The guy I live with hit his head on the roof of my fort when he was straightening the rug, and then again, under the table, when he was trying to catch a tiny cricket so it could be put back outside. (He caught it.) He has a bump now, on the top of his head. Earlier, he was wearing a shirt with red in it, outside, and a hummingbird landed on his head. (It’s a really large landing platform.)
Ah, Chess, you do look miserable and sad in the first photos, and in the last photo you look like you want winter to appear RIGHT NOW. However, during these weeks of rain, if I recall correctly, you have missed not even one walk, morning or afternoon, so take some comfort in being hand-dried and hand-fed. Still, thunder is misery, I know. Your garden, Chess, shows really well in the rain, really a beautiful place to nose around in after the rain stops. Question: Is room really cramped in the fort what with you and the guy you live with in there at the same time?
Ha ha. The guy I live with can’t fit into my fort, but he does go in to straighten the Pottery Barn rug which I need to lie on. He says I can barely fit into my fort, now, and that I have to go to the Bad Place next week to be weighed, and then maybe change my medication because they think it might be making me gain all this weight. It can’t be the food, because I hardly get five percent of what I’d really like to have. (Like, I could probably eat twenty cheesburgers a day, with fries, and yet I don’t get them.) It’s true I haven’t missed any of my walks, and in some cases have gone on a third one. I admit I have a pretty good life, compared to some other dogs (the guy I live with said he could tell me stories about dogs he saw when he worked outside in telephone repair, but that I wouldn’t be able to sleep afterwards). I have health insurance, get my breakfast and dinner fed to me by hand, get to go on walks, live four minutes’ drive from the Bad Place, get brushed all the time, have fresh water to drink, get to sleep on soft sheets at night, and was introduced to something really amazing just a while ago, which the guy I live with said was called “white cheddar popcorn”.
The fort is obviously shrinking as some part of bizarre plastic aging process. Tell the guy to buy you a new, larger one.
I’ve never heard of a hummingbird on a head. You and the guy lead adventurous lives.
Your sad photos resemble those of my tuxedo Maine Coon cat to an uncanny degree. He gets that sad look when he wants the air conditioner turned on. I’ve just paid the electric bill, which was unusually high for such a cool summer.
We don’t have an air conditioner, even though I’m sure I’d like one. I have two fans blowing cool night air on me at night, which is almost as good.
I do think my fort is getting smaller, in the same way that the guy I live with’s shoelaces are being constantly untied by unseen forces, and like his pants keep sliding down. (He bought the pants a size too large.)
Ah, Chess. So sorry the thunder sends you for cover. It doesn’t usually bother me. Never the less, I followed my purrson into the shed when it was thundering at my house, yesterday. I guess because I pussy-foot everywhere I go, she didn’t know, and she latched the shed door behind her when she sent back to the house. I really don’t know anything about time, but I can tell you, if I did know, that little stretch felt like forever. She tells me she had a total panic when she couldn’t find me on any of my usual snoozing platforms. Anyway, for different reasons than you, I’m pretty much ready to resume living in CO rather than IA or some other dimly lit Midwestern state. BTW, I’m a senior, too. I like dogs, even if they often don’t know quite what to make of me. I always lived with canines. And my purrson prefers them in general. But when the old man went out the door feet first, she took me in. I kinda act like a pooch to show my gratitude.
I’ve gotten locked outside a couple of times, and it was pretty scary, let me tell you.
The guy I live with claims he’s getting Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I thought you got in the winter, but I guess not, huh.