Hello everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our ever-changing garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Guess The Weather” and “Still More Weather” among so many, many other similar posts.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Speaking of the weather, I’m under it, again, with the same old tummy troubles. I have a live-in nurse, which makes it not so terribly bad.
Yesterday the guy I live with said that the “TV people” said we were in for a “change in the weather”. Now, if you’ve followed my posts all summer, you know that at our house it’s been thundering, dark, and rainy almost every single day since the middle of May. It’s rained here almost every day. Hasn’t amounted to much, except for a few times, but, whatever, that’s the way it’s been. We’ve hardly seen the sun all summer.
This is how the weather has changed here.
If you can see a difference between this picture and all the others I’ve posted that look exactly like this, let me know. Maybe what the “TV people” call a “change” is something very subtle indeed. It’s raining right now. The guy I live with said “instead of thundering, dark, and rainy, it will be rainy, dark, and thundering”. Very helpful.
The guy I live with suggested that “TV people” never go outside, because they’re stuck in the TV.
Well, so, that’s my complaint for the day. Endlessly unchanging gloomy weather, though, I must admit, in this case it does look like the garden will get some real rain, so there’s that to consider. If it would just rain, without thundering all the time, I wouldn’t mind so much.
The guy I live with went out yesterday to look at things, the way he does sometimes, and found this. He said “Huh”. (His profundity never ceases to amaze me.)
It’s a palafoxia. Palafoxia sphacelata, or some such thing. He sowed seed last year and totally forgot about it.
Here is Crocus hadriaticus var. lilacinus, first of the autumn crocuses.
Colchicum ‘Dick Trotter’ again.
And Colchicum ‘Zephyr’. 
And that’s really all I have for today. The guy I live with says he doesn’t feel like taking pictures in the rain. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hi Chess,
You do look like the weight of the world is upon you. Gloomy weather and a tummy troubles are not the best combination I could imagine. Those crocus have recognized a change so maybe those tv people are on to something? Now there’s a reason for joy: the sight of those tiny spears of hope. Looks like dropping temperatures but humidity still high?
I hope the home nurse is treating you with the level of care that should be afforded to an ailing pure bred border collie.
Cheers, and get well, Marcus from Down Under
Thanks; yes, gloomy weather and an upset tummy don’t go together, but then, nothing goes with tummy trouble. I did get some home-cooked 95 percent lean ground beef for brunch, and that was excellent. The guy I live with was worried that I wasn’t eating anything, and sometimes he goes to get me a “plain hamburger”, but the last time he had, they just wiped off the ketchup and stuff, and called it plain. It’s raining on and off here, so, yes, the “tiny spears of hope”. What the guy I live with (mister “photographic memory”) hopes is that the gift he got, an autumn-flowering snowdrop, will flower, so he can remember where he planted it.
Reginae olgae or peshmenii? If it’s the latter then, as Vivian says, will be a $20+ Fall jacket surprise. I wouldn’t worry too much. They are tough customers. I have found them growing out of sun-baked piles of my old discarded potting mix which has a close resemblance to the Gobi desert. In Greece I have seen them growing 20 feet up in the branches of trees. How did they get there? I dunno. Have some seed of the spring flowering version from near Vikos Gorge in Epirus. Never understood the Americans’ penchant for hamburgers. Maybe it’s a symbolic leveler in a “classless society”. A sort of everyman’s food.
Hope the hamburger worker for you puppy?
Cheers, Marcus
The hamburger was good, thanks. Ground beef, actually, with a couple of hard-boiled eggs. (The guy I live with is quite a chef. When my buddy Slipper was really sick you should have seen the delights he created. Rice soaked in chicken fat. Regular food drizzled with sardine juice. A special pate of hot dogs, hard boiled eggs, and cheese, with a little sardine juice. All excellent.) It’s Queen Olga’s. Both species are unobtainable here, though the guy I live with has learned from me to look ultra-sad and pathetically plantless when there’s something he’d really like. If he weren’t too chicken, not wanting to spend time in chains in the dark and dripping dungeon of Snowdrop Prison, he sometimes daydreams of a trip to the U.K. during snowdrop sale time, and going through Customs wearing a very large overcoat with lots of pockets and an extremely innocent, if not utterly angelic, look on his face. He’s never found money in a fall jacket, partly because he doesn’t have such a thing, though once he did find one of those old smelling salt things, the kind you snap and hold under your nose. It was in the suit he wore for his wedding. His grandfather was a doctor and used to carry the ammonia things around with him and shove them under the guy I live with’s nose all the time when he was younger.
Huh. Autumn crocuses. Who’d a thunk it. And finding new flowers in your garden that you forgot were there must be like putting on your Fall jacket for the first time this year and finding a $20 bill in the pocket. Or long-lost earrings. Or that address book that went missing about a six months ago.
Oh my dear, dear Chess. Tummy troubles? Rumblies in the tumblies is a condition known by most Pooh Bears and, naturally, pure bred border collies. Probably means you’ll ave to stay away from the pate for a while.
Yakking about “change in the weather” is how old media tries to stay relevant. Not at all a pure bred border collie worry. You’re always relevant, dear Chess.
Thanks; it seems like I’m getting better this afternoon. The weather stuff here is very strange. When it’s nice out, the “TV people” talk about how “hot” it is, and when we can expect the weather to change, and if it rains, then they say “much-needed moisture” (though everybody waters, so that’s weird), then if it rains longer than for like a day, you hear “we’ll tell you when the rain will end”. There was even talk of snow this week …. I like snow. The guy I live with is very much against it in September and October. By the first of November, he’s so exhausted thinking about maybe doing something in the garden that a little snow is welcome. Autumn crocuses. Like snowdrops, narcissus, cyclamen, colchicum, there are species that start blooming now (or earlier), all the way through winter (those mostly aren’t hardy here) until spring. The guy I live with says autumn crocuses are the best because the birds don’t feel much like tearing them to shred. See the orange styles in the crocus picture? Saffron. (Crocus sativus is the main producer of saffron, but other autumn crocuses can provide it too.)
Happy to hear you’re on the way to feeling better in the tummy, Chess. Perhaps you’re having a reaction to the change in drug regimen. Hope so, and hope that you are better regulated by now.
I too am waiting for my crocus-provider-of-saffron to emerge so I can mark where I planted it. I believe it’s next to the chives, which are flourishing. Perhaps the chives are overflourishing all over the crocus. I think a chive omlette is called for so I can see what’s under that plant. I do sympathize with you about the weather. The one day our forecasters called “cooler” our home thermometer registered 87 with high humidity. Now the prediction for the weekend is over 90 here AT THE BEACH. Nary a breeze stirs. I seem to remember that once they did. My class did Full Moon Yoga on the Beach after dark in tank tops and shorts, a first. Ah well, Chess, I hope both your condition and the weather changes. At least you have a pretty palafoxia on your estate.
Thanks; most of today, including this evening, was a beautiful, sunny day, which actually is a change in the weather, a real, genuine change, and so the guy I live with, eternal optimist that he is, pointed out to me that the forecast for Friday is …..snow. No, seriously. Lots of gardeners, like in Europe and stuff, have been complaining about how hot their summers have been. I don’t like hot weather. (I like thunder much, much less.) My mommy used to collect saffron threads and we used to have a lot of them, but there’s this Indian biryani, with tandoori chicken in the middle of the saffron rice, that the guy I live with makes a lot, partly because it lasts for a week, but it’s also really, really good (he says), and that’s why the saffron supply has dwindled. There’s also James Beard’s saffron bread, one of my mommy’s favorites, and risotto alla milanese. Oh, the medication I took for my tummy really worked quickly. Today I’m getting 20 pills. This will drop off dramatically after the switch from phenobarbital to zonisamide, and my doctor says hopefully some of the excess weight will, too.
Glad to read in comments that you are feeling better. Also glad you got a break from the thunder. I admire the colchicums.
Thanks; I do have issues with my food, and I’ve decided to “go all weird” with that. The guy I live with is feeding me reconstituted raw food, and it’s pretty good, and good for me, but I’m pretending it isn’t. He didn’t get to go to plant sale today because I was being so picky, but he didn’t get mad at me. I’m way too delightful to get mad at. Colchicums are pretty great, though they can be knocked over by heavy rain, or wind, or snow. It didn’t snow here like the weather people said it might, nor did it freeze, and today the sun was out all day long. We didn’t know what to do. Burst into flames? Eventually I took a chance and decided to lie out on the patio and the guy I live with did too; he worked in the “way back”, doing something. I went out to see what was going on but all I could see were huge piles of catmint pulled up by their roots. It has a nice smell if you brush against it, but not so nice when you pull up dozens of plants. Too much of a good thing, maybe.
I agree that sometimes catmint just has to go.
Well, it went. All over parts of the garden, because a Certain Party didn’t much feel like doing any gardening in darkness and thunder, and I certainly wouldn’t do any. So now there are about “ten billion” plants that have to be pulled up.