Greetings and salutations, 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 garden. I might talk about myself a little, too. You may remember me from such posts as “A Rare Visitor” and “Caught On Film”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
The guy I live with said I should look cheerier, even though I’m kind of under the weather with the usual digestive thing, inflammatory something, and the guy I live with is worried that I might not last much longer. He worries about me a lot, which I understand completely. He talked to the doctor’s office briefly, and that made him feel a little better, until he started freaking out again. Nothing has happened to me all day long, but he doesn’t seem to be able to grasp that.
I had a nice dinner of 93 percent lean ground beef, rice soaked in chicken stock (low salt), and custom-steamed pumpkin and some Greek yogurt for dessert. How’s this for cheery?
If you’re wondering about the piece of blue tape on the pantry door behind me, well, it’s to keep it closed (doesn’t work) until the guy I live with fixes the latch that holds the door shut. He has so many things to think about that he says he might need another brain. Like when people get an extra hard drive for their computers, I guess.
Oh, and about the ground beef. Someone told him that it was bad for me, but the guy I live with looked it up and the ASPCA website says senior dogs, which I’m one of, should have protein to help build muscle mass and stuff. He listens to other people way more than he should. Or maybe it isn’t that, it’s just that he remembers everything. Or something.
Anyway, as you may know, it got very cold here, very suddenly. It was okay for walking in, though. No gardening happened, for sure.
The guy I live with says we are below average for this time of year. I think he should speak for himself.
celsius on the left
It warmed up some today, and so the guy I live with put up the rest of the bird feeders and filled them with seed. Then he realized that a couple of them were in the wrong place.
Hardly anything else happened today. He saw a red-breasted nuthatch but didn’t take its picture, and tried to take a picture of the downy woodpecker, but that didn’t come out, and there was a magpie on the suet feeder, but a flicker chased it away.
Eventually the sun started to go down.
The things hanging down from the honey locust are chains that hold bird feeders. Every so often the guy I live with hits his head on one of the feeders; that’s pretty funny.
Speaking of the sun, get this: the guy I live with told me that we live on this gigantic round ball called “Earth”, and that it’s constantly turning, and that the sun is stationary. I started to get scared but the guy I live with said not to worry. I know about my back yard, and the front, and the sidewalks, and the field I go out into for my walks, and riding to the doctor’s, and also a place we went once where a plain cheeseburger for me came in through the car window somehow, and he said that, really, if we focus on that part, we don’t need to worry about the rest so much.
I guess I can sleep tonight. The guy I live with said he would tuck extra covers over me if I started to worry about being this tiny black-and-white speck on this huge turning ball.
I guess that’s it. I think I could talk about myself for hours, but the guy I live with says this is probably enough, for today. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hey Chess:
I just got home from an amazing dinner in a Neapolitan restaurant. I had pizza with sausage, potatoes, fresh mozzarella and rosemary, cooked in a wood burning oven without a squirrel in sight (perhaps they were raiding the restaurant dumpster?)
I understand that TGYLW is really stressed out. But Chess, I had 2 cats die in October, including my diabetic Maine Coon, and you are much healthier than they were, and you have an amazingly healthy diet. You will be fine. Truly youu will.
The guy needs to go on a fun trip away from dogs.
Thanks; actually, today, things are much, much better, so this must have just been an Episode. I guess I’ll have them. How could he possibly have a fun trip away from me? I’m so delightful. I had ground beef, rice with chicken stock (Pacific chicken stock, though he definitely knows how to make things like fond blanc de volaille), hardboiled egg, custom mashed, and then pumpkin and yogurt for dessert. The pizza sounds really good. The guy I live with is cooking Thai food for himself now, and so I don’t get any, but if he decides to make pizzas this winter—and not give them away—I might get some. You would not believe the amount of baked goods that leave the house during the winter. Pain d’epices, orange bread, banana bread, saffron bread, pistachio bread, ciambella, sbricciolona, biscotti of all kinds, brownies, and I hardly get any at all.
Looking very svelte, Chess. That squirrel, however, seems to have found some of the weight you lost.
Thanks. Indeed, the squirrels have been eating like crazy. One of the pie pumpkins that was purchased for me went sort of off, the way they can do, and so now it’s out on the patio table, and is being enjoyed. My mommy used to get pumpkins for Halloween and carve them to scare kids, and the kids thought they were really cool, and also would get extra pumpkins in different colors, and the squirrels would eat right through them to get to the seeds. But we figure if they eat enough they’ll be too fat to try to jump onto the feeders. It’s snowing, by the way.
Re the last photo: I feel that way when I think about comets, and black holes, and stuff.
Comets would be pretty scary, I agree. Though I kind of think that if one were headed our way, it wouldn’t matter what we thought.