Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and hear to bring you a shocking tale on this strangely icy day. You may remember me from such shocking posts as “The Barrow Of Fear”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
We had some “freezing drizzle” or some weird thing like that last night, and everything is all icy, which isn’t usual for here. I slipped on the ice last night, but I’m okay.
The guy I live with thought the squirrel was stuck to the ice in the bird bath that he forgot to plug in the heater for.
It wasn’t, and eventually he remembered to plug in the bird bath heater. You can see the cord right there, but the guy I live with forgets stuff sometimes. He writes himself notes, so as not to forget, but sometimes forgets to write the note.
Anyway, it’s all icy on the ground, with a light dusting on snow
and so we’re staying in. Or we were until I heard a shout. The guy I live with was sitting at the chair here, looking outside, the way he does, and all of a sudden I heard
“What the fescue?”
Such language. I tried to look as innocent as possible, partly because I was, totally.
He stared and stared out the window, not knowing what the fescue it was that he was looking at. You can see it here. Look closely at the left side of the shed. No, not there, the left side of the shed. Look at the bird feeder, then to the left of that, past the door, and the Viburnum farreri, and there it is. 
He stared at this for a while, and then jumped up in a fury.
“My Nutscene!”
The Nutscene. I know it sounds like something else, but it’s a real thing. Something which he can’t do without. 
He used it to wrap the fastigiate blue spruce; he’d forgotten to do that earlier, and heavy snow can wreck the looks of the tree. That’s what he says, anyway. 
It does explain a little bit, I guess. The twine is still there, going up the tree, so I don’t see what all the fuss was about, unless he expects me to do something about it. Which I’m not.
That’s all I have today. I know it was pretty odd, and maybe not as shocking as I said it would be.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hello Chess. We had a fescue moment when we got up this morning too. What a surprise, I went ballistic jumping all over the sofa and running around the room, for there in the garden, I might add in the middle of suburbia if you would call it that in a country town, was a large wild rabbit. It ran and froze in a corner of the garden when it heard me. My mummy would not let me out for a tinkle because she was worried I would chase it and catch it, to her knowledge I have never seen a rabbit and she didn’t know whether I would make friends or make breakfast. After 5 miniutes it was still sitting in the same spot so mummy went out the door and the movement was enough to make it bolt through the gate and leave. What excitement!
I have to say also that when I read about Tania in the last post I thoroughly enjoyed the photo of you thinking about her, it looked like you were having a chuckle too.
Glad you didn’t hurt yourself when you slipped on the ice. Take it easy Chess.
Well, rabbits can be pretty scary. One ran into me at Tinkle Time last summer, I think, and I had to go inside. The guy I live with said I wasn’t as tough and fierce as I like to think I am. It was scary, what can I say? Looks like the ice is mostly gone. It was a really thin layer on the flagstone and concrete. The sun is out now.
Ps. Forgot to say loved todays photos, those poses are brilliant.
Thanks. I should add that there is more to the Nutscene story. There wasn’t when the post was made, but there is now. The guy I live with went out and coiled up the twine. When he got into the shed, he felt a slight tug, and saw more of the twine disappearing through the shed window. Earl (he’s sure it was him) had the twine in his teeth, and there was this ferocious Tug-of-Twine struggle. It turns out that the guy I live with is stronger than a squirrel, and eventually he got all the twine back. Earl was really mad. “Tough all over” the guy I live with said. About half the twine has been pulled out of the handy can it comes in, and “this better not happen again, or else”. Or else what, I don’t know.
Well Chess,
You look incredibly shocked in that first picture. Did Earl the Squirrel take the twine and run with it? Thank goodness you kept your cool during all the commotion. “What the fescue” sounds much nicer than “What the grama”.
Yes, he did just that. Very naughty, and very shocking. The shed windows were made of glass, but got broken during a high wind, so they have no panes, and stay open, since there’s no point in shutting paneless windows.
“… it was pretty odd …” and it was, so odd I haven’t yet figured out what “it” was, but I sensed the involvement of Earl the Squirrel. The shock of this post is that you have gone meta, Chess, with those marvelous illustrations of your reactions and thoughts in the moment. Probably this loose playfulness comes with the wintery season. I do think the guy you live with did do a little nutscene of his own, jumping up with exclamation and all. Curious to me his terming the precious twist by brand name; I would call it garden twine. But then biscuit/cracker. Do be careful on the ice, dear dog. Watch those hips.
“It” as in “it”, you know; what I said. The squirrel thing and all. The derring-do-ness of it. Well, the guy I live with calls it “Nutscene” because, well, because it’s Nutscene, you know. As distinguished from “other” garden twine, of which there’s a lot of here. I mean if he had said “my twine”, it could have meant any number of other twines, including the basic twine, which is twine-colored, instead of green. Comes in a huge roll. A necessary staple, but not so good for wrapping or twining things where the twine shouldn’t be hugely visible. Or like if he had some garden help, which is unlikely, and said “Hand me the twine, please”, he might get the wrong twine, so he would have to say “Might I have the Nutscene”. And it comes in a can, so he doesn’t have to spend hours looking for the end of it or untangling it. Oh, the ice mostly melted, and now, at almost 9 p.m., it’s warmer than it was during the day. Weird, huh.
I’ve heard it said that when the going gets weird, the weird get going.
Too true. I don’t know if anything happened to the Nutscene today, because the guy I live with had to get his hair cut, since it hadn’t been cut in over three months, and it was “weighing on his mind”.
Is he still shaving? I’ve heard it said that it is the final acid test…..
Sometimes. His hair is so short, it’s short.
My stomach hurts from all the laughing. Nuts to you!
It was all true, though. That’s the shocking part.
I would be more genteel if I would train myself to say “What the fescue” instead of the other thing. Or “What the fuchsia” but with the German pronunciation.
The fuchsia thing is excellent, though we don’t have them here, except in pots, and maybe in the gardens of the more adventurous (Fuchsia magellanica, that is), but we do have fescue. Flax might be good too.