Greetings and salutations everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the less-than-completely-tiny purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden before it snows again. You may remember me from such posts as “In The Doghouse”, among at least a few others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Oh, and by the way, you may also notice that some of the book bindings behind me are chewed. That definitely wasn’t me who did that, because they were like that when I got here. It was some other purebred border collie. 
Here I am playing with my new Lamb Chop. I like my new Lamb Chop a lot, as you can tell. 
It was all gloomy and stuff today and the guy I live with did some gardening, which I helped with, a little bit. It’s supposed to snow over the next couple of days, and we could get like a foot (30 cm) of snow, and so work had to be done today. Really, not very much work was done, so it must not have been all that important. A couple of irises were flowering and here’s one of them. You can tell by its name that it’s kind of an unusual iris. The standards are a little floppy because the wind was blowing.
Iris paradoxa
The guy I live with decided that the pots which were on the patio should be moved out onto the flagstone, and I agreed, partly because the potting soil that was in them had been there for a few years, and needed to be replaced, or at least so I thought, and I began work on them as soon as the guy I live with wasn’t looking. I wanted to surprise him with all the work I’d done. I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t as surprised as I thought he would be. He said later that almost all of the purebred border collies who have lived here thought potting soil was excellent, and that this behavior of mine was typical.
The work took a little longer than I thought it would.
The guy I live with explained to me these pots were fairly expensive, so, not to break any, and in fact the price of the big one is still written on the side, which isn’t terribly classy, but we don’t concern ourselves with things like that, too much.
Later in the afternoon the guy I live with put a harness on me and tried to persuade me to go on something called “a walk”, but it was scary, though I did go across the street to say Hi to the neighbor kids, who liked me a lot, which I thought showed very good taste. I’d met them before. Then he took me out into the field, or the entrance to it, really, but it was even scarier, and I wanted to go home, so we went home.
The only thing that was scarier was when we went out in the dark last night, and I got all the way to the back fence, with the guy I live with, and then I heard a noise somewhere in the corner of the yard, and decided it was time to go back inside.
Anyway, that was my day. It was a pretty good one, as I think you can tell. And you can see here that I have a new collar, and a rabies tag. I don’t really like the tag, but the guy I live with says that’s tough, which is kind of mean, if you ask me. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
At our house we find potting soil kind of splintery and not too good to eat, but yours must be a better quality. Will the coming snow turn those pretty irises to mush? Did you attempt to chomp that hand we saw briefly in the video? It looked like an attempted chomp.
The irises are in specially-made cages now. Heavy-duty wire cages covered with plastic; you may have seen them in other pictures. It is a good quality potting soil. The gourmet kind. And, yes, I did try to chomp the guy I live with’s hand. I can be naughty. So he says.
i haven’t been able to get to know many dogs for several decades because of my allergies. it is such a treat to have mani showing me a puppy’s antics, and to see him grow and to look at those pretty eyes. this is such a dear blog. thank you both!
Thanks; I woke it this morning and it was snowing. Talk about excellent…..
I once met Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop’s mom, as a ten or eleven year old at the old New York Coliseum on Columbus Circle. She was a very, very, nice person, superb ventriloquist, and talented musician. Enjoy your Lamb Chop.
My Lamb Chop is indeed excellent, though it doesn’t have that certain quality of the old one that was here when I showed up. I hope I’ll be able to find it in the snow ….
Yuppers. The old Kongs and shin bones here also have that fine old doggie terroir. Snow in April is unknown here, My buddy tells me that a former GS frolicked about in significant fluffy stuff in mid-May one week in CT. Woodland phlox from Don Jacobs in bloom here today; alas no arilbreds yet. Almost all the pure aril species are now deceased.
Well, this is how we get our water in spring now. Didn’t used to be that way; used to rain here, but really not since 1995, or so I hear.
Wow! That Iris is a beauty!
It is, isn’t it.
:^)
Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that more snows would be coming. More, um, excellent snows. You’re new around there, so maybe you could ask the guy you live with when the definitely-no-more-(“excellent”)-snow date is?
June first, he says. It has snowed in parts of the Denver metro area in June, but that’s because the metro area has expanded almost to infinity. I understand that we don’t have springs like other places, where the snow finally stops and it’s spring; instead, the snow finally stops and then it’s summer. The snow has stopped here, for now.
Love it that In your characteristic pose pic, one of the most visible titles is ‘Animals in Motion’ !!
Yes, by Muybridge. All but one of the books there belonged to the lady of the house. The first border collie who lived here got separation anxiety and chewed the books, and got yelled at.
I heard the “Ahems”, which Mani seems to not yet know the meaning of. After all that giving of the What Fors I’m sure those pots will never think of getting out of line again. Good job, O Fierce Guardian of the Garden.
Rabies tags??? Did I miss out on consoling the embiggening pure bred boarder collie on his visit to The Bad Place?? (I hope there was a brie reward afterwards.)
The iris is beautiful, and FINALLY a flower with a roll-on-the-tongue name!
Yes, I wasn’t sure what all the throat-clearing was about. It couldn’t have possibly been directed at me, so I ignored it. Yes, I was dragged off to the Bad Place last Monday, where I “cutened up the place something fierce”, according to the guy I live with, and I said Hi to a dog about twenty times my size, and then I got stuck with needles. I also got a brand new collar, which is kind of itchy. I still haven’t gotten any of that thing called “brie”, because the guy I live with has any number of excuses for why I don’t get any.
How I love the saturated purples of the iris you showed, Mani! Absolutely splendid. Someone should build an altar to it. By the looks of your playtime, though, you’d soon have any altar dismantled. Such an iconoclast you are.
Scott Calhoun talked about Southwestern Wildflowers last night, and I was lucky enough to be there. He showed several wonderful shots of the Denver Botanical Garden. I bought a book, Chasing Wildflowers, the subtitle for which is “a mad search for wild gardens.” He too likes pots placed amidst plants in the ground, both for the value of the pots themselves and for the extension of the flowering season. Admirers besieged him, or else I would have told him about The Guy You Live With’s garden and this blog.
My dogs have come running from their naps to investigate Other Dog making Having Fun noises. Thanks to you, Mani, Petie and Shredder now know about videos and the internet.
Videos and the internet. Not hard to make. And of course, having such a superior lead in each film helps a lot. I didn’t get in trouble for turning over that pot, but I did get in a huge amount of trouble for knocking over a pot on the table in the living room today. The guy I live with yelled and yelled. I know he’s been having kind of a rough time lately, because yesterday he baked a paw print in the oven, and he was sad for a long time. Then he had to vacuum up all the sand I’d spilled on the carpet, from the slipper plant in the pot. And I also chewed through another electrical cord, and got yelled at for that, too. Another unplugged one. That went to a fan that barely works.
Oh, a paw print. That brings tears to my eyes again. What a lovely thing to do.
Without going into any detail, the guy I live with said the print was supposed to be baked. He was sad, but not as sad as I was when I realized there wasn’t going to be the two feet of snow on the ground that the TV people said there might be.
Good job cleaning out the potting soil and spreading a bit!
Thanks, though it all got swept up later and put back in the pots, which I thought seemed fairly pointless, since the potting soil obviously should be strewn everywhere. I don’t think he gets that.
I had a cat that peed on electrical cords for months until he was litter box trained.I encased all cords in those rubber pipe covers that they sell at Home Depot. They also worked when he started chewing.
All the movies just prove even more that you are a oppressed border collie.
Yes, thanks, you know, I definitely feel oppressed. There’s a cover on the computer cords, which are always plugged in, but most of the other cords are unplugged, or in rooms I can’t get into. I was led out into the back yard at night, in order to “feel more comfortable in the dark”, and even though the guy I live with was there, I heard something rustle in one of the corners of the yard, in the shadows, and I put my ears way back, and made the guy I live with go back into the house with me. Then I got harness put on me and was dragged out into the front yard, which was scary. I also don’t much like the coffee grinder, the food processor, and, of course, the vacuum cleaner.
How old are you now, Mani? Like human babies and toddlers, young dogs go through developmental phases. At some points during these phases, a young dog like yourself could get fearful, especially of the dark. Nature has designed you with the ability to see better at night than most humans, thus you can better identify what lurks in the darkness. Know that in a few months your fears will leave you and you will be comfortable outside at night. As far as vacuum cleaners go… that’s something entirely different. Stay clear of them – they are mean.
I’ll be four months old tomorrow. Practically ancient. When we woke up this morning, there was water falling from the sky. The guy I live with said that was called “rain”, and we probably wouldn’t see very much of that, so not to worry. I went outside in it, and got all soaking, which was of course excellent, but then it started to hail, and that was scary. Then it rained again. It might finally go back to snow, which of course is much better. The guy I live with disagrees, but he obviously doesn’t know everything.
Glad the cords are being kept unplugged. A dog I knew bit into a live one as a puppy! Her human gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation and she was fine, with a little divot out of her tongue for the rest of her long life. My cat chewed through my phone recharging cord because it looked just like the string on a certain cat tou.
The guy I live with said I was an idiot. I didn’t think that was very nice.
Well, hon, he was kinda right! You’ll understand when you get older.
Thanks, I hope so. There are a lot of things about life that I don’t understand. According to the guy I live with, quite a few are things no one will understand, and some I will never get to (like why I was called an idiot), but some I’ll figure out, eventually.
Re the April 13 post (previous one), because for some reason the comment box did not show up. Thanks for the pic of Iris bucharica because the slugs ate most of mine. More tours, please! What a cool garden and so many interesting plants. I want troughs, and lots of them (but don’t want to make them, even though I think you had a tutorial on that awhile back). Every one is its own little world.
The guy I live with says there are people who make troughs and sell them. I got in trouble for standing on the troughs, but it was so I could survey things better. And there were snakes under the troughs. He also says he might get a Go Pro and a dog harness (I’m a dog, if you didn’t know), and have me make the movies. I told him that viewers would get dizzy, and he said it wasn’t a problem with Blair Witch, so why not do a movie like that. Oh, about the comments. They get turned off after a certain number of days; that keeps the spam down. In theory.
Oh, that explains a lot re comments!
Yes, it turns out that the more posts available for comments, the more spam we get. It offers people who have nothing better to do than annoy everyone else an opportunity to post worthless garbage that the guy I live with has to delete.