Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the tiny, yet not really totally tiny, purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you a bit of news about the garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Damp And Delighted”, among an increasingly large (like me) number of others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. I rarely sit still, if you couldn’t tell. 
You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting so much, and there’s a perfectly good reason for that.
It’s been raining so much that the guy I live with has been extra super-mopey, instead of his usual just mopeyness, and in fact I haven’t enjoyed the rain all that much either. I found this thing which was all slimy and the guy I live with said it was called a “slug” and did not belong in the house, and I thought about it for a minute and decided he was right. He sometimes is, you know.
This is what the sky looked like a couple of nights ago. Pretty gloomy, huh. Possibly even ominous. The guy I live with was actually trying to get some pictures of bats, but, as he said, “They fly, you know”. 
So anyway, this morning it was raining, and that’s when the movie was filmed. It rained and rained, and I stayed inside, partly because I could, since we didn’t have anything on our otherwise busy schedule.
And then all of a sudden, the rain stopped and the sun came out. I got to go on my walk, even though it was pretty soggy. The creek was full right up to the top of its banks, and made a terrific noise as it rushed through the culvert under the canal.
The sun stayed out, which was surprising. It was out all the rest of the day. So the guy I live with took some pictures. Not as many as he could have, of course.
You might think we have a lot of Allium cristophii, but, really, this is only a few of them. The iron pig, which the guy I live with says is really a javelina, isn’t very scary. 
And then there was the “Oregon sunshine”, Eriophyllum lanatum ‘Takilma Gold’, which was so bright I almost had to wear dark glasses when I walked by it. 
There are a bunch of other plants flowering, but I guess you’ll just have to imagine them, because the guy I live with said it was a “two-nap day”, which I guess it was. I like it when he decides to nap on the couch, because I’ve discovered that it’s fun to nap at the same time that he does. He said it was okay if I slept on the couch too, but I like to stretch out on the floor.
For me, though, two naps really aren’t enough. I like more than that, and so I’ll let you go now, and get busy with another nap.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Yes. Oregon Sunshine. They used to say Oregon sunshine was of the liquid variety but no more. And it never was in S. Oregon. 105 degrees here on Monday. You would have disliked it Mani, even more than rain and slugs. We have giant speckled slugs here and I am rather fond of them. They just slide around eating little bits of decaying things and not doing much harm unless there is a strawberry around. It would be fun to have a video of the creek during high water, but perhaps the gentleman you live with doesn’t like to juggle a camera and you near a rushing creek. It’s funny how rain makes you want to nap, isn’t it? I wonder why…
Well, we can find any excuse for a nap. The guy I live with is an expert at them. And of course I didn’t need any instruction at all. He says 105 degrees sounds just about right, but maybe with an air conditioner for me. He said he thought about getting one for Chess, but never did. Could probably have taken the camera along, but it never occurred to anyone, and I get pretty excited now that I know what the harness and leash mean. The guy I live with also says he has a picture, on film, of a slug he held in his hand when he was at a place called Multnomah Falls. I don’t think I’d like the idea of slugs that big, though I think I could outrun them.
Mani, we have had hot, sunny weather all week. I feel for you as you soggily survey the Denver skies. However, you look super happy and as though you are bravely fighting off depression from your terrible summer. I’m glad that your time in doggie day care distracts you from the rain. At least some of the GYLW’s plants are flowering.
The guy I live with says there’s a place called California that could really use all the rain we’ve been having, and he tried to explain to me the principle of unequal distribution, but I fell asleep.
In general, the weather here moves from west to east, with the mountains getting a lot of rain, then not so much where we are, then more as the weather moves east. Our average for June is 1.58 inches (4.01 cm, and this is taken from older records before DIA was built), which isn’t a lot of rain by most other peoples’ standards. This has been a rainy spring. Denver Botanic Gardens has gotten almost six inches of rain just in June. (And they got bad hail, too.)
I got to go on two walks yesterday, but the path up the creek, where Chess and the guy I live with used to walk, was flooded, so we had to turn back. Or rather, he made us turn back.
There might be more pictures of the garden, but the guy I live with doesn’t like the look of the fences. He says they’ll come down this winter, probably, after I learn the concept of boundaries. If I learn the concept.
Those skies are beautiful, Mani, and they must be exciting to watch with all the changeable fury in the clouds. We have rather less exciting gray skies we call June Gloom and we get no rain from them. You have the fun of going out in the sunshine to accompany the guy you live with on his photo-taking expeditions. When you nose around those great alliums, do you come back inside with, say, an oniony smell on your coat? Such a fragrance would make me want to search out some lox, cream cheese, bagels and capers. And how pretty a blue vase of Oregon Sunshine would look on the table. I do think you have the ratio about right, one walk for each nap. Plus, doggy daycare! These are your days, Mani, these are your days of fun.
Thanks; I’ve been having pretty good days, though today was really too hot. The guy I live with says if it were up to him, which it isn’t, California could have all the rain. Those onions don’t smell very oniony and fortunately I don’t like them much. I hear that onions are bad for dogs. I think I would like lox, though. And cream cheese for sure. I’ve never had it, but I know I would like it. The Oregon Sunshine Takilma Gold ultimately came from Cistus, though these plants were purchased at DBG. There is also regular Oregon Sunshine and several varieties throughout the west.