Greetings and salutations everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the tiny purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “The Cone Of Silence”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I know I’ve been gone for a while, but that’s because stuff was happening, and so there wasn’t really time to post. We had a visitor last Saturday, and the guy I live with spent several days shampooing the carpet and vacuuming everything and cleaning the bathroom; things like that, you know, “just in case”. It turned out it was too hot to be out in the garden so we all stayed in the kitchen and talked. Well, the guy I live with talked.
Our visitor was quite young, and she knew all about plants, though not very much about tiny purebred border collies, but by the time she left, she did. I thought she was really great, and the guy I live with said I was pestering her so much that he filled the stock tank outside so that I could do something besides be a pest.
They went to Chatfield Arboretum without me, but then came back, and we went on my walk, and then the guy I live with drove her to where she was staying for the night, leaving me alone in the very hot house. But I was okay.
Then the next day, which I guess was Sunday, was “a day filled with naughtiness of an unparalleled degree”, and that might really be true judging from what the guy I live with said for quite some time afterwards. We won’t go into what it was that I did.
And then yesterday, since being naughty is so much fun (as maybe you know), I was naughty again, with the resulting language expressed fairly loudly, after which I tried to eat a snake, so the stock tank got filled up again, and when I emptied that, which is what you do, then I tried to empty the pot sitting on the patio, and various other things.
The guy I live with emptied the pots today because he said he wasn’t going to plant any annuals this year, and so now the pots are empty, and not a temptation.
Today it was hot, dry, and windy, and the guy I live with said that was excellent weather, and I must say that the wind was different. Most of the time in the last few months the air has been completely still here. It seems to have stopped raining, and in any case there hasn’t been any rain good for the garden in about a month. Just sprinkles.
This is what our extremely hot and dry garden looked like today. 
Allium carinatum
The color on this last one is kind of weird, but, according to the guy I live with, that’s because it is. 
That’s all I have for today. The color on me isn’t weird, that’s for sure. I’ll leave you with that thought.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Around here we call hot, dry and windy Fire Storm weather. Your garden seems to fare well under hot and dry conditions. I like the plant allium carinatum, It looks like a fireworks display frozen in mid-explosion. That’s right, hot, dry and frozen. Please, Mani, do not consume a snake, lest this be the last of our latest news from the garden.
“A day filled with naughtiness of an unparalleled degree.” Yes, I agree, let’s just let that phrase lie there for contemplation. It gives the imagination so much to work with. And two days in a row!
Thanks; well, the wind was kind of cool, so it was nicer than yesterday, I thought. The guy I live with says that summer should be dry, and sometimes smell like the smell you get when dry grass is sprinkled. But people don’t let their grass go dry here. Except at our house where it’s okay. The guy I live with says that smell is called petrichor when it’s rain that does it. Make that smell, I mean. He also says that being around snakes would make me smell icky, but then, I’m getting into the territory I’m not supposed to talk about. I did eat some potting soil and it was pretty good, and no, I don’t have pica, in case anyone wonders; all the purebred border collies here have found potting soil to be completely excellent.
Hot, is it young sir? We are going to be 110 on Thursday so can we use your stock tank? I like that allium a lot. Every year I have a few more of them, sticking their exploding heads in and around everything. I wonder, as does everyone else I’m sure, just exactly what you did…besides the snake of course. I hope the snake survived. Have we ever had a closer look at all those troughs? They look interesting to me and I am sure they look interesting to you, right?
The guy I live with says 110 would be just fine because he likes heat, but that I would have to stay downstairs, or get a bigger stock tank so I could float in it. Where it would go, I don’t know. I can’t say what I did because the guy I live with says you might develop a very low opinion of me, but he also says that dogs like to eat gross stuff, and so that’s a hint, and then we won’t talk about it any more. The troughs are best viewed in spring, he says. They do have to be watered.
There must be some of those , tiny, purebred, Colorado pit vipers in your area. Has the TGYLW taught you to leave them alone? I would imagine they could inhabit the cooler, moister areas near the canal/ditch during these hot, dry and windy days.
No, we don’t really have any bad snakes here, just big ones.