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 today to bring you a pleasant interlude, because not much of anything has been going on. You may remember me from such posts as “We-Are-From-France”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in what the guy I live with calls “an annoyingly characteristic pose”; that is, not looking at the camera when my picture is being taken. 
Well, I was having fun late at night, outside, with my stuffed alligator, and the guy I live with said it was time to come in, a statement with which I disagreed, but he said I had to anyway, and so, being the extremely agreeable purebred border collie that I am, I did come in, without chomping the guy I live with, which was really my first thought.
As I said earlier, hardly anything has been going on here. We mostly go on walks and take naps. Sometimes the guy I live with goes out into the garden, and hacks away at something, puts it in the trash, and then goes back inside, and I don’t know what that’s all about.
I like naps a lot. My favorite thing, of course, is food, and I often like to supplement my food with various items I find on the ground. The guy I live with says, especially, that purebred border collies don’t eat bugs, but I think that’s because he’s never tried them. Maybe he should one day, and then he would see.
But besides food, my favorite thing is the hose, you know, and there are many, many things that can be done with the hose, most of which make the guy I live with pretty unhappy, but there’s one thing that he says is okay, and I really like it.
I like it so much that we made a movie of me, and the hose. This is what I’ve been doing lately anyway, so I think it’s good that I bring you up to date on this.
I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did making it.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
The best hose movie ever, Mani. The things you two do to entertain us!
Thanks; we didn’t show the part with me playing in the stock tank, because the guy I live with doesn’t know how to edit the movies, and the parts where I just stood there might be boring. But this was fun.
You are one happy purebred border collie!
Thanks; I think so. I got to go to Day Care today, too. It was fun.
what a FUN movie, mani !! it’s great to see you playing like that!
Thanks; it was fun. I hear that we aren’t going to make a sprinkler movie. The guy I live with said I disassembled his fancy Australian (or Austrian, don’t know which) gear-driven sprinkler the first time he had it on, and he had to fix it, so, no sprinkler movies.
Well, I’m glad the hose is getting some use around there, because really, will you need to water again before sometime next year? My dogs run when I turn on the hose. I know you care very little, but how are the plants doing? Anything new in the garden or is this the slow time of year? I was reading the old blogs and learned that I shouldn’t have moved my hellebores. I kind of could tell, anyway.
The plants seem to be doing okay; I was at Day Care today and the guy I live with watered the garden some. It looks pretty frazzled, according to him, but after six or seven weeks of hardly any rain at all, he says that’s to be expected. Only a few of the hellebores that were moved here have survived, which I guess is sad. But sadder still is that Timberline Gardens is closing (a lot of people around here are sad)…..the guy I live with bought a bunch of plants for a dollar each and has planted them in that pile of gravel in the middle of the back yard. Lavenders and stuff like that.
Ugh, “The Farm at Timberline” housing development. Too bad, but people like to retire I guess. It’s just that there are few stepping up with new nurseries. Oh, no rain for a while. I guess I still have the endless thunderstorms in my mind. Well, can you share the hose even when you’re at home, Mani?
There have been quite a few thunderstorms, but we just get sprinkles. So all the plants grew and grew when it was raining, and then the rain stopped, and the plants fell over. The guy I live with says “because hydraulics”. No, I don’t share the hose. The hose is for me. I’m little, and extremely powerful, and can fly through the air with jaws gaping, aiming right for the hose. One of the hose sections leaks now. The guy I live with says that’s my fault.
What a great thing to do on a hot day!
It really is. The guy I live with wont let me splash in the creek any more, because the water is really low, and “all gross and green”, so that’s why I have to stock tank. The tank is really old, like so many things around here, and leaks a little.
It sounds like there’s some aestivation going on, in my estimation. By the guy you live with, I mean.
Very definitely, I would say. The thing is, and this might be hard to explain, he says that having a garden that’s full of flowers and super-green at this time of year, considering the almost zero rain, is way too much work. It also makes us too humid. Practically no one else around here feels that way, which is okay, so we can have a garden “as unique as a tricolor-saddleback purebred border collie with radar ears”. But much more messy.
You make water play look so much fun, Mani. Do you nap extra deep and long afterwards? Sometimes being powerful can be tiring. Sorry to hear about Timberline closing. My standby rose purveyor, Vintage Gardens, closed doors last year. Mourn, mourn. Possibilities have evaporated. Everything is a little bit less fun these days. Maybe I should go play with a water hose and get happy. You have such a gorgeous smile, Mani, and a terrific lunge.
Playing with the hose is a whole lot of fun. But what’s really exhausting is Day Care, which I’m back from. I’ve heard stories of Chess, the purebred border collie who was here before me, and who was, according to the guy I live with, a “lungemeister”, and so the terror of the front door. Everyone who came to the front door was afraid of him. And when he and his buddy Slipper were there, guarding the heck out of the front door, no one dared to come up the front walk, for fear of being lunged at. They learned that protecting the lady of the house, who stayed at home and drew, or wrote. I don’t know if I need to be all lunge-y, except where the hose is concerned. Yes, Timberline is closing. Very sad. Things change, but it would be nice for new nurseries to appear. Running a nursery is not very easy, he says.
We are wondering, was the tornado anywhere near you?
Oh, no, miles away. Fifty or more miles, maybe. We were awakened by thunder and lightning in the middle of the night, two nights in a row. It was scary, but not really scary. It even rained a bit.