Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the mostly roasting purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you yet more news from our mostly roasting hot garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Hot, Dry, And Windy”, among so many other weather-related posts.
Here I am in a characteristic pose, after it cooled off this evening.
And here I am showing off my retractable ears.
The guy I live with says they aren’t really retractable, but I think he’s just jealous.
Once again, it’s been roasting hot. I practically fried a couple of times.
There were two little oaks here that did fry, almost completely. They’re in the two pots on the right. They were purchased last year and made it through the winter, but the guy I live with says there weren’t enough roots to fully hydrate the leaves when the weather began to get roasting. And so only the lower leaves, closest to the roots, are still green, but the rest are crispy and sad. The oaks went into pots to get watered more. 
On one of my walks, there were ducks. Ducks know how to deal with hot weather. They stay in the water. Ducks are smart.
There were six baby ducks. The guy I live with says they’re called “ducklings”. People didn’t call me a “dogling” when I was little, so that’s weird. They were cute, though. 
You may have seen that last picture posted on Facebook.
Day before yesterday, in the evening, we had a severe storm warning, with hailstones the size of quarter dollars, but it turned out the bad part was in the foothills, and by the time it came over Mount Lindo, it was nothing but rain. And so it rained here.
The garden was more or less rescued, for the time being anyway. It wasn’t a huge amount of rain, but enough.
Especially since, the night before that, the guy I live with tried to turn off the faucet in the back yard, and it broke. He claims he knows how to fix this, but that a plumber is coming out tomorrow.
Still, the garden looks “less worse” than it did.
You see that spot under the solar lantern, there? With the little pieces of flagstone? That’s where the buffalo grass didn’t take, and so the pieces of flagstone were put there because, well, I don’t know the reason why. Maybe the guy I live with didn’t want to buy any buffalo grass seed this year.
Oh, and the guy I live with and his friend went down to Perennial Favorites, in Rye, while I was at Day Care. Here’s their customer service specialist. I haven’t met him. 
They had a good time there, even though it was a long drive. And roasting all the way. There could have been a picture of the guy I live with covered with grasshoppers at a rest area they stopped at, but there wasn’t. Too bad, huh?
And then I had some trouble with my toe, and had to go back to the vet’s (where Day Care is) today, to have it looked at. They thought something might have bitten me or stung me on the toe, and now I have medicine. The guy I live with made me wear a cone last night, which was no fun at all. But I suppose he does care about me.
I guess that’s all for now. I’m going to leave you with another picture that was posted on Facebook, but I have to admit it’s a favorite of mine. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hi Guys,
A most interesting post with something for everyone!
Very cute ducklings and very strange to be seeing them now in our upside down world. We have black ducks and wood ducks in our steam at the bottom of the garden. These colloquial names just don’t make any sense as the former are not black and the wood ducks are grass grazers. Their broods hatch a bit earlier than your lot and if not found by hawks will get to a good size in two months. There is a resident band of black ducks in a weir a little way down stream and they have been joined by a large Muscoy. It looks like an extra from a kabuki theatre and I don’t know what the much smaller blackies think of it but they are wary!
What are your pink flowering alliums? You may have mentioned them in earlier posts. Are they Millenium?
Cheers, Marcus from Down Under
There are lots of ducks here, because of the canal. I think these are all mallards. The allium is probably A. senescens, with its twisted leaves.
Thanks, I never have had A. senescens spiral leaf grow so tall. Obviously differences in climate. They look good standing proud there. Cheers, Marcus
Yes, and they’re self-sown, too.
What a cute picture of the customer service rep. I say that without any prejudice.
Yes, totally without prejudice…..
“Dogling” is my new favorite word. I can’t wait to use it in a sentence face-to-face with one such critter.
The world is going to hell in a hand basket any way, Dear Mani, so I’m sure that if you took a vote here in ManiWorld about getting TGYLW to hook you up with a water sprinkler in which to run and chomp in and out of on these DoG Days , you’d win our permission to soak yourself silly HANDS DOWN. Of course, there would be strings attached: there must be video of such an event.
I’ll get us started: I vote YES to increasing the water consumption for the worthy cause of keeping Mani cool.
Indeed, I think that’s an excellent idea. There’s a plumber here right now, fixing the broken faucet.
The guy you live with truly does love you, Mani, for he spared you being pictured on this post in a cone. Would be fun for us to see, you in all your dignity in a cone. Of course, a photo of the guy covered in grasshoppers would be fun too. As for those poor oaks, it happens. I have, alas, a pot or two of plants similarly heat-scalded. The garden itself looks better and better as it matures, the different textures, the colors. Of course, photos with you garden-inspecting are the best. For being practically fried, you sure look supremely happy playing with your florescent green floaty toy. Of course, you are a dog who has seen ducklings. When the dogs around our place are young, we do refer to them as doglings. The worst of our heat has lifted, but I believe it’s passed along to your area. Brace yourself, Mani.
Finally watched the video — oh! little wonder the garden looks so healthy.
There’s a lot to be said for rain, if you’re a gardener. It’s hardly rained here at all since the middle of May, so the rain was welcome. The guy I live with, being, of course, the guy I live with, said “It could have rained even more”. But it didn’t.
Thanks. It has been about a zillion degrees here for a very long time. It sometimes cools off at night, but not as much as we would like. It rained, and then yesterday, I think, a bolt of lightning hot so close to the house that we both jumped. I was afraid that, like Chess before me, I might see my skeleton. The guy I live with said he hadn’t experienced a lightning strike so close, maybe ever. He looked around afterward and couldn’t see anything that was struck. (He knows what lightning-struck things look like.) And actually they say it might be a little cooler for the next few days. (Less than 90F.) Then it’s going to get hot again. There are pictures of me wearing a cone, you know. Way back when.