Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden, on this very beautiful day. You may remember me from such posts as “The Fast Learner”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristically horticultural pose.
Pretty funny, huh?
If you couldn’t see me there, this picture is zoomed in.
There was a lot of gardening today. That’s because it was seventy-four degrees here (about twenty-three Celsius), sunny, and, well, downright gorgeous. So there really wasn’t any excuse to stay inside and talk about all the things that need to be done in the garden.
Though, as you might be able to guess from the title of today’s post, the guy I live with has a severely lazy streak, and has decided to write a book called How To Avoid Gardening. It might be a best-seller; you never know.
That’s probably enough humor for the day, don’t you think?
We spent quite some time being very still, trying to get pictures of the hummingbirds in the garden. I was less still than the guy I live with, but I wasn’t racing around or anything like that. These are the only pictures that came out even reasonably well.
That’s a male black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri). They make a lot of whistling noises as they fly through the garden, and sometimes they fly up really high and then dive-bomb us. Today they were sharing, or sort of sharing, the feeders with a broad-tailed hummingbird.
There aren’t that many flowers for the hummingbirds because it’s been so dry here. They visit this sphaeralcea (S. fendleri), but just to look. 
Sometimes they look at the Rocky Mountain beeplant, Cleome serrulata (it has another name now, like Peritome or something), but they seem disappointed. Here’s the beeplant with bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoregneria spicata). 
That would be all I have for today, but things happened yesterday, and I’m going to talk about them now, if you don’t mind.
In the afternoon (yesterday) it got really windy. (It was even windier than this, but there weren’t any movies being made then.)
And it sprinkled a little, and then stopped, but then, finally, it did this.
It rained for a couple of hours. It wasn’t a huge amount of rain, but it was “totally excellent” according to the guy I live with.
I know I haven’t said very much in this post, but it was such a nice day that it left both of us pretty speechless. Well, it did me, anyway. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
R-ain? What is this er-ayne you speak of? Given the sun and the smog here, I presume that my house and its immediate surroundings have been transported to L.A.
Yes, indeed. Water falling from the sky. Only about three-tenths of an inch (about seven and a half millimeters), but still rain. The raised beds of clay and gravel are dry at about four inches (ten centimeters) deep, but the “sandpile” (sand and gravel) is damp at that depth. And no one roasted today. For once.
I could readily write a chapter in your new book!
A high degree of laziness would be the first requirement …..
Ohhhh rain! Was it enough to revive that poor wilted lilac in the previous post? It was about 110 degrees here on Friday. We are in Oregon and only rated a heat advisory even though I believe we were the hottest city in the country that day. Mani I was noticing how large your ears appear to be, rising up behind the lovely artemisia. Are your ears special like the rest of you?
The guy I live with says my ears are “radar ears”. Some purebred border collies do have them. All the better to hear with, I suppose. The lilac is still wilted. Turns out they can be wilted for a very long time, and it doesn’t affect flowering next year. It’s not very attractive, though.
Yes, I too liked that ears-straight-up photo because your ears match the upright grasses. Plus, the Where’s Waldo aspect of hunt (although I found you, distinctive dog, right away). My, you have some plump hummers flying around and dive-bombing the yard. I can see why the Romans considered small birdies succulent. The sphaeralcea flashes a fine coral pink color matching precisely the shade of my new Chanel lipstick. They say Coco loved to be in a garden, and yours is very attractive even this deep into summer. Thank you for the videos. You’re lucky to have trees soughing in the wind as their branches move about. I moped through the rain video. If a weak El Nino occurs, I might could make a video of my own. I am glad you are a dog who can appreciate a gorgeous day, Mani, and who knows how to comport himself around hummingbirds being immortalized via video.
Thanks; I was trying to do the “Finding Momo” bit. That’s a good book to get for tiny people, by the way. The guy I live with says he’s found Momo in every single picture, online, but some took a bit of looking. Momo is of course a border collie. The black-chinned hummingbirds are very serious dive-bombers; the broad-tailed, not so much. We haven’t seen a calliope yet, this year. They’re extremely tiny; the size of big bumblebees, almost. It only rained about three-tenths of an inch (seven point six millimeters), but no one here is complaining.
Cher Mani, bonsoir, ouaf-ouaf. Il fait chaud chez toi n’est-ce pas? Pretty much the same here up above the Lot Valley in SW France. 2 months sans pluie in fact. The bloke whose pad I sofa-sit is still in Dubai. He complains of 45C in the day, and above 30C at night. He asks me to ask whether your bloke ever thought about putting “High & Dry” into an E-book form since he is trying to give up ferrying around kilos of paper in his travel bag.
From my side, our chien-chat group round here will issue you with a personal invitation to join “Les Chiens sans Frontières”. We’re not keen on all those fences in your blog. The most you can find hereabouts is an electric fence to keep out the sangliers et cerfs. Any self-respecting pooch can slide underneath to keep nose to the deer tracks and keep in touch with his mates. Rejoignez-nous pour être un vrai borderless collie.
Meilleures salutations pour l’instant, Monthé
Indeed, the guy I live with dislikes the fences intensely. And I mean super-intensely. He claims that in a year or so I will understand where I’m not supposed to go, and then not go there. That’s what he says, “based on past experience”. I was trampling all the cyclamen etc. chasing les écureuils et les lapins, you know, without regard to much of anything else.
He also says that “High and Dry” needs to be completely rewritten, incorporating his new understanding of semi-arid and arid-climate soil science.
But I think laziness will hinder that project to a considerable degree.
45C is much, much too hot for any purebred border collie. It’s 26C here, right now, in the afternoon, which isn’t bad at all.