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 tonight to bring you something quite unusual: a late-night post. You may remember me from such posts as “A Clean Sweep”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. A night-time pose, of course. 
You can see that there have been some changes, even in this dark picture. I’ll talk about them in another post, which will be coming soon. Lots of stuff has been happening here.
You can also see that we have solar lights in our garden. They make the garden seem cozier at night, but also a bit more mysterious at the same time. The four lights at the top of the picture are from houses on the other side of the field.
I got a good report card at Day Care, and the guy I live with got his hair cut, finally. And I have a new Lamb Chop toy. I’m not sure where these Lamb Chops come from, because every so often there’s a new one, but I like that a lot. My Lamb Chop is my favorite toy.There are a lot of others I like a lot, though.
In case you didn’t know, the guy I live with takes me to Day Care because I love it. He says it makes up for me not having two people here all day long, to care for me and play with me, like Slipper and Chess did, years ago. He also says I might like to have a companion. I’m not entirely sure about that, but he tells me stories about how much Slipper loved having Chess as a companion, so maybe it might be okay. I would have a lot of work to do, training a new puppy. Of course it would have to be a purebred border collie, just like me.
A couple of days ago the guy I live with and his friend (I really like her) and some other friends came over, and they all went to something called a plant sale. Everyone was very excited, except for me. He didn’t get very many plants. He said it was just being around all these friends that was the best part. I can relate to that, because I have friends at Day Care.
Then yesterday, he went back to the plant sale. I was left alone. I think I’m opposed to plant sales now. Though, on the other hand, he brought me back some cow ears, and I got to snack on one later that night. I ate a bug that was on the patio, after that. The guy I live with says not to eat bugs, but obviously he’s never tried them.
Today, the guy I live with transplanted some tomato seedlings into coir pots. He said it was funny that some people say to pronounce this word as though it were French, when it’s pronounced just like it looks. The seedlings looked unhappy later on. He felt bad about that. He said maybe they would perk up by tomorrow. His friend saved the seed from last year, from the tomato plant he planted in her garden. Not that anyone needs as many tomato plants as there are seedlings.
Nothing happened on either of my walks today. There weren’t any unleashed dogs, or people, or snakes, and even the big red-tailed hawk wasn’t around. It was kind of strange.
There was this dog, Daisy, whom I’ve seen before, who’s too shy to walk down to the fence and say Hi to me when I walk by. She walks so slowly that the guy I live with said we could walk all around the entire state before she got down to the fence. She’s really shy.
Well, so, anyway, we were both just sitting here tonight. The guy I live with was watching TV, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”, and I was lying in my fort thinking about things, when all of a sudden this happened. It’s kind of scary, and you need to have the sound turned up to get the full scariness. Or maybe eeriness would be a better word. You can hear the guy I live with breathing, and the traffic from the highway off in the distance, but also you can hear me barking, because that’s what we purebred border collies do, out by the back fence, late at night.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Oh, Phoebe woke right up when I played your video! We get coyotes sometimes, too. When they come near it is scary.
It was pretty scary. It must have been Norm and Celeste out there. I saw Norm the other day, on my morning walk. And of course I can tell when he’s walked by the back fence, on the same path we take on my walks.
That’s quite a cacophony of night sounds you have there, Mani. Your barking was quite restrained, if you ask me. We are serenaded by spring peepers here. And one dog, in the distance.
The dog I like with, Stella, likes to eat bugs, too. While it does gross me out a bit, I find it quite useful when it comes to bugs (ladybugs) in the house. Bon appetit!
There was one time when they were just beyond the back fence (which they can’t get over). I suppose we’ll see parts of what Norm and Celeste found, when we walk down there. I always notice those things.
The guy I live with says there used to be frogs which could be heard from the back yard, back in the days when there was a pond on the creek, near where it went under the highway.
Hi Mani, the place I work for sells coir and the supplier I buy it from says it’s pronounced like ‘choir’ .I’m not sure I believe him though, but the next time I’m at a trade show I’m going to ask the guy at the ‘hydroponics’ booth (if you follow my drift) they are big purveyors of coir. I used to live in Northern Arizona in a very small town, and we had our share of Coyote sounds.
Yeah. The guy I live with says that lots of words are mispronounced. The Oxford English Dictionary says “coir” is pronounced “koyer”. It’s an English word derived from Malayalam. Webster too. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coir Of course telling people how to pronounce words correctly usually rubs them the wrong way. We didn’t see what the coyotes were yelling about last night, which is just as well.
I do agree your warning barks to Norm and Celeste were restrained. If a canine companion of excellent breed were to come into your life, perhaps you can pass on that gift for restraint. It was fun to hear the coyotes, much better than the small arms and artillery fire sounds we get from the SEAL base. The grounds at night with solar lights do appear eerie and cozy, same time, just as you observed. Allow me to observe: Eating bugs, yuck yuck yuck.
Indeed, though the guy I live with said there was too much jingling in the video. What can I say? I jingle. We can hear cars and trucks on the highway all the time, but we just tune it out. Bugs are pretty good. Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle. The guy I live with says I eat “too many gross things”, but he’s never tried them, so how would he know they’re gross? He says he would know. I guess tastes differ.