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. You may remember me from such posts as “Under Construction”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
There’s been some gardening going on, but not a whole lot. A few crocuses are flowering. The guy I live with went to a “box store” to get an extension for the gutter downspout and found some hollies on sale, fifty percent off, so he bought them, to put in a space which had been empty for over a year. I kind of liked the empty space, but the hollies look okay there.
They might even survive. They’re protected from our hot winter sun by the fence. In theory.
This isn’t really the climate for hollies, or many other broad-leafed evergreens, but the guy I live with said you never know, and I guess you don’t, so there they are. It’s true that other hollies have been planted here in the past, and are no longer here, but that’s never stopped him from trying again. Especially at fifty percent off.
Getting a discount was nice. I bet you didn’t know that the guy I live with is, in fact, an ordinary gardener just like everyone else, and has always paid retail price for the plants that go into the garden. This is why, sometimes, he gets irked when people say such-and-such a plant will grow in “dry soil” when in truth it needs lots of water. He won’t talk about the amount of money spent on dead plants.
Occasionally friends send plants, or seeds, but, basically, the guy I live with goes to nurseries, or orders plants through the mail.
The really big news here, and I guess it’s created kind of a crisis, is that the guy I live with, who as you may know has decided to paint the house again, is considering painting the house a sort of brown, I think. He’s studying colors and thinking a lot about this. So it will be a house of a different color.
Well, so, that news is out of the way.
Another thing happened. A moth flew into the kitchen. 
the moth
He caught it, eventually, and put it outside. That was a huge relief. I do like the way I make multiple shadows.
The only other thing that happened–actually it happens almost every evening now–is that we’re beginning to get some excellent sunsets. I wanted to share these with you. The first thing that happens is the back yard turns all reddish.
And then…
Can you see the moon in this picture?
That’s it for today. I know this is a short post but I did want to show the sunset pictures. The guy I live with said that there were a whole bunch of snowdrops up, already, and he thought that was pretty exciting. We do like the break from gardening that winter offers, though it isn’t as much of a break as you might think, considering all the things that go on here. I suppose if we lived in a climate where you could garden year-round he would like it, at least at first, and then probably start complaining about how much work it all was. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Brownish house? Reddish sunset? Dogs should not worry about silly things like colors that they can not see. Just worry about that moth!
The moth was pretty scary. I can see yellow and blue, though. Maybe the house should be painted bright yellow with blue stripes.
You can see blue?! Oh my! I told Bill, the little terrier, that his blue Blazer that he gets chauffeured in was a red Bravada! So, that is why he gave me that ‘stupid’ look! You don’t think he can read ‘B-L-A-Z-E-R’ do you?
You never know. Yes, we see shades of yellow and blue.
My spotted dog supervises my temperate Tasmanian garden all year round, no break over winter but i think he’d like one, he doesn’t have your cosy double coat.
Sometimes the guy I live with says he wishes he lived in a gentler climate, but we do get very nice days in January and February which almost make up for the bouts of cold weather.
It’s 26C here right now, sunny, with five percent humidity. Very nice. And it’s supposed to snow tomorrow night. (No, seriously.)
That sunset glow is beautiful. I have the same from a red maple tree right now. It comes in the window and makes the rooms glow. I think a light tannish brown would set off your garden, or even darker brown with white trim. It would kind of blend in and really set off the garden, and of course you!. And what color did I see when both of my dogs rolled in an unfortunate dead creature? Why, red of course. You never do that, right Mani?
I never roll in dead things. We purebred border collies are not much for rolling in things, though I’ve heard some stories. The guy I live with said he’s pretty much settled on a color, light brown with darker brown trim, because since he can’t get coffee ice cream with chocolate swirls in it any more (the kind he liked, anyway), this might be the closest thing to it. Paint would have been purchased today, but it wasn’t. Just one of those things. And now it’s supposed to get cold, so painting is out. The only thing is, he said since I can’t see brown that the house would be invisible to me and I might crash into one of the walls. I’ll have to be extra careful, I guess.
You look happy, Mani, in your sunlit spot – hill or lawn, I can’t tell – and the hollies look happy and well-sited in their spot. House colors. Ours is painted a mid-mossy green in hopes it would spotlight the garden. A Craftsman house two blocks away is painted to look like redwood, which it actually may be. Trim is the red that Gucci favors, and the completing color is garden green. I like it. A woman blogger out in the desert planned to paint the foundation rocks of her house white to go with the A-frame above, and her readers voted against it. She went ahead anyway, and I like it. On Sunday, we’ll visit Mirror House, an art piece forty miles from Palm Springs and pretty much from everywhere. You Border Collies are smart, so I bet you can guess in what material the house is completely covered. I’m thinking your rosy garden and spectacular sunset would reflect in it well. As would you, dear dog.
About moths, I have nothing to say.
I do like my Personal Hill quite a lot. I guess the painting business will be delayed for a while. The temperature here is dropping rapidly. We aren’t supposed to get much snow, but it will be below freezing for several nights. It makes the guy I live with unhappy, but at the same time partly stoic and resigned.
We have brick here. It’s a color I dislike but fortunately we can just blame the builder and not worry about changing it.
Much more interesting to talk about moths… and sunsets…
The front of the house is brick veneer. The guy I live with, who is super-ancient, says that back in the old days almost all the houses in Denver were built of brick. He bought some paint today because it was seventy-five degrees with fourteen percent humidity, but ….it’s supposed to snow tomorrow. Moths are pretty interesting. Some are quite tasty, if you didn’t know.