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 “Another New Toy”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see that we got three pumpkins, just to get into the spirit of the season, and you can also see what’s happened to them. It didn’t take very long for this to happen. The guy I live with said it would, and was hoping it might, so he could post funny pictures on Facebook, but I think the pictures would not look out of place here, as well. Proof of guilt, you might say.
Pretty disgraceful behavior, if you ask me. The pumpkins were moved farther down the path so the squirrels wouldn’t make a mess on the patio.
It was in the seventies (Fahrenheit, of course) today, with fourteen percent humidity, so, if you have an idea of how the weather around here goes, naturally, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.
Meanwhile the garden is looking pretty autumnal. There are snowdrops up:
and the vine maple, Acer circinatum, is looking pretty good. This “tree” is about twenty years old and never grows much taller than this.
There are leaves everywhere.
You see those round rocks there? They’ve been there for a while. There is a reason for this. Not a mystical reason, but because they remind the guy I live with of a pleasant picture in The American Woman’s Garden. (He has The American Man’s Garden, too, and maybe both the English ones.) He thought a pile of rocks on the side of the path would look good here, too.
You can see the golden leaves from the honey locust all over the garden on the south side. The cottonwood out in the field is still spectacular.
Some crocuses in the “way back”. A bunny chomped on a few of them. I thought bunnies had been scared out of the back yard, but I guess not. Those are leaves from the apple tree.
Well, not only are there leaves rustling in the wind, making things very seasonal indeed, but then, the other day, the guy I live with got a total case of the creeps. I didn’t notice this, but I did notice him getting the case of the creeps.
He looked out of the kitchen window, through the birch tree, and saw this:
See that dark area in the center of the picture, a little more than half way up? He couldn’t figure out what that was.
Here it is, zoomed in.
Maybe he’d been watching a scary movie or something, but he said he really didn’t know what was causing that black spot, and was afraid to go out and check.
He looked at the pictures before going out there. He asked me to go with him. I’m not sure what I was supposed to do in case it was something terrifying from an unknown dimension, except maybe run back inside the house, into my fort, while the guy I live disappeared into a vortex, and became just a tiny voice crying for help, but he said the two of us together could take on anything.
I didn’t have a chance to look over my contract before going out there, to see if this was included in my duties, but the guy I live with assured me it was. He said we take care of each other. I knew that was true, but I didn’t recall reading anything about encountering a nameless horror.
I thought it might be a good idea to look at the picture again. This time with the auto levels enhanced, in Photoshop.
This really did not look like the sort of thing a purebred border collie ought to investigate. It seemed to me that lying in my kitchen fort, with my Lamb Chop next to me, and watching the guy I live with go out there, would fulfill any contractual obligation I might have.
The guy I live with reminded me that I often go out into the far corner of the yard, in the Employees Only section, to bark at things late at night, and that he doesn’t like going anywhere near that corner of the yard at night.
That was different.
Well, we went anyway. This is what was making that black shape.
The group of bats.
The guy I live with said he knew it was the bats all along, and was just trying to scare me a little.
“Just a trick of the light”, he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
Right. So that was that.
We did have an excellent sunset this evening, to make up for all that silliness.
That’s it for me, for today. I guess I’m going to have to review my contract, just in case anything else like this happens.
I’ll leave you with a reasonably autumnal picture of me, looking at the canal.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Yes, you should review your contract. Maybe have your attorney look at it. Before you investigated and found that they were just bats, that black thing was almost as scary as the moth!
Your honeylocust looks excellent. Ours are defoliating without much color. They do that sometimes. Your vine maple is pretty sweet too. We do not even grow them here because they roast in the arid air when it gets warm. Well, it probably does not help that the few that are here are out in the full sun, along with Japanese maples. Isn’t it arid there too?
It’s very dry here. The guy I live with says we probably haven’t even received eight inches of precipitation this year. But the vine maple is in the shade garden, and that gets watered about once a week, for half an hour (give or take). I hear that there are a lot of Japanese maples, mostly in inner-city Denver, and some in Boulder, always irrigated. The guy I live with tried them here, and has no comment.
I don’t mean to change the subject (and I know I write too much to you), but do you happen to be near to Louisville? Are you familiar with the Louisville Historical Museum on the northwest corner of Main Street and South Street?
We don’t mind lots of comments …. Louisville is about forty miles to the north of us. Have never been to the museum.
Well, forty miles is probably a long walk for the guy you live with (if his contract requires him to be at the opposite end of your leash). I am just asking because the house next door to the north of the museum has my name on it. Some of my ancient relatives lived there, related to both of my paternal-paternal great grandparents (both parents of my paternal grandfather). My great grandfather’s people built the house. When they left, my great grandmother’s people lived there.
Oh, huh. Cool. The purple house? (Isn’t Google street view nice?)
You can see purple too? It is the tan house to the south or left of the purple or blue house. It is the Tomeo House, and is part of the Museum now.
Well, purple has blue in it. Cool and interesting historical fact, thanks.
It is nothing too relevant. I would just like to go there someday. My Pa sent some of the artifacts that are now on display there.
Still, it’s cool.
Mani is it in your contract to chase squirrels away from pumpkins ? Or do you just watch them destroy the pumpkins ?
No, I just sit and watch. I figure the pumpkins are there for the squirrels, though I like pumpkin, too.
Very generous of you to share the pumpkins with the squirrels.
I agree. I do prefer my pumpkin to be steamed, however.
Fair enough.
Mani, bats, both real and manmade, are terrifying. I am phobic about them.
They can indeed be scary. The metal ones just hang there, though. They were here before I showed up, so I’m used to them.
You, dear Mani, and the guy you live with do get up to some batty adventures, mostly ending, I’ve noticed, with “so that was that.” Your garden beautifully illustrates autumn – the bright colors, the clarity, emergence of bulbs – for we who are mostly autumn deprived. You do deserve to live under such a glorious sky giving such luscious sunsets. Now about your contract, seems to me with squirrels caught in brazen acts and left unmolested and rabbits nibbling in the yard that the guy you live with is the better one to examine *his* contract with you. Just you keep on keeping on throwing us your characteristic poses and leave-takings.*That* is a contract that needs keeping.
Thanks; I guess I did forget to say that I sampled the pumpkin after the holes were chewed in it. Pumpkin is excellent. Pie pumpkins are sometimes steamed here when we purebred border collies have what Sheldon would call “digestive distress”.
I took even more delight in this post than I usually do, chuckling out loud. I should let you know more often, I know, but thanks!
Thanks; we purebred border collies do have a superior sense of humor. Did you hear the one about ….no, I’ll leave that for another post.