Greetings and salutations everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, your popular host, here to bring you up to date on the latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “The Cone Of Silence”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. You may notice an addition to the garden decor.
It’s been super ultra roasting hot here. Like ninety-five degrees (thirty-five Celsius), and not much cooler than that when we go to bed. (We stay up late.) We haven’t seen the sun much in days, and the clouds are keeping the oppressive heat from radiating out into space, or wherever it goes. 
Quite a few things have happened here lately. I know that things happen all the time, but I mean things of note.
The guy I live with washed his cell phone in the washing machine and it came out “pretty dead”. He removed the battery and tried to dry it in a bunch of rice (uncooked rice), but that didn’t work, so he took it in to the phone place. He said that because he’s a super-genius (minus the phone-washing business of course) he brought his old cell phone along and they were able to reprogram that one.
You should have seen him trying to fix the “land line” here. There’s a wall phone hanging in the kitchen, like in almost every kitchen thirty years ago, but he said it wasn’t a Western Electric phone and so couldn’t troubleshoot it or fix it. And he had no tools. He said if we had an emergency he would just stick his head out the window and yell. Like this, maybe, but with yelling. 
He says we’ll get a new screen door eventually. Maybe when he paints the house.
Here, though, I was watching him take pictures in the front yard. Almost none of them came out.
Since there weren’t any other pictures that were good, I thought we might post the desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) pictures he took the other day. They were posted on Facebook but they might show up better here.
Pretty cool, huh? The guy I live with says to look here https://paridevita.com/2012/06/19/the-red-one/ to check out the Peattie quote, though I should say this post was before purebred border collies began to narrate the blog.
I encountered a little striped kitty in the back yard, which alarmed the guy I live with, but I went inside when he told me to, and a few minutes later the striped kitty had disappeared. It probably wriggled between the opening in the fence and went next door.
There might have been some other things but it’s been so hot neither of us have been able to think much. Today it’s cooled off a lot, but still cloudy. I like it better when it’s cooler.
Oh. There is one thing. One evening we had a lot of thunder, so I couldn’t go on my walk, but then later the guy I live with said we should walk, so we went out at 11:45 at night. It was the best walk ever. I made the guy I live with walk as fast as he could.
Some people think that dogs like lawns. Years ago there was a watered green lawn here, and it does make the guy I live with sad to think of that, but things changed, and I must say I really like my lawn now. There’s grass I can lie on, but also a lot of plants to run through and explore in.
(These are really big files which you can embiggen, if you want, and “view to their advantage”. Or something like that.)
The path to the shed. The guy I live with is really happy he got gaillardias to live here. They come back from seed. 
Winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata), with Ipomopsis rubra behind. 
And the “trough patio”. Yes, there are tomatoes there. The trash can is filled with water for them. They’re growing in big plastic pots. The wire fence is because I got carried away and knocked over some seed pots. The guy I live with didn’t get angry because he’s giving up on growing a lot of things from seed. The seed-sowing this year has been really unsuccessful. The “nanodome” right by the tomato plant had seed pots in it but everything died. 
I guess that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this update. Hopefully there won’t be any more phone-washing; we get a secret code sent to the phone in order to sign on to the blog, and it’s a little difficult if the phone is wet.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me exploring behind Sporobolus airoides.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Your yuccas are SO rad, except that they are right near the walkway! I like to put mine out of the way, especially where deer come in. Deer avoid them, even those that lack sharp tips, probably because they do not know that they do not have sharp tips. Deer are not very smart; although I have never heard of one washing a telephone.
Ha ha. The guy I live with said he didn’t expect any of the big yuccas to survive, but apparently they did. He put up that vintage steel garden fence (would like to find more) to protect trick-or-treaters but really, come Halloween, he puts up a much bigger fence, and even then, he and his friend stand out on the driveway pretty much forcing everyone to take the candy he bought too much of. Bunnies will eat newly-planted yuccas (and agaves) right down to the ground in a bad winter. (One with a lot of snow.)
Oh, the bunnies! They do not bother mine, but the gophers do! They are like subterranean bunnies. Have you ever seen ‘Tremors’? If not, DON’T!
Lol. “Who died and left you Einstein?” One of the best movies ever. (The guy I live with hasn’t watched it in many years, and it sounds scary to me.)
I barely remember it, but I remember that I thought it was totally lame. If he ever watches it again, you should wait it out in one of your forts. Although there are no moths involved, it is quite scary.
It’s unlikely that it will ever be watched again, even though there’s a DVD of it downstairs.
I would suggest that you bury it out past the garden somewhere, but then ‘they’ might find it.
We don’t have things like that here. Except prairie dogs, across the “main drag”.
It that what you once believed about moths?
No; we purebred border collies who live, or have lived, in this house know about moths, even if they are scary. https://paridevita.com/2013/06/14/the-sphinx/
You know, they taste like chicken.
The guy I live with bought me some chicken-flavored toothpaste. I can hardly wait to see him try to brush my teeth.
Are you sure it is for you? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to see him try to brush his own teeth with chicken-flavored toothpaste?
I don’t think anyone would want to be around him, if he did.
ICK!
The David Culross Peattie desert willow quote (linked) takes my breath away. I just planted a white Chilopsis linearis that turned out to bloom purple pink. Mislabeled, as so many plants are, at the nursery. But I will keep my purple desert willow and think of Peattie’s words every time I see it. Your multi colored desert willow is a beauty.
link in my profile is incorrect. It should link to https://connecticutnewmexicomove.blogspot.com
That’s a nice blog. The guy I live with and his friend went to Santa Fe last year, and he visited Agua Fria and Plants of the Southwest for the first time ever. Even though he’s ordered from PSW practically forever. (He was also working during all that time and getting days off in the summer wasn’t easy.) I heard a story of someone, I won’t say who, who purchased a white-flowered chilopsis, knew it was white because it had flowers, and killed it. That’s not so hard to do, in the first and second years, when they need oodles of water to get their roots down. But it was a pure white one that died. Now sometimes, when you think they’ve died, they’re really just sitting there, maybe thinking. If the branches are still flexible then it’s probably that. The first desert willow pictured, which comes from the farthest north population known (in maybe San Miguel County New Mexico), was killed right to the ground in the November 2014 cold snap here, after thirty years of taking everything Denver’s weather could throw at it. Which is a lot. The next year it didn’t leaf out until August. The year after that, July. Now it seems back on track to become a pretty robust small tree.
The guy I live with says you need to get that book if you don’t already have it. All of the writing is that good.
I love your yard just like it is! Lawns are overrated. Boo, my not-purebred Border collie has a pool just like yours! Oddly, he also loves those Lambchop toys and honking hedgehogs too. Must be a Border collie thing, purebred or not.
I only had a few seed-growing successes this year. The tomatoes for once, and some warty French pumpkins. I’ve been having hordes (literal hordes) of earwigs destroy most of my yard this year. I gave up on a lot of things, after crying over them. Crying didn’t help.
You know why the guy you live with was alarmed about the kitty? He knows that they sometimes just pick a house and decide to move in! You just might get a kitty! Boo has one.
It was a striped kitty, black and white, with a pretty strong smell to it …. We purebred border collies do love Lamb Chop toys, for sure, so even part border collies must love them. Lambs are sheep, if you didn’t know, and we know a lot about sheep, even if we’ve never seen any. We are born as sheep experts. The guy I live with used to be really good with seeds but in the last couple of years things haven’t worked out as well. He’s getting so old that it might be pointless anyway. Buying plants might be smarter. Years ago there were lots of earwigs here. They’re kind of creepy, though the guy I live with rescues them from the bathtub and other places. His wife used to spray them with a solution of Dr. Bronner’s and water because she thought they were icky.
Magnificent … as ever.
Thanks!
Petey and Shredder Dogs, Mani, have their teeth brushed most every evening with chicken- or peanut-butter-flavored toothpaste. The ritual is the highlight of their nightly groom session, coming at the very last of procedures. Tell the guy you live with to brush extra, extra gently at first. And keep tugging the guy along at a good clip. Good for his heart rate. Exploring plants is much better, so I’m told, than lying on lawn surveying. And you have such plants through which to explore. Thank you for the tour. Difficult to discern which is the prettier — desert willow blossoms or the prose of writer Peattie. Both are excellent, as is the portrait of Dog Looking Through Screen Door.
Thanks. And you’re welcome. I’ll tell him not to brush very hard, when he eventually gets around to it. I guess we’re pretty pleased with the “lawn” this year though there’s too much feverfew. The guy I live with said he thought it was going to be Tanacetum niveum instead, but it wasn’t. Feverfew seeds everywhere. It’s roasting again here, super dry, and we’re under a fire ban, which may mean no firecrackers this week. That’s only happened once before.
Mani, maybe you should supervise that guy in the laundry room. Being without a phone is the pits!
I think that’s true. Now he’s talking about getting a kitchen wall phone.