Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you a couple of movies. You may remember me from such posts as “The Night Rain”, among so many, many other rain-related posts.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Notice how calm, and, yes, dare I say noble, I look, just lying here on the patio rug, in the sun. This was taken when what was said was going to happen didn’t.
I ought to explain, I guess. It’s been raining here a lot, and I have movies to show you in just a bit. I hear that everyone who gardens likes a good rain movie from time to time.
We got over two inches of rain earlier in the week. The first one was a real downpour with lots of thunder, and the street flooded. We got almost an inch of rain. That was on Monday. He bought me some Rescue Remedy, like Slipper and Chess got, and I think it makes me feel better. On Tuesday we got more rain, and then Thursday night we were both awakened by the “highly unusual” (meaning, it happens all the time now) thunderstorm at three in the morning, with more rain.
The forecast for Friday was for severe weather. The guy I live with became very agitated. But nothing happened. It was a nice day.
Then the forecasts for Saturday and Sunday were changed to severe weather, after about one in the afternoon on each day. The guy I live with looked at the radar page constantly. Saturday’s forecast improved, so he left me for a while (not very long) to go visit a garden with his friend. There were quite a few really bad storms out east that day, and up north in Wyoming. Both places are far away from here. I was reassured to learn that.
The guy I live with often wonders why people wonder why he likes dry weather. Lots of wondering. The alternative here, since regular rain is pretty rare (which is why we show movies of it) is terrible storms. Today they said we might get tennis-ball-sized hail. You might be able to imagine what was said about that. Then later the forecast said baseball-sized. He said that if you think this sounds totally insane you would be right.
It often makes him quite sad that we live in a place which features such terrors. But, he said, being extremely philosophical, “Here we are”.
So around about noon, “anticipating the end of everything”, he went downstairs with a couple of flashlights, a gallon jug of water, my traveling water bowl, and he got out this little faux lacquered bowl, “just in case”. The bowl has a little plastic bag with some jewelry in it which is very important to him. He said that when he and Chess had to go downstairs that one time he took all those things down there.
This is what it looked like this morning. Not very threatening, as I think you’ll agree. The humidity was one hundred percent. 
Then they changed the forecast and the guy I live with was hugely relieved. As in super hugely relieved.
So now I can show the rain movies, made last Tuesday, without worrying that we might have much worse movies to show (of me and the guy I live with hiding downstairs).
The guy I live with said something about “popcorn” and movies and he had to explain that to me. I’ve never had popcorn. He said that he and his wife had a disagreement about how much butter went on the popcorn. I guess he preferred a lot. Like almost soggy, with a lot of salt. He said that Slipper was really afraid of all the appliances in the kitchen except for the popcorn popper; Slipper, who was really big, would lean his elbows on the kitchen counter watching the popcorn pop. He liked it so much that the guy I live with couldn’t say “popcorn” without Slipper getting all excited.When Slipper got sick and didn’t want to eat much, the guy I live with would buy something called “white cheddar popcorn” which Slipper would eat, or “suck up like a vacuum cleaner”, and Chess would get some too. I think I should get some, once in a while. Or constantly.
I got carried away. The movies are really too short for popcorn, though the guy I live with said you could think about popcorn while watching the movies. The guy I live with said when he went to movies he liked Milk Duds and Dots and that movies cost thirty-five cents to get in.
This next one is similar to the one posted on Facebook but it’s different. Kind of jiggly if you ask me. This was taken from the upstairs bedroom window, through the screen.
Okay, well, I really rambled a lot this evening. The guy I live with says I’m easily distracted. The other night I got really interested in a Striped Kitty in the garden late at night–again–and the guy I live with said not to, and to come in, which I did eventually, after he reminded me that I’m trained to come when he calls me, and that he had nothing but my best interests in mind when he yelled at me to come inside.
Then there was the really big snake under the birch tree just this afternoon, a snake which I tried to get, and the guy I live with said not to, like he always does it seems, and said that there was a bunny in the garden and that my priorities were all wrong for the day. I did finally chase the bunny out of the garden.
All in all, it was an interesting day. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Gosh, wouldn’t baseball sized hail demolish your house, pretty much? Lucky you have a basement for retreat. I can tell you, having tried both, that popcorn sopping in butter beats out that cheesy stuff by a mile. I hope you get some of the buttery stuff. Butter, yum, especially that yellow stuff from Ireland made by happy cows. No rain here, except the rain of ashes.
Yes, we’ve heard about the fires. We know about such things here, but the rain helped. He says things the size of baseballs would be just about the end. Thunder frightens me. The guy I live with used to have issues with lightning. It’s the other things, though. It was really traumatic to think about. Maybe not thinking about it would have been best, but ….
Oh, I know about thinking….
Yep. An awful lot of non-productive thinking goes on around here. Thinking in the form of worrying and stuff. But then I do that, too. The guy I live with said that one of the purebred border collies who lived here, the first one, in fact, Flurry, did quite a bit of thinking and worrying. He would sit and think, and worry, and think some more.
Beautiful picture of Mani on the patio rug and glad it was an interesting day.
Thanks. Today was a bit less interesting, but also the nicest day we’ve had in weeks and weeks.
I have to say Mani, rain in July or August where I live would be very welcome indeed. Maybe it would put out the fires. I prefer zero butter on my popcorn and you’d have to pay me 20 bucks to get me to eat Dots. I used to go to the Academy on Manchester , and if my friends and I were feeling flush we would take the bus to the Fox Wilshire.
The guy I live with said that the bad fires here are out, or contained anyway, and maybe the rain helped, though some parts of southern Colorado have gotten very little rain. He also forgot about Crows. These days sugar is rare in his diet. Funny (I guess), the guy I live with has been remembering a whole bunch of stuff lately and he said his very first movie was Fantasia at the Pantages Theater. That confused him for years afterward.
Boo, the not purebred Border collie, would tell you popcorn is over rated. I can’t get him or his “brother” Goldendoodle, Edward, to eat the pieces we drop. The cat, Benny, loves anything with cheese though.
Snakes, skunks and bunnies… you live a very exciting life! Good thing you’re so well trained to come when called!
I get cheddar-cheese-flavored biscuits which are pretty good, but none with popcorn flavor. The guy I live with constantly reminds me that I’m trained to obey all kinds of instructions. Constantly reminds me.
Love this post and the comments, too…so grateful for the sharing! Mani: those wonderful soft-looking ears! Glad to hear all is well. We’ve had rain and more rain in PA, plus high humidity (not a fan and does not bring out my best in any way).
Popcorn is a favorite, here, anything but spicy. And Sno-caps for the movies or Necco wafers; Necco wafers are especially fun in a dark theater, because you don’t know which flavor will come up next.
Thanks. My ears are pretty soft. And retractable, too. We would like rain here a little better, but it all too often comes with other things. The guy I live with likes reading, but if he got a paper cut with every page he turned, he would like it a lot less. When he saw the word “Necco” it triggered what they call “superior autobiographical memory”, which he has. This was going to be long, but I said it I should be on my walk instead, so there will be a post about Necco wafers, which the guy I live with’s grandfather (who grew up in Rhode Island) would buy him in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and how this is linked to an event described in the opening scenes (on Omaha Beach) in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. Not much to do with gardening but maybe some people might find it interesting.
Storms can be spooky, for sure. Stay safe and do what your friend says. He’s always watching out for you even when it seems too restrictive. He’s ancient and has lots of experience and wisdom! Listen and learn.
Thanks; the guy I live with says it’s okay to be ancient. I might pay attention to him more, from now on.
It’s wonderful to be ancient. You get to do what you want and don’t care so much about what others do and say about your choices. I love it and you will too some day, Mani! For now, learn as much as you can from your friend . It’ll come in handy on your adventures.
The guy I live with says it’s okay to be, let’s say, over a certain age. I have to be a bit delicate here. He has a friend, and so, well…. He also says that older dogs are totally excellent. So I have something to look forward to, as well as be totally in the present.
Rhody has been going down to the river with friends while I am at work. He is a terrier, so is none too keen on water, but was running around in the shallow spots while the weather was warm. It does not get really hot here, but warm enough to cool off in the river. Once the rain starts in autumn, he will not want to get wet. I think he only goes into the river now because the weather is warm and he does not stay wet for too long when he gets out.
I went into the canal a little bit, just a few weeks ago, but with the rain the water has been pretty gross. It was even red, one day, with mud from the foothills. The soil around here is red, from the Fountain Formation (Red Rocks, Roxborough Park, Garden of the Gods). The idea of autumn rains makes the guy I live with feel all nostalgic, both for California and for the rains we used to have here. Now we expect to get about zero precipitation until the end of the year. (Given the fact that it can rarely just rain here, these days, without all sorts of awful accompaniments, the guy I live with is okay with that.)
The guy you live with might remember rain in the redwood forests of Northern California if he ever came up here. I never get too much of it. It is the best type of rain, although rain in the driest parts of the desert (not where there are too many mineral deposits laying about) is also pretty excellent.
Believe it or not, the guy I live with only saw redwoods once, in Corvallis, Oregon.
Oh, those are giant redwoods, which are bigger, but slightly shorter than the coastal redwoods that live here. Also, they are not native there, so were planted, and are not really very big yet. I can believe that he saw them only once. My colleague in Beverly Hills did not see them until we were in college, and he is a horticulturist.
Oh, they were coastal ones in Corvallis. And definitely planted. The guy I live with says we can grow the giant redwood here, but his attempts failed. (Root ball too small for the size of the plant; not able to hydrate it fully before winter.)
It is funny that the coastal redwood has such an extensive range, but does not want to get very far from it. The giant redwood has smaller colonies within a limited range, but is more popular in more regions. They are both tough in their own way. I planted a few coastal redwoods in Los Angeles. Some do well. Most do not.
The guy I live with said he read, somewhere, that the giant redwood was one of the few trees left standing after the gales hit the U.K. in the late 1980s; the ones that flattened millions of other trees.
That is pretty impressive, although I do not know why they would be any more stable than any other tree. The coastal redwood is incredible stable, particularly in the wild where it grows in groves where individual trees are collectively sheltered, and their roots knit together. In my entire career, after inspecting more fallen trees than I can remember, I have only seen two coastal redwood that have fallen.
Maybe the giant, which the English still call “Wellingtonia”, is planted more, there.
Yes, I think that the giant redwood is more often planted outside of the native range. It tolerates dry air and cold winters. Although there are a few coastal redwoods in England, they are even more rare than the giant redwoods.
Yes; the guy I live with says the giant sequoia will take ten below zero, easily.
Yes, it lives in snow! Coastal redwood breaks if it gets snowed on, the the tip growth can get frosted.
True. Though, in California, “snow” does not always equal cold. Which is why a lot of plants dependent upon snow cover, like Ceanothus pumilus, won’t survive here without lots of snow. The guy I live with says he prefers much less than lots of snow.
Snow does not hurt the trees because it is cold. It breaks the limbs because it is heavy. Foliage gets frosted in colder climates when there is no snow.
Yes, that’s true, though not as cold as here. The guy I live with says no place is as cold as here, when it gets very cold. Except for Wyoming and maybe Manitoba. And Antarctica.
I have never experienced cold weather. I thought that I might in Oklahoma, and we did happen to get freezing rain and a bit of snow, but we left just before the weather got really cold. Summertime in San Francisco can get really cold, but it is different.
Well, when it gets cold here, it gets cold. The guy I live with did go to San Francisco once, in the summer, and, like Mark Twain, he was totally freezing cold. But he could live there, anyway.
One of the frustrating aspects about being ‘Val’ (from the Santa Clara Valley) is that San Francisco is so much ‘better’. As much as I love San Jose, it really does not have much going for it, and is infested with a million people who are so apathetic about the great city they live in. There are not as many people in San Francisco, but they all love being there.
The guy I live with says that if you judged by the gardens and landscapes here, most people wish they lived somewhere else. Some places where it rains all the time and lawns are naturally green.
Gardening is not a priority for everyone though, and some people might be quite happy there if it is home. I happen to be quite happy in the redwood forests, even though it shades most of the garden and limits what I can grow.
The green lawns can look weird when we’re having drought. The guy I live with doesn’t hugely care one way or the other, to be truthful.