Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to tell you all about the scary things that have been happening. You may remember me from such scary posts as “Fear And Loafing”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Yes, things have been scary.
We had lots of thunder, as usual, but there have also been a lot of very loud explosions because of the holiday yesterday. Here I am wearing a Thundershirt. It belonged to Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, and I guess I won’t say it’s mine until I’ve worn it a few times. I think it does make me feel a little better. Besides, the guy I live with looked in on me, from time to time. 
I really don’t like this time of year, for the weather and the loud firecrackers, but at least I have my friend to cuddle me if I need it.
I like this kind of thing a lot better. The guy I live with says I hogged the picture. He’s been trying very hard to take some excellent pictures of the two of us on the couch, but I’m afraid he’s wrecked most of the pictures. There were a couple last time, and here’s another one, but he messed it up. Like, notice how nobly I’m posing, and he’s trying to smile, but looks worried. He said my ear was in the way. 
Whatever; when these pictures were taken, yesterday afternoon, we were under a tornado watch.
After I had my dinner, we were under a severe thunderstorm watch. The storm moved very slowly, but then it started to rain. All of a sudden, huge hailstones began to fall. And then they stopped.
That was my day yesterday. Oh, except for the red ants on the canal path. The guy I live with said to step over them, so I did.
And we have a lily flowering. That’s pretty unusual for here. I mean lots of gardeners here grow them, but they need lots of water which they wouldn’t get here. But there is one lily here. Well, two bulbs. This is Lilium martagon.
And, guess who’s living in the little nesting box in the corner of the patio? Baby wrens. I can hear them chirping.
I can’t show them to you because they’re behind the grape vine. The guy I live with said there was a song about hearing things on the grape vine, and I got what it was about right away. He kept saying “on the grape vine” but I think he meant “behind the grape vine”, because that’s how the grape vine sounds are sounding. Behind, not on. There’s been chirping and cheeping all day long. 
The guy I live with tried to get a good phone picture of Penstemon cobaea yesterday. It didn’t turn out badly. The flowers are huge. He said he’ll read the instructions for the camera sometime, too. 
Today we’ve been under a severe thunderstorm watch all afternoon, and will be tomorrow and probably the next day. It has been really stormy here. The guy I live with said he couldn’t remember a time when it was so stormy, with tornado watches and severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for so many days in a row. A thunderstorm passes over, then another, and another, and another. Wave after wave. Pretty scary.
The sky looked like this between thunderstorms. Hard to believe, I know.
The guy I live with said there were places where it rained and nothing scary happened. I found that hard to believe, but he said it was true. Those places sounded kind of magical to me. Places where it just rained.
He also said that the thunderstorms caused him considerable anxiety, and that maybe some of that was rubbing off on me.
This morning he woke up and decided it was time to be done with his anxiety about things like this. The garden gets wrecked by hail pretty often, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it, except move.
So here we are.
This is our bedroom, upstairs, looking out through the window to rain.
I really like the bedroom. It’s not very big, but it is super cozy. It wasn’t built as the master bedroom, which is next door, but was like a guest bedroom or something. That’s my internet radio glowing there, which I probably showed before, but I like the combination of the candle and internet radio. He bought the radio especially for me, to listen to when he goes to the store, because I don’t go to the store, and someone has to. The sound is good. I like it a lot. I also have a night light which you can’t see; it glows kind of softly after the candle is blown out.
Well I’ve kind of rambled, haven’t I? That’s what we purebred border collies do sometimes.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me, showing what I do when it thunders; hiding in my kitchen fort. It’s been thundering here for about eight hours, straight, with a little blue sky showing for a minute or two, so I do this a lot. Not constantly, but a lot.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I wondered about you when The Weather Channel mentioned hail in Denver. It’s the time of scary sounds. One of the dogs I live with, Stella, is terrified of fireworks sounds. Her brother Miggy is unfazed.
Things have been pretty scary here lately. Today will be the third straight day of severe weather predicted.
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EEEKKKK so many funderstormss an hail an rain!! No wunder you are wearin Chess’ss Funder shirt….you DO look furry hansum inn it. An mee wuud love to have a kitchen fort like yoress. Wee had firewerkss July 1st fore Ctnada Day an LadyMew ree-fused to go with nayburr even out to parkin lot to watch them. Shee stayed with mee inn bedroom inn bed an sang to mee an stroked mee an mee nevurr got freeked out….Wee live onlee a 10 minutt walk from where THE firewerkss were beein shot off.
If you want to send us sum of yore weather wee wuud accept it! Iss so hot here with Hummydex it felt like 105 deegreess yesterday. LadyMew has 3 fanss goin so wee can stay sorta kewl. Beein on ground floor iss a bow-nuss fore sure.
An Mani you an yore ‘Guy’ss’ photoe was lovelee butt you sorta DID have yore ear stuck on his mouth….you DID look nobell tho’.
Pawss crossed fore no more storm or tornay-doess to come thru there!
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
Thanks; it was nice that he stayed home with me when it got really scary. We have fans on too, but not so great when strong perfume from cleaning products comes in the house. The guy I live with said he might re-think not using the downstairs bedroom. It’s really cool down there because it’s a basement. But there’s a waterbed in there that needs to go. It might be nice to sleep down there in the summer. I don’t know.
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Soundss ucky smellin stuff that makess you not feel guud Mani an yore ‘guy’. Our nayburr here cooks east Indian an Jamaican foodss an wee can semll it inn bathroom…it smelss so GUUD! LadyMeowy told Mistur Krishna his food iss THE best air freshener efurr! Mew mew mew….LadyMeowy told mee watur beds are lovelee inn sum wayss butt a pain to diss-mantell an ree-move. An kewl iss guud Mani!
Oh, the guy I live with would like those smells, for sure. He mostly cooks Indian food here. Not sure what will happen with the waterbed. Probably nothing, for a while.
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Mew mew mew that iss kewl yore ‘guy’ can cook East Indian food too! LadyMeowy makess a furry nice sweet curry Basmati rice dish too!!!
MMMM now mee hungree Mani!!!!
It’s pretty much all he cooks, these days. It’s kind of hot to cook, now, though. Fortunately there are Indian groceries here, and the frozen dinners are really, really good.
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Same here Mani!! LadyMeowy cookss on kewler dayss too….on *hot* dayss there are entreess or saladss….an snacks (butt mee not goin to menshun them!) 😉
The guy I live with likes snacks, for sure. His favorite is Majan’s Bhujia, original mix. He eats a lot of that. Also grapes and other kinds of fruit. I can’t have grapes, for some reason. He says they’re bad for me.
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Mee thinkss grapess can make doggiess furry sick Mani!! Like chocolate! Mee not like grapess butt mee likess yogurt ALOT!
Yes, grapes are not good for dogs.
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An grapes not guud for catss eether Mani!! Mee purrfurss yogurt anyway! 😉
The guy I live with said that Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, loved Greek yogurt, especially the kind with honey in it. So did Slipper, his older cousin.
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I’m afraid you wouldn’t like it here, lately, either. We get a lot of thunder every day and not much if any rain. Today it’s been going on since noon, so you’d be pretty tired of being in the fort, and the peak storm hour is just beginning. The guy I live with is getting pretty annoyed with the no rain part, which I can only attribute to his having planted tomatoes for the first time in many years. Normally he grumbles at frequent rains because it means more mowing. I guess there’s just no pleasing a gardener. Except maybe a gardener who’s growing those fabulous Martagon lilies. {swoon}
I don’t like thunder, period. We sometimes have really dark summers with thunder and almost no rain, which the guy I live with says is pointless. He also says the lily is ‘Mrs. R.O. Backhouse’. Probably came from B&D.
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Well, the tomato grower got his wish for rain last night, and then some: thunder, lightning, and *buckets* of rain, close to two inches. Now today we’re under a flood watch until midnight. But I have to say the plants all look pretty happy, especially the daylilies that the deer have mysteriously left alone after persistent early-season raids. Multiple blessings! Glad the dire forecasts are easing up for you all. High pressure supposed to arrive soon here for another one-day visit, a chance to air out this very old house.
The heat break will also be a chance to try out TGYLW’s super-genius potting-up technique for the Fothergillas that didn’t get planted in spring. Turn out it’s going to take a long time to prep their planting sector because someone put down that awful landscape cloth a decade ago. {Sigh.}. {Gazes resentfully in the tomato grower’s direction.}
Lol. The guy I live with says the Super Genius method works really well to get roots growing out of a packed rootball. Coarse sand, or coarse sand and perlite. Perlite is kind of messy. And, like, just when he thinks it might be good planting weather, it gets hot and very dry. Not today, but sometimes. 80F and 34% humidity today, which is way muggier than the guy I live with likes.
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Mani an yore guy look what mee found on YouTube!!!!
Hope you both like it!!! Iss ‘groovey!’
That’s great. The one by Glady Knight and the Pips is great, too.
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Mee wanted to send that video but LadyMeowy likess Marvin Gaye’ss version more, mew mew mew…. 😉
Wrens are just about the loudest birds here except for crows, so I bet those nestlings you’re hearing through the grapevine are making quite a racket. One of the things the parents do is make fake nests in different spots to fool snakes. Given how loud the babies are, it’s hard to believe the snakes are fooled for long, but maybe at least through the egg stage…
The guy I live with said one year there were robins up there. His wife said that one day, while he was at work, a green racer slithered up the gravel path, and both adult robins jumped down to the ground, began screaming at the snake, which eventually turned around and went back down the path. The snake was about four feet long.
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Rhody is uncooperative for pictures. I posted six pictures about it.
Privet, who I worked for through the 1990s, was afraid of cameras because they made lightning. There are only a few good pictures of him.
Privet was afraid of explosions too. Rhody did not mind much, even though there were some loud ones close by. It was funny that we could hear the turkeys responding to the booms. After every boom, they made a collective panicked gobble sound. Seriously, it was a big herd of turkeys gobbling frantically. They are SOOOOOO stoopid!
Very cute. I don’t like having my picture taken, much, as maybe you can tell. Even though the guy I live with realized the focus beam could be turned off, I still don’t like it.
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What is a focus beam? Is that what makes it scary?
It’s this blindingly bright light on the camera, helps it to focus. Like if you take self protraits with the timer on the camera. The guy I live with uses a remote switch, with a cord, instead.
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Oh, I know that light. I was told it gets rid of red eye. I don’t like those contraptions anyway; but I need them to take pictures.
Yep. Very annoying.
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A truck engine just started warming up outside, and both Petey Dog (being groomed) and I (groomer) hunched over in self-defense. The rumble sounds like the beginning of an earthquake. Not long from now, the Del three blocks away will explode fireworks to delight their guests, and in a half-hour we’ll hear fireworks from the concert across the bay. Neither event is as terrifying as a *tornado*! I’m sure thunder and hail are scary, but a *tornado*! You look … stressed and brave and fierce all at the same time, Mani.
Who knew? Turns out I adore Lilium martagon, ‘Mrs. R.O. Backhouse.’.That Penstemon cobaea is not shabby either.
Some fortunate folks have a summer house, Mani. I do hope you get to sleep downstairs during hot spells. Maybe the thunder noise will be muted, and you can return to your usual serene countenance.
The guy I live with has seen a tornado, from not as far away as he would have liked. It touched down and did damage to a phone company garage where he used to work. Not like Wizard of Oz type, but still a tornado. The guy I live with also said that he would really, really, super-extra really, like to have the kind of summer they used to have here, back in the last century, with sun, heat, and only occasional thunderstorms. Not every day. The fact that he doesn’t get his way with almost anything is obvious to him every time he breathes.
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Hang in there Mani. Hang in there for a while because it doesn’t seem like things will change anytime soon and walks are always good in between thunderstorms. Good job on missing the ants. you’re like my kids crossing a parking lot that has one mud puddle in it.
Thanks. Things have changed already. They were wrong about a day of severe thunderstorms yesterday, and though the clouds are building up over the mountains the forecasts are not as dire as they were a few days ago.
Sampson the doberman, here. We had people thunder from about 9pm to 1am. I was extremely upset. The lady I live with said I’d be happier on Tramadol. It was true. I managed to relax and I got lots of treats for being “good” which is goofy cause I was just sorta sleepy… I broke her finger on the 4th a few years ago. Whoops. I think it was her mistake putting her finger where I was sure to stomp on it. Right? I like your kitchen fort. I like to hide in the bedroom.
We had a fledgling goldfinch hiding behind the remains of our irises yesterday and there are hummingbirds every day coming for the crocosmia. Which, I am told, is an expensive weed that should be criminal to sell.
I think I fractured the guy I live with’s left leg bone, or at least cracked it, accidentally one time. When I was little. He said stuff when it happened. There was a bump for a very long time. Chess’s Thundershirt seems to work pretty well for me. Crocosmias are not totally easy here. Maybe in Boulder or Canon City they would be easier, and they like summer water. The guy I live with buys them, though, for his friend’s garden. They do very well there.
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Established canine noise phobias can be very difficult to manage. We had some success in the mid 1980’s with Minnehaha, the SheBitchFromHell Giant using behavior modification techniques…. a clicker, peanut butter, and her fave ragbone; but you have to be around alot. With sensitive breeds like Mani, it may be best to address the problem via desensitization when they are young pups. Doesn’t work well when they get older.
Probably too late now. Oh well.
We had the bad fireworks, too. My canine neighbors hid under the bed.
We have lots of rain and I always though we had no chance of tornadoes. Then for the last three years, in the fall, we had tornado warnings. Turns out it has always been a possibility, but we did not know till the weather warning equipment got more sophisticated. Manzanita, Oregon, even had a real tornado. What a shock.
But mostly we have rain and nothing happens. I like that best.
We have tornadoes here, though not often along the Front Range, more out on the plains. Like a hundred miles or more away to the east. The guy I live with saw a tornado once, from several miles away. It damaged a Jack-in-the Box, and the garage where he used to work. The guy I live with says there are places where it just rains. This used to be one of those places. There would be afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, not bringing much rain, but also long periods in spring, summer, or autumn when it would just rain for days. The guy I live with would make a lot of money in overtime. It’s 94F right now, and 14% humidity. The humidity went up (no, really) because it rained a little.
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Chess an Slippurr eated yogurt?? Furry kewl. Do you like yogurt Mani?? Blueberry iss soo-o guud!
I only get it when my tummy isn’t happy. It’s not happy right now, actually. I got some Nummy Tum Tum organic sweet potato; that might help.
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How did THE Nummy Tummy meddycin werk fore you Mani?? Sendin POTP to you to feel much bettur!
Oh, that worked really well, thank you. You can get Nummy Tum Tum pumpkin, or sweet potato. Of course you can get regular, at any store, but this is organic and not as watery as some.
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MMM Punkin that wuud bee so tasty Mani!!!!
It’s pretty good. If I have tummy troubles late in the year the guy I live with sometimes steams a pie pumpkin for me.
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Steemed Punkin Pie….mee iss so ‘there’ Mani, mew mew mew…..
Steamed pumpkin is pretty good. The guy I live with says there’ll be no steaming here, for a while, except for him. I was afraid he was going to pass out on our walk…
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