Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you about a few things. You may remember me from such posts as “The Nameless Horror”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a not terribly characteristic pose at all. It is me, though. On the right.
The guy I live with, on the left there, has been practicing smiling ever since he got his new set of teeth last year. It was something he put off, the teeth, I mean (well, and the smiling, too), for a long time, really, and that got to him because he usually doesn’t put off things like that. But he got his new teeth and now his lips are all chapped so smiling isn’t as easy as you might think. He can do it, though.
I think I have a bit of a smile, too.
I have a few things to talk about.
The first one is that we noticed there were comments on the last post that didn’t show any responses. We’re not sure why that happened, but it did. The thing is, all the comments come under one email, with this new program, and so sometimes they get lost. And sometimes we do respond but the responses never show up on the post. We have gotten another email program and so maybe that will help.
We’re both hugely sorry since it seems rude not to respond.
Another thing, and this is super creepy, though not as creepy as what the title of today’s post is about, is you know how the guy I live with said he was going to post a picture of himself on Facebook with nail polish on his fingers? Well, he went back and forth on that, and finally painted them, though it wasn’t easy because he doesn’t have much experience with nail polish, and then…..he learned that this was a symbol for something not very pleasant at all. So, whew. No nail polish.
The other day, speaking of color and stuff, the guy I live with bought two purple-leafed sand cherries to add some contrast to the tan grasses that are everywhere. The sand cherries will probably die of drought but he got them anyway. They haven’t been planted; just sitting in their pots, for now. Maybe you can see them, there. 
Most of the garden looks pretty frazzled right now. It did rain, the day before yesterday, about half an inch, and some of that soaked into the ground. Not into the parts of the garden that are clay soil, though. The gravel garden is looking better than any other part of the garden because all the water soaked in. Maybe you can’t see that.
We do have a tendency to show pictures where you can’t actually see what we’re trying to show, but, well, that blurry part straight ahead, in this picture, is the gravel garden. A pile of gravel. Behind the mullein. 
Maybe this is a better picture. Probably not, though it has me in it, and that makes it good, automatically.
Okay, well, whatever. The gravel garden is doing just fine.
The guy I live with got some colchicums in the mail yesterday, and tried to dig holes. He was out of practice working in the garden, since he hasn’t done much for a couple of months, and thought that since it had rained, digging might be easy.
It wasn’t.
He had to use his “perennial spade”, or whatever it’s called, dig a hole, fill it with water, and then when the water drained away, or, really, got absorbed by the surrounding soil, he dug some more. Rain doesn’t percolate into clay soil the way it does into gravel or sand. It has to rain a lot for that to happen, and it doesn’t rain a lot here. 
The colchicum corms were huge. These are ‘Innocence’, which is one of the most beautiful. It’s white. There are pictures on the blog, somewhere, if you want to look at them. 
They got planted.
You might wonder at the soil here, and the lack of shade, but an authority on things like colchicums said that this climate was more like the climate the colchicums grew in than what you might call “traditional” gardening climates, so he thought this was worth a try. The colchicums that are already here, and there are a lot, are in shade; maybe too much shade.
Oh. The title of today’s post. Well….before I get going I should tell you that there will be no pictures of the thing I’m about to talk about.
I was lying out on the patio, of an evening, the way I often do, because it gets extremely cool and pleasant, most nights, and it was that, on the evening in question.
I started to get excited about something moving on the patio, and the guy I live with went out to see what I was so interested in. He said it was a mouse.
Then he looked closer. Its body was as big as a mouse, but I knew mice didn’t have eight legs. It was a very large, and I do mean very large, wolf spider.
The guy I live with got a broom and sort of herded the gigantic spider away from me, because I thought I might taste it, just a little. The guy I live with said no, a whole bunch of times, but I still wanted to, because you never know.
After about an hour, with me locked inside the kitchen, the guy I live with was able to get the spider out into the garden, where it belonged.
The reason, if you’re wondering, why the guy I live with didn’t just pass out right then and there is because his wife liked things like this, and once caught a huge spider that was on the staircase, put it in a terrarium, and fed it raw meat over the winter. She let it go the following spring.
But he was still totally creeped out by the visitor. The unwelcome guest, you might say.
Here’s a picture of a welcome guest. The guy I live with bought some agastaches to grow in pots, so they would get the water they need here. (They don’t survive in the garden without watering.)
This isn’t such a bad picture for just a phone picture. Look right above the flagstone path.
I guess that’s all I have for today. It was kind of a lot, considering how little has been happening here.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me, on my walk, watching a little kid head right toward me. Fortunately there was an adult, there, too, so I was safe.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
EEEKKKKK!!! Mee has seen Wolfie Spydurss bee-fore!! They are furry scarey Mani….
LadyMew told mee a story when shee was 20 an shee was married to her ferst husband. They had an old wartime house with no basemint. One day shee was watchin Tee V an hubby was lyin down inn bed! Hee was awoken to a furry shrill SCREEEM from LadyMew……there was a LARGE furry Wolfie Spydur sittin on armchair across from her. Shee said it was starin at her. Shee was parrylyzed with feer. Hubby got his shoe an well you can guess THE rest! Hee even had to flush Wolfie down THE toilet….*shuddersss*
Just herarin her storey creeped mee out Mani!
An yore gardenss look furry lovelee dee-spite lack of rain or attention. An you look furry lovelee inn yore photoe with yore ‘guy’ who has lovelee teefiess!
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
Thanks. The guy I live with got what’s called a “bridge”. He likes to say he was in a lot of barroom brawls, but he’s only been in a bar maybe once or twice, back in the Seventies. He grew up with what you might call Bug Stories, because his grandparents were stationed in the Philippines before the war. Really gross stories, involving way bigger things, which I won’t tell.
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Oh yes mee has herd of Hu’manss wearin ‘bridgess’ inn their mouthss…amazin what they make rite Mani?
An LadyMew said THE buggies inn Filly-peeness are GINORMUSS!!! EEKKKK!!!!! 😉
It is kind of amazing. Though Pooka, a purebred border collie who lived here before me, had an anterior cruciate ligament made from Kevlar. That was pretty fancy.
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Mee-yow wow Pooka Collie had a Kevlar leg?? Furry kewl!! LadyMew sasys shee needss Kevlar kneess. Both of herss’ need to bee ree-placed butt no one will do it (long borin story…)
Pleese tell yore ‘guy’ wee send POTP an purrayerss to him ‘nout his knee. Mee LadyMew hertss herself fore no ree-son just like yore ‘guy’…. *sighsss*
Yes, Pooka has a Kevlar leg. Well, his a.c.l.
The guy I live with is fine, thanks. He went to the doctor yesterday but his knee was already fine. Probably bursitis, which he’s had before.
The guy I live with swears he heard the doctor tell him not to do anything for a very long time. Except for go on walks with me, of course.
Mee betss yore ‘guy’ herd rite. Hee has bin furry sick an went thru all THE treetmint an walkin with you iss THE best meddycin. An as littell stress as pawssibell fore him.
LadyMew has found out she iss furry sick an shee has pain inn her organss innside now. So shee must rest with mee efurry day an mee snuggless her to keep her lyin down 😉
An wee sit out twice a day an enjoy THE nice breeze an Sunshine. It iss even a bit kewl here now….
Pleese give yore ‘guy’ or ree-gardss Mani!
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
Thanks. He seems to be doing much better. We’re really sorry about LadyMew and her insides. It is super important that you snuggle with her every chance you get, as I’m sure you know. We have a new setup here, which allows for a lot of snuggling, which you’ll see in my next post. It was pretty hot today, but tomorrow, 95F, the next day, 96. Totally roasting.
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EEKKKK!! Mani 95 an 96 deegreess iss too *hot* fore sure….it has bin lovelee an onlee 70-ish here with nice breeze…
An snuggellss are a guud way to let LadyMew know mee iss carin fore her. An sleepin inn bed on mee speshell pillow at nite time.
Wee can hardlee wait to reed yore mew bloggie post!
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
Yes, snuggles are extra good. It’s so hot here we both think we might burst into flames. Foom, just like that.
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EEKKK!!!! Pleese do not burst inn to flames Mani an yore ‘guy’!!!!!! 😦
Not much chance today.
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Great picture of you and The Guy. Two handsome fellas.
Thanks. I agree that I’m handsome. I don’t know about my companion. He seems kind of silly to me.
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I second that.
Lovely section of the garden with the stone path. Most inviting.
Thanks. The guy I live with said he might get more flagstone, later, so there won’t be a dirt path leading out to the shed. You can tell how dry it is here when we can have a dirt path in the garden, and not get very much mud, but flagstone might be nicer.
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You have a definite smile in the last picture, even if it’s a nervous smile.
Looking forward eagerly to more Colchicum ‘Innocence’! The picture of the existing one(s) in bloom is one of my favorite plant shots ever on this blog.
Hope you’ve seen the last of wolf spiders in the house. I had to remove two that showed up in the kitchen last year {brrrrrr}, as the guy I live with is super spider-phobic. This is a tough time of year for him, with their activity at a peak and morning mists beginning to make the webs visible.
Er, wolf spiders don’t spin webs.
They run along the ground. Really fast.
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I was talking about spiders in general with “their activity” onward. But thanks for the fun fact.
The guy I live with says that there are spiders that look like wolf ones that live in these funnel things, like in corners of rooms but especially outside.He is not a big fan of spiders in general. Oh. We could show something spidery (but won’t)…a box out in the garage, where it belongs, says Peru on it, it was his wife’s, and inside there are these large, way larger than what we saw, dried….I’m getting the creeps again. Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Well you would not believe how big the one on the patio was. It was really big. I guess some wolf spider live in these like funnel things, but maybe that’s a different kind of spider. The colchicums came from Daffodils and More, if you wanted to know. Good prices. And as you can see, large corms.
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Yes, indeed. No wonder ‘Innocence’ bloomed so strongly.
In August heat, I’ve been reveling in a similarly cooling view into a shaded corner lit up by Hosta plantaginea’s fragrant white flowers and the white splashes on the foliage of Hedychium ‘Dr. Moy’ (budded up but with no flowers open yet to complicate the soothing simplicity of green and white).
Oh, the guy I live with says he wouldn’t mind being able to grow hedychiums. Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Wolf spiders often like to wander indoors when it is super totally extra roasting hot outside. Females that are carrying young on their backs are really nifty. No chomp!!
Yes, there’s a pretty big one that lives downstairs, but it can stay there, because the guy I live with only goes down there to do laundry and to ride on the bicycle that never goes anywhere. I’ve only heard about it; I don’t go down there.
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I think a kid heading right for you might have been pretty scary too. You can never tell what kids will do, they tend to move quickly and grab without permission. I had to look up sand cherries. Very pretty, but as soon as I read “well draining soil” I knew I’d never have one unless I built yet another raised bed. That clay.
I have the regular pink colchicum in the peach tree bed, and in a large pot. I don’t know where either group of them came from, I didn’t plant them. I think that pot was here when I moved in, but built the peach bed, so that’s the biggest mystery. Very striking flowers.
Watch out for spiders and kids.
Well, the sand cherries here are going to be planted in the worst soil imaginable. Heavy, heavy clay that was spread over the native soil when the house was built. It’s made gardening here not hugely easy. But not all of the garden has that soil. Just half the back yard, the front yard, and both side yard. Even with soil amendments the structure hasn’t changed much.
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Wow those colchicums are huge, and they look like they are wearing little paper bags. I like bugs and especially spiders a lot too. I think they are very beautiful, but I seem to be alone in this part of the planet. Didn’t David Sedaris feed a big spider for a while? Well the gardening conditions there never fail to amaze with their general harshness, but you do have the best bulbs around, I think.
Thanks.
Well we probably shouldn’t get the guy I live with going on how awful the conditions here really are, because then every post will be nothing but a bunch of complaining.
He wasn’t into spiders at all, but his wife was, very much into spiders and I think there’s one in one of the watercolors.
One summer, before I showed up here, fortunately, there were fourteen (14) large orb weavers hanging from the kitchen ceiling.
Not sure about David Sedaris.
I am awfully curious now about what the problem would be with nail polish. Hmmm.
I am glad you didn’t bite the spider, Mani.
I knew a guy who was terrified of spiders. An ex Marine! He kept his house very clean so you could see all the corners and he had a big white cat who caught and ate any spider who dared to appear.
The guy I live with used to be pretty afraid of spiders, until he met Cindy, who loved spiders and once had a pet tarantula. The four-three hand sign is like some neo-Nazi thing. The guy I live with would have had to leave Facebook, and maybe the internet, forever, because of the embarrassment.
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The sand cherries look very striking, perhaps partly because they are elevated a bit in pots. Good luck with their planting. Had to look up wolf spiders; they ARE what we get here sometimes but ours are smaller generally. We have lovely fall garden spiders that are black and gold and make huge webs near our outdoor lights, its one of my favorite garden features in September in October. Not everyone agrees.
Thank you for saving me from looking up the hand sign thing, not what one wants in the system!
ceci
Yes, talk about being creeped out. He thought it would be cool to post a picture symbolic of how he’s “riding the hormone therapy snake”, but that’s out, now. Whew. The sand cherries are slightly elevated and will probably stay in their pots until they drop their leaves. I guess spiders are okay. The small ones, anyway. The guy I live with had a friend who worked in the Peace Corps in Africa and he said you’ve never really encountered one until you walked into a web forty feet across….
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CECI said: “black and gold and make huge webs near our outdoor lights, its one of my favorite garden features in September in October. Not everyone agrees.”……………….
Black and yellow / gold (Argiope aurantiahe) are really fun common orb web spiders to play with. Tweak their webs at dusk and see the zig-zags they come up with the following morning. Free-spider-art. Tippytoe to tippytoe, can be 3+ inches here. Fredrika freaked first summer here.
I heard that the guy I live with got really put out when his wife and a spider-loving visitor started tickling the tummy of an argiope spider when the garden was on tour, once. “No more spider-tummy tickling”, he said. She ignored him.
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Dogs and I remain astonished with kiddies at Dog Park who run straight up to us. Not polite and downright scary, although we can understand their delight when spotting our two. You can tell the Good, Well-Brought-Up kids because they ask before approaching. You must understand, though, Mani, as a super attractive and excellent pure-bred border collie, you have to bear the burden of popularity. No matter how much the guy you live with grumbles at the state of the garden, I still find it fascinating to look at, even now, deep into its dry season. Perhaps I hang around the native plant people a bit much. One thing I definitely do not hang around is, yuck, spiders. Bird fluttering is perfectly posed to showcase in front of the silver plant. Best photo of you, Mani, is the one in which you lurk around the edge of the gravel garden. looking piquant, an excellent look for you. In his own way, the guy looks pretty piquant in the duo portrait photo.
Thanks. I try to be attractive. It isn’t hard, really, though the guy I live with says that’s immodest. He was looking forward to working in the garden this summer, but what with the hormone blocker and the constant heat, almost nothing got done. There was a lot of weeding in June, before the garden tour, and then total exhaustion set in.
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That’s it?!?! A SPIDER?!?!?!
With a body the size of a mouse.
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Well, at least it was not a moth.
Yeah, whew.
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