Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to bring you up to date on the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “The Weedy Jungle”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristically horticultural pose.
Really not very much has been happening here. The guy I live with has been pulling weeds almost every day. He said that pulling weeds can get very old, very quickly, and decided to name our garden “Weedopolis”, which I think is fairly excellent.
He said if you give something a name you can meet it head-on.
You can see in the picture above that I’m helping, in my usual fashion.
We got over an inch (2.5cm) of rain Saturday before last, like I said in my last post, just in one day. It rained and rained, and there was no thunder, which I thought was hard to believe.
When the rain stopped, in the evening, we went out to look at the creek.
I thought about going in, but the guy I live with said not to, because the water wasn’t necessarily clean. And I might have been swept away.
Maybe you’re like this too, I don’t know, but the guy I live with sometimes frets about plants in the garden. There have been quite a few that he thought had died, like an ancient Daphne jasminea from the cliffs about Delphi, where the oracle hung out, but just the other day he saw new growth on it. 
It might take a while before it grows back completely.
Even better, so I hear, is that the little Quercus hypoleucoides, which was doing okay all winter until spring arrived and it got way colder than it should have, is coming back.
The first time the guy I live with saw this oak, which has white on the underside of its leaves like the specific epithet suggests, he thought it was an oleander.
Another one, one that upset him a lot, was the tecoma, Tecoma stans, that his wife grew from seeds purchased from Southwestern Native Seeds a lot of years ago.
Both tecomas (the other one is ‘Orange Jubilee’, I think) were left outside by mistake when it got way below freezing one night this past April.
The guy I live with felt pretty strange about possibly having killed the shrub which has been here for so long. It had been frozen before and come back, as well as having lost as its leaves to drought, but this was pretty extreme.
And yet….
Talking about strangeness, which seems to be the defining characteristic of our daily lives now (to say the very least), today is the day that the guy I live with retired from the phone company thirteen years ago.
To say his retirement didn’t go the way he hoped is another understatement, but I’ve talked about that enough, I think.
More LPs have been arriving in the mail. The guy I live with explained that these two, in particular, were reissues, because the original pressings are a lot more expensive. Both he and his wife liked Robbie Basho; she picked up a copy of his very first album, which now costs like a thousand dollars in good condition.
The sound on these is not hugely great, but that’s not the point. 
The second one was one of the guy I live with’s particular favorites. Just a sample. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG7nmUOGQk4
Though really he liked the albums with just guitar even better. I wondered if maybe we shouldn’t bore our readers with such things but the guy I live with said it’s a diversion from the endless weeding and complaining about weeds that goes on here.
We also have three tomato plants. The guy I live with keeps saying he’s going to plant them, but hasn’t, yet. They were going to go out in the “way back” border, but that’s over a hundred feet from the house, which means carrying a watering can all the way out there, or filling one of the trash cans with water and dunking a watering can in it. That method is okay, but still a lot of work.
I do believe that’s it for today. I might have forgotten something, but I can’t remember what.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mew mew mew Weedopoliss iss a funny name Mani!! Mee thinkss yore place iss a bit of parrydise….butt mee not have to pull weedss. LadyMew iss maintainin our wee garden an THE nayburrss…shee did pull a few weedss an trimmed THE Old Hydrangea an THE hedge ‘tween THE gardenss…at leest shee iss abell to do this now! An yore rite it sure iss a strange sort of yeer…..LadyMew was so sad last nite. Shee told mee that shee felt unfullfilled beecause shee not dun anything other than survive past 5 monthss. Maybee yore Guy feelss a bit like this too?? Hu’manss not know how to live inn THE moe-mint…it must bee furry hard fore them!
Youss’ sure gotted alot of rain there….iss a guud thing you not go near it an get inn trubbell.
Happy 13th Annie-versary to yore Guy on reetirin…..Ladymew has bin reetired for 10 yeerss now an shee iss quite happy ’bout it all tho’ not happy to bee stuck innside doin not much with THE Virus.
Have a nice walk; see you soon…..
**purrss** BellaDharma
I think I agree that “Weedopolis” is a pretty good name for our garden. Years ago it was called “Little Fantods” but not for all that long.
The guy I live with has a lot, and I mean like an almost endless lot, to say about feeling like you haven’t done anything, but maybe we should save that for a post, some time. He is pretty much perfectly content just being here with me, even when I’m naughty, which he says is kind of a lot of the time. Barking at squirrels and the neighbor dogs. (I hear that we purebred border collies are supposed to be more quiet…)
I do know that he doesn’t think he’s unfulfilled not going into space or seeing the Taj Mahal or having a million dollars. There are a lot of drawbacks to this climate, gardening-wise, and I know he would probably be happier on the west coast, but just thinking about that might actually be enough.
Meow meow Mani wee have a Border Collie who livess across hall from us. Dixie iss 13 yeerss old an sorta blind an shee BARKSS loudlee when anyone iss at her door or at patio door! Shee iss a guud guard doggie. Shee iss alone alot an shee will sit at her door an LadyMew will talk to her thru door….LadyMew iss kewl like that! An barkin iss like meowin or talkin…sumtimess ya just gotta bark rite??
LadyMew sayss shee wuud reed a post ’bout yore Guy feelin unfullfilled…so many of her frendss feel THE same way…it iss a weerd time….LadyMew THANX mee efurry nite for beein here with her…..iss furry sweet issn’t it??
Yes, it is sweet.
I got in trouble today, for what the guy I live with said was too much barking. I got a lecture. The guy I live with doesn’t understand that squirrels need to be barked at. Especially the ones that go “chuck chuck chuck” at me.
No one talks to me through the fence. There are dogs I can bark at, though when I do too much of it I get lectures for that, too.
Lots of hopeful signs of rejuvenation in your garden!
ceci
It is nice, especially after this past winter.
I too find I’m pretty happy just being here with the dogs. No pressure to get out and socialize, an activity in which I don’t excel and makes me uncomfortable. For years I’ve been berating myself for being myself and this virus has helped me stop for some reason. Dogs are the best company, right Mani? I’ve had a couple of miracle plants this spring too, but I had what appeared to be a dead daphne and I yanked it out. I was horrified to see tiny green sprouts at the base, almost invisible. I hastily plunged it back, but too bad, the green sprouts became truly invisible. Sigh.
The guy I live with said he does that all the time. He accidentally weeded out a very desirable daphne about ten days ago. It’s not going to come back.
The guy I live with is actually quite sociable and can strike up conversations with total strangers. He learned to do that when he worked outside for the phone company.
People sometimes ask him why he doesn’t go out (he’s started the car just to make sure it still does start, which is silly since he paid $1600 to have it worked on month before last). He talks to his friend all the time and they’re going to a meeting at a public garden in a couple of weeks, but he’s reasonably content just being here at home with me.
I guess I’m pretty good company when I’m not getting in trouble, which I do for too much barking, and for trying to catch snakes.
Goodness. I can not even see you in the first picture.
I am hiding, but visible.
Oh gloom! I heard you had snow. Again. It was on the evening news in Vancouver Island, BC
No, that was up in the mountains, a mile or more higher than here. We just had rain.