Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is, I, your popular, roasting host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to explain why I haven’t posted in a while. You may remember me from such roasting-hot posts as “Super Roasting”, “Beyond Super Roasting”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristically roasting-hot pose. 
I guess I don’t need to say how hot it’s been, but I will anyway. It’s been really, really, really, really, really hot. I mean like extra super totally hot.
So we haven’t done very much of anything.
The guy I live with did some watering. 
It doesn’t seem to have all that much effect.
And, of course, since it’s been so hot, the guy I live with was in his usual let’s-not-do-anything mode, forgot about the amsonia seedlings upstairs, and so now they’re gone.
He has more seeds but he was pretty irked with himself.
There are some desert willow seedlings. They got a little too elongated but will probably do fine. 
The guy I live with went picnicking with his friend on his birthday last week (it was hers on Friday), and she brought along some manzanita seedlings (Arctostaphylos pungens) which she rooted from cuttings while she was in Arizona earlier this year. 
Manzanitas aren’t always easy to get going in the garden, but maybe these will make it. The big manzanita here (Arctostaphylos patula) was dug up by the backhoe.
That’s all the gardening that’s been done here, except for the other day when it was just a little cooler and the guy I live with removed a bunch of branches, sawing and lopping, from the north end of the front yard. He cut himself again and you should have seen how much he bled. His skin has become a lot thinner, which is okay except for that, and I guess it stopped him from getting a bunch of tattoos last summer during the cancer therapy business because he thought it might be cool. (That, and his friend. She didn’t really completely like the idea.) I mean he does have tattoos but not that kind.
Anyway, it was so hot yesterday that late at night, like around eleven, the guy I live with said maybe we should go for a walk, and so we did. It was a lovely night; cool, breezy, and dry.
I had an excellent time. I heard a raccoon fight along the creek north of the canal road, and then after a little walking, there was a Striped Kitty in the middle of the road. The guy I live with said “Whoa”, which even though I’m not a horse I knew what he meant, and so we watched the Striped Kitty saunter away.
We walked down the canal road for a bit. That’s my tail in the lower right hand corner.
On the way back I wanted to look for the Striped Kitty but the guy I live with said not to. I wasn’t sure why. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mew mew mew Mani mee thinkss you mite like catss a teeny bit…wee have 2 striped Kittiesss here: a grey Tabby with golden eyess an a orangey Tabby with green eyess……mee not sure if mee likess them comin ’round butt wee have fresh water out an they come for a drink….mee reememburrss mee dayss roamin THE meen streetss of wireton lookin fore food an water, so mee does not chase THE catss away here….
An wee got yore heet an hye humiditee… toetallee UCKY! Like youss’ wee bin just hangin out an tryin to stay kewl-ish…..
Wee waitin fore rain…..again…An LadyMew has same problem as yore Guy! Shee waterss THE lawnss an 2 wee gardenss an Lil Red Mapell tree an anh our later you wuud nevurr know she watered…our soil iss full of clay so that iss not furry helpfull…
Yore Guyss’ littel plantss look guud (bettur than what LadyMew cuud do!) An wee both happy that yore Guy gotted to go out with his lady frend….thingss are a bit more ‘normal’ now, rite???
Mee lovess yore lyin down foto; you have such nice eyess….
Stay kewl….
**purrss** BellaDharma
Thanks. It’s been so hot here… But the Striped Kitty here isn’t a real kitty. It comes with a smell.
On our walk last night we saw it in a neighbor’s yard, probably looking for fallen apples. We have apples here but I think our fences doesn’t have any holes in it like our neighbors’ does.
They said we might have bad storms here this afternoon and evening, but instead we’ve had nothing, so far. A bunch of rain would be nice.
Sorry to hear about the getting cut – I did that on a protruding sharp place on a gate last week and it took forever to stop hurting (well, it seemed like forever!). These things are probably not clean, either, so there was a painful cleaning session after I got inside. The dogs wanted to lick it, too, but that was discouraged.
We’ve been doing our morning dog walking between 5 and 6 – its cooler and many fewer people out. By 6:30 its starting to get hot and some of us get pretty wilted. So far we haven’t been awake late enough to consider a walk after it cools down, when ever that is. Since it hasn’t rained in about 3 weeks everything needs to be watered, too. This is more like our usual August than July. Maybe that means August will be like September? One can hope!
ceci
The guy I live with washed with soap, and then applied some Bacitracin. But it happens a lot.
We get up about nine in the morning. Stay up late so we can cool off the bedroom, but now there are people burning wood, and there’s usually laundry perfume smell, which makes the guy I live with sick.
He was going to get up early to look at the comet, but it was too hard for him to do that. Maybe we’ll see it at night before it flies away.
It’s rained here a lot, but only for a minute or so. The other day it rained for times. Lots of drops on the flagstone…
Striped kitty can get you into trouble.
I know.
Thanks for letting us know about the rhythms of your days! You can see the comet in the evenings. I bet you could see it from that butte that’s just south of you!
I could, but I would have to drag the guy I live with up thereâ¦
What will TGYLW do with all the desert willows? That’s a lot!
The guy I live with figures that a bunch of them will not make it. (They tend to be difficult until they grow up, just like humans.) But he gave some seeds to a friend who owns a nursery, just in case.
Oh, desert willows! Lovely tree with delicate flowers, scented too. A rose friend of mine who lives up in Red Bluff has created an allee down his long driveway. Pretty impressive. No gaps. How did he do that? Probably because he’s the smartest plant person I know next to the guy you live with. Last year we made a special visit to see his Pernetiana rose garden, which is beside the American River. A little further north just outside of Redding is a hiking park with a glass bridge spanning the same river. The park is dog friendly, and we saw folks trying to coax their dogs to walk with them to the other side. Most dogs refused and balked. One petite woman carried in her arms her trembling German Shepherd. How do you, Mani, feel about bridges, glass or otherwise? One bit of gardening knowledge I learned: if you’re gonna garden, you’re gonna bleed. My husband proves my slogan each time he comes in from gardening. We too keep on the medicine shelf a supply of Bacitracin. That watering the guy did? Probably just enough to keep the garden alive, if not flourishing. Looks pretty good to me, summer dry.
I don’t think I’ve ever been over a bridge. I guess I’m not hugely adventurous. The guy I live with said I was basically just a “large chicken”. One time the three of us went up to the mountains, for kind of a hike, and I saw something scary and wanted to go home.
I guess that’s part of being an urban border collie.
You can prune desert willows and they grow back quickly. Like three feet a year. The ones here stopped flowering when the soil got too dry, but the guy I live with said that having them grow larger was more important; especially with the one that got moved earlier this year.