slightly less roasting

Posted on August 30, 2020 by paridevita

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you up to date on stuff that’s been happening here, which, really, is not a whole lot at all. You may remember me from such posts as “Still More Summer”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.Pretty sophisticated, huh? I mean if you ignore the condition that the ramp is in. The guy I live with’s late wife built that for Flurry, the first purebred border collie who lived here, when he got to be really ancient.
The guy I live with occasionally says stuff about replacing the ramp, but I think he’s too sentimental to do that. Since there are two sliding glass doors, the what I guess you would call “stoop” is shorter than usual and so a ramp was necessary. It is nice to have a ramp of one’s own, no matter how derelict it’s getting.

Anyway. I know this might be hard to believe, but it rained here.
Not what you would call a soaking rain; a little over three millimeters. But at least it was rain.

It’s cooled off a little, though still hot, and still dry, despite the rain (if you know about rain, you know that three millimeters is hardly anything, though the guy I live with was still grateful for it).
Some plants have been doing perfectly well despite everything.

Sedum ‘Matrona’.

Sedum ‘Xenox’.

Sedum ‘Desert Red’.

I guess you really call these Hylotelephium or something like that, but we still call them sedums. The ‘Desert Red’ is a lot redder than the picture suggests, by the way.

The other gardening thing–and there haven’t been very many gardening things to think about here at all, what with the heat and drought and the fact that the guy I live with hasn’t been very motivated at all, is the desert willow seedlings. 

I know they look pretty hopeless, but in fact most of them are doing okay.
So many plants in the garden are not doing anything like okay that having some desert willow seedlings is something to feel good about.

There have been some other things. The guy I live with didn’t go to the plant sale. He got a very late start, and then after he drove off, realized he’d forgotten his hat, and was so discouraged that he turned around and drove home.
This is something that’s been bothering him ever since the first stay-at-home order here: he hasn’t gone out very much, and every time he does, he forgets something, like his wallet, or his mask, or something that, say, last year, he would never have forgotten. And so he feels weird about this.

The other thing, which the guy I live with would agree was much more important, was my what you might call digestive issues. I started having some problems, and I could tell that the guy I live with was pretty concerned, and he even called my doctor.
He told me that he was very experienced with this sort of thing, like when Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, was sick, or Slipper before him, but at the same time had to keep reminding himself that he could get in the car and drive to the doctor’s. It’s not very far at all, but this hesitation was because he hasn’t gone out very much at all; going out has become a little strange to him.
He found a can of sweet potato in the pantry and gave me some of that, and after a couple of days everything was back to normal.
As normal as things could be, these days.

Since, as maybe you can tell, we kind of value continuity, it was pleasant to see that the owls have returned. 

And we’re still seeing striped kitties on our midnight walks. I realize this is an awful picture. (I didn’t take it.)

So that’s what’s been going on. This and that, I guess you would say.
It’s not supposed to be so ridiculously roasting hot next week, and that alone is good enough for me.

Until next time, then.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

34 Responses to slightly less roasting

  1. amateurplantsman says:
    August 31, 2020 at 2:08 am

    I still call them sedums as well. I keep a database of the plants in my garden, and I’m not going to update it every time someone changes a name, because sometimes the new name doesn’t stick and it gets changed back again. And that would mean changing the database twice. So if it was a sedum when I panted it, it’s going to stay a sedum

  2. Zach says:
    August 31, 2020 at 9:17 am

    I am only 35 years old, yet every day when I leave for work I run through a mental checklist making sure I have everything I need to take with me. After getting out of the habit of going out, I think it’s perfectly natural to forget standard items — I’m certain I would. I don’t think the guy you live with should be so hard on himself.

    • paridevita says:
      August 31, 2020 at 7:50 pm

      Well it wasn’t as bad as the time the guy I live with went to a plant sale, realized he’d forgotten his wallet, and had to drive all the way back home.
      But he’s having short-term memory issues, being old and all, and so has to ask me, or write stuff down.

  3. Lisa says:
    August 31, 2020 at 10:35 am

    Well, they used to be sedums, and it seems unfair to change it if they are in the stonecrop family, which I call sedums! I think I call them all succulents anyway.
    Sorry your tummy was upset, but glad that sweet potato was handy. It’s good to keep that around, or a can of pumpkin puree.
    I haven’t seen those striped kitties, but I did smell one yesterday. I’m kind of strange, but I like the smell, from a distance, of striped kitty! Reminds me of the coffee roasters’ aroma that used to be just at the far end of the SF Bay bridge when I was a kid. Yes, distant skunk and coffee…

    • paridevita says:
      August 31, 2020 at 8:07 pm

      It is true that coffee can smell a bit like far-away skunk smell. Maybe I already said, but the guy I live with said that he’d rather smell skunk than his neighbor’s laundry, which is a lot stronger-smelling.
      We still call them sedums, or at least he does.
      The guy I live with also thought he had a can or two of Nummy Tum-Tum in the pantry, but there was only the one can of sweet potato with a “best by” date of last April. He looked it up and discovered that the “best by” date doesn’t mean “expired” or “no good”.
      So I had some of that.

  4. tonytomeo says:
    August 31, 2020 at 12:07 pm

    Rhody had a health issue too. We stayed in the Santa Clara Valley for a while, and could not get back here because of the evacuation. He enjoyed his time there, but met some new ‘friends’ who returned with us. Fleas.

  5. ceci says:
    August 31, 2020 at 5:40 pm

    Sorry to hear about the digestive upset – clearly having sweet potato on hand is the thing to do! And great that you are sensible about eating it! The sedum are fabulous – they never seem to do as well here, perhaps the soil is too loamy or heavy or something. Or simply superior gardening skills of course.

    cheers,

    ceci

    • paridevita says:
      August 31, 2020 at 8:21 pm

      Thanks; it can’t be superior gardening skills because the plants here just grow. There are bunches of low-growing sedums here too, like ‘Dragon’s Blood’ and a few variations on that theme.
      The low-growing one he likes the best is ‘Turquoise Tails’, a variety of Sedum rupestre. It doesn’t need anything from us, here.
      Some of the others, like the ones native to the west coast, don’t do well at all.

  6. BellaDharma an LadyMew says:
    September 1, 2020 at 10:23 am

    HURRAH fore 3 millymeterss of rain!! **happy dance**
    An yore Sedumss are lovelee!! Wee furry happy that yore not roastin so much now; same here! Wee gotted remnantss of Hurrycane Laura an there was alot of rain an furry windy. Nothin broke an power stayed on…that was a reeleef!
    Mee asked LadyMew why yore Guy iss furgettin thingss…shee pondured if THE Kemo mite have affected his memoree…
    This is a ‘normal’ side effect shee sayss. Tell yore Guy iss Okay! An wee understand hee not feel comfy goin out; neether does LadyMew. Shee sayss shee feelss ‘out of sink’ (whatefurr that iss) with THE werld ’round her.
    Hopefully Seppytemburr iss a bettur month fore our Hu’manss Mani!
    Oh an yore ramp iss kewl an yore foto iss lovelee; yore a hansum man doggie!
    ***purrss*** BellaDharma an ((huggiess)) LadyMew

  7. barbk52 says:
    September 5, 2020 at 10:43 pm

    91 then 36 the next day? That’s just crazy.

    • paridevita says:
      September 5, 2020 at 11:55 pm

      Well, to be precise, which of course we always like to be (unless we feel like being vague), it’s supposed to be 100 degrees tomorrow, and then, on Tuesday night, 25.
      Maybe not much will happen, except to the two tomato plants that have only produced two tomatoes. A squirrel ate one. And maybe all the leaves will be brown instead of getting autumn color.
      Considering the temperature drops last October and April, the constant heat, and everything else, this hasn’t been the greatest of years.
      Personally, I’m looking forward to some cooler weather.

  8. Mark Mazer says:
    September 7, 2020 at 1:33 pm

    What altitude are you at? I see that they were predicting snow at 7000′ and a mix at 5000′.

Comments are closed.