Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you just exactly how hot I’ve been lately. You may remember me from such heat-oriented posts as “Into The Garden, Endlessly Roasting”, among so many other heat-related posts.
Here I am in a characteristic, though not particularly horticultural, pose.
You mght wonder what’s going on here. Well, it’s been so unbelievably roasting hot (100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 37.7 Celsius) that even squirrels need a drink once in a while, and I was watching a squirrel drinking water from the birdbath. You can see its tail, between the flowerpot and the plastic pool.
It was so hot I didn’t even bother to chase the squirrel, which is one of my most favorite things to do.
The guy I live with set up the pool for me, but I’m not all that interested in it. I was when I was littler, but I’m older now, and I prefer napping.
Not very much gardening has been done lately. The guy I live with might go out and pull a few weeds, or water something, but really, when it’s been as hot as this, the best thing to do involves some sort of napping. We are both very good at taking naps.
The main thing involves birds.
I showed a picture of the two oriole feeders earlier; they’ve become so popular that the guy I live with has to rejellify the feeders more than once a day. (I didn’t know that “rejellify” was a word, but the guy I live with said that it was, since he made it up.)
There are like six jars of Welch’s grape jelly in the pantry, since that’s what the orioles like, and a bunch of oranges in the refrigerator.
Sometimes we can hear demands for more jelly at like 11:30 at night.
And of course he has to make sugar water for the hummingbirds every single day, because the sugar water will go bad when it’s this hot. We haven’t seen or heard as many hummingbirds as usual, this year, maybe because all the rain has been good for flowers up in the foothills and mountains; flowers we don’t have in the garden, like Ipomopsis aggregata, which is a hummingbird favorite.
(The guy I live with said we used to have that ipomopsis, but not for several years now. He said he would be very happy if there were drifts of it in the garden, but I guess there hasn’t been much viable seed available.)
Today, the guy I live with left me for a couple of hours. It wasn’t too hot in the house, fortunately. He went out for sushi with his friend. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while. He said he felt kind of teary being at the sushi place, since he hadn’t been there in over a year. He used to go there with his wife, and then, later, with his friend.
Things have been so weird for so long that I was surprised I remembered her, but I did.
I don’t really like it when things are weird. I prefer just being here with the guy I live with. I understand that he has to go out from time to time, especially to get food for me (he eats food, too), and sometimes do other stuff.
Well, so, anyway, that’s what’s been happening. Lots of roasting. Fans running all day long.
A couple of days ago the guy asked me if I wanted to get soaking, and I wasn’t sure, but he soaked me with the hose anyway. I got totally soaked. I did feel cooler after that.
Maybe you can tell.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mani – does TGYLW reckon all this hot weather is caused by climate change? We had an interesting programme on TV here in the UK last night about the jet stream. They said it had moved north over the US, leaving it hotter and drier. The British summer is as unreliable as ever – I had my heating back on two days ago
It could be. Right now it’s 92F (33C), windless, and completely overcast.
The guy I live with said it reminds him of the times he had to go into attics in the summer.
Mani it is smokin’ hot here as well. Roasting doesn’t quiet define it. It is more like melting. I am sure a soaking would be a good thing here too. My Dearest Jack, my rat terrier, passed away three weeks ago. He was 19. We had 17 wonderful years together and I miss him so much. I have been looking for a new pup and hopefully soon I will find one. Stay cool!
Oh, we’re so sorry about Jack. The guy I live with knows all about that kind of pain. After Chess died, the guy I live with got me eight days later.
He also says the heat wouldn’t be so hard to endure if the sun was out. Or there was some wind. I hear that Denver used to be a very windy place, but not any more. Just dead air for days on end.
100 degrees is hot there? I would have guessed that it sometimes gets even hotter. Heck, it was hotter here, and this is a mild climate. Rhody did something really weird though. In the middle of the hottest day, he went out and sprawled out in a sunny spot on the hot asphalt! Of course, I took him inside promptly. I thought that degree of heat could be dangerous. He seemed annoyed by the interruption though!
Yes, 100 degrees is hot. Maybe the elevation prevents it from getting hotter. Last summer it was 95 degrees almost every single day.
We purebred border collies sometimes like to lie in the sun, but the guy I live with always says something about boiling my brain.
Well, exactly! It does not seem safe to get that hot!
Hot is better for the garden than cool, though. When it gets cool, like today, here come the thunderstorms and large hail.
It sounds exciting, but thunder does not sound as scary to those of us who are not pure bred border collies (or terrier mutts). We simply lack the auditory capacity and big ears to catch all that sound.
All things are relative. We consider 17C a warm day – certainly warm enough to tire our this poor old gardener! At 20C we consider it hot and at 25C an Irishman will melt! We drink a dark liquid called Guinness which not only ensures adequate hydration but adds an amount of melanin to the skin which offers a level of protection from sunburn. On such days it is best taken in the cool of indoors, to be appreciated at leisure. You should try it. I recall from my childhood that a friend of my father’s used always bring a bowl with him to the pub so as to be able to serve a portion of Guinness to his best border collie!
The guy I live with says that Slipper (named for the character in The Irish R.M., as was Flurry, the first purebred border collie who lived here) loved Guinness. Chess, his first cousin, liked it too, though the fizziness was scary.
I guess alcohol is bad for dogs, though.
Back in the old days there were lots of visitors to the garden here, and most of them noticed that the heat didn’t affect them so much, because of the very low humidity.
Though he now remembers his wife fixing lemonade for visitors not used to the heat, like well-known seed collectors from Wales, or rock gardeners from The Netherlands. There’s a 1950s Philco refrigerator in the garage that also used to hold what the guy I live with called “gardeners’ beverages”.
You were all kept well hydrated!
Yes; the guy I live with has a lot of problems with dehydration. He drinks a lot of water, but sometimes not enough.
Must be tough to have a thick fur coat when it is so hot our Mani? It has been super hot here too making it difficult to work in the garden. Lots of very early mornings out before my first caffeine injection. Thankfully some rain today which should help the plants make it through the next week of searing heat. Your should use your pool more often.
The guy I live with emptied the pool, because I gues I didn’t care for it like I did when I was little. There’s always the hose (which hasn’t been used on the garden yet this year).
Not much work is done in the garden, here. The guy I live with said he didn’t follow the instructions for muscle-strengthening when he was on hormone therapy, and now that that’s worn off it’s harder to get strong muscles again.
I just don’t want to hear any talk from the guy I live with about me being hitched to something in order to be able to help to work.
Deespite THE *heet* an lack of rain yore place lookss lovelee….maybee wee are dessert…um, no wait….desert peepell….
Guy you sure take furabuluss care of Hummybirdss an Squirrelss there. Wee have 2 Chipmunkss now: Chipit an Chicklet an 2 Squirrelss: Minnie (who has 1 eye) an her Sister Mimi whose tail iss furry thin.
At nite wee see Bindie an Mindie Bunniess two.
An wee have Penelope an Marco Mournin Dovess an of coarse Jack an Garry Sparrowss an Squawky THE Starling.
LadyMew putss foodabulls out 4-5 timess a day an water at leest twice….
LadyMew meowss takin care of all of them an mee a ‘full time’ job!!!
Yore wet Selfie iss lovelee…..mee iss feelin kewl lookin at yore foto!
**purrss** BellaDharma
Thanks. It’s kind of fun to get soaking.
There are so many creatures here. I chase some, but just look at others. It is a lot of work to make sure that the oriole feeders have plenty of jelly. (It’s my job to chase robins from the feeder; they guzzle all the jelly at once.)
Yore THE Orioless ‘Guardeean Angel’ Mani!!! Guud fore you….yore so kind. Robinss are weerd rite??? They come here an stare at LadyMew like shee shuud give them wermss. Just ’cause shee has seedss an peenutss! Guud Greef!!
An a nice soakin iss guud inn THE h*heet*!!
A nice soaking is indeed excellent.
We like robins, except when they guzzle all the jelly and don’t leave any for the other birds. Kind of hogging, really.
Wee are gettin torrential rain today Mani!! Wee are under Tornado watch an all reddy went thru’
a Warnin….LadyMew iss keepin an eye on Sky color!
Wee apposta get more an mroe rain an high hue-midity all week….UCKY!!
Maybee mee shuud go play inn THE rain! 😉
Raining here, too, with scary thunder.
EEKKK!! Wee had rain all nite an funder an lightnin…it was pawfull. Mee slept INN mee pillowcase on tHE pillow 😉 Mee safe spot!
Iss it quiet there now Mani?
No. The first wave of thunderstorms passed over my house, and now there’s a second wave coming.
The guy I live with said he hopes this isn’t going to be how it’s like all summer.
Yeah, it’s been hot here too. We have a high temperature warning or something like that for the weekend, Sunday is supposed to reach 111. My not-pure-bred Border collie, Mickey, is limp in the heat, even inside in air conditioning. That’s better than bouncing off the walls though! We are supposed to conserve water because of a shortage of chlorine, so with the heat and that I will have to decide what plants get the water and what I can sacrifice. Really, annuals, even the vegetables, aren’t as important as my perennial pollinator plants. Keep as cool as you can! Mickey likes his pool, he lays in it when it’s fresh and cool. Now it’s hot like a sauna.
The guy I live with saw the heat warnings, on Facebook. 111 sounds pretty hot. Probably hardest on newly-planted plants.
And he also read about the chlorine business. That’s just weird.
He doesn’t water very much at all, but thinks that night-time watering is best in this climate. Maybe not so much in more humid climates (it seemed humid to him when he was in Portland one June).