Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to delight you with a post almost entirely about me. You may remember me from such me-related posts as “Radar Ears, Rabbit Feet”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristically horticultural pose. 
The guy I live with was taking pictures yesterday, so I looked at things in the lawn. Our lawn is full of things.
It’s been pretty hot here lately, so much so that almost no gardening has been done. It was hot today, too, but then it cooled off a lot, and started to rain a little.
I don’t like it when it rains, because it might thunder. This is me not liking it.
It stopped sprinkling, and the guy I live with suggested we go for a walk. He said it was safe.
They mowed the field, I mean like seriously mowed, not just going over it like they did earlier, and it looks very different now. The smooth brome is flowering. This is the grass that the guy I live with really detests. It’s spread all over our garden. But it looks okay here. You can see the creek there, too. It’s dry right now.
So, anway, we were walking along the coyote path behind our house, and I suddenly smelled something in the grass. This was the second time this week that I noticed it.
I really wanted to go into the grass, but the guy I live with said no.
You may not know this, but my eyesight and hearing (not to mention smelling power) are vastly superior to the guy I live with’s similar faculties. I knew there was something out there.
So we stood by the tall grass, watching, and all of a sudden the guy I live with said “You’re right”. There was something out there, and we could both see it moving through the grass.
I tried to talk the guy I live with into wading into the grass, to see what it was, but, once again, he said no. He said we should go on the other side of the creek, and maybe we could see it.
So we did.
The picture isn’t much in focus, but that’s my back yard in the distance.
Still, I looked and listened and sniffed.
There was something there.
I didn’t find out what it was, even though I was super alert.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me being super alert, and I’ll let you know if we ever find out what it was.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Could it have been an ephelant?
Maybe. We didn’t see a trunk.
Trunks are for trees.
Mee-yow cuud it have been a meower cat? A Coyote? A Skunk? Due you have Stinky Skunkss there Mani??
Wee had terribell Funderstorms yesterday an there was a Skunk outside inn daylite….Funder made a BIG rumbell an Mistur Stinky sprayed under our bedroom window! It was UCKY!! LadyMew came hobblin inn from kitchen sayin “Where iss THE Skunk BellaDharma?” Mee thinkss shee iss part Poochie beecause shee smellss thingss mee not smell!! Shee closed windowss an carried mee to livinroom where it was fresher!!
Like you, mee not wild ’bout Funder eether (or firewerkss!) Mee thinkss you make GRATE ‘airplane’ earss mee frend!
Yore coyote path lookss lovelee to walk on. An it lookss cleer there…wee have frendss cott inn haze an smokeall over THE States!
Even wee had haze an smoke fore 4 dayss til yesterday…THE rain cleened THE air! There are over 100 firess burnin inn northern Ontario….wee are safe so far xcept fore haze an smoke!!
What a weerd Summer it has bin! CATFISH!!!
Happy trailss mee frend an Guy two….
***purrss*** BellaDharma an ((huggiess)) LadyMew
We’ve had some thunder, but almost no rain, and sometimes there’s been smoke, too.
We don’t think it’s a skunk, but I guess it could be. Probably not a kitty because I saw it in the same place a few days earlier.
HHHMMMM mee wishess it was a kitty an NOT a Skunk Mani!! UCKY!!!
LadyMew has red THE book Miss BarbK52 meowed to youss’ about! Shee said it iss furry scarey an creepy an guud! “Tween THE scarey bookss an THE Crime Drama’ss LadyMew keepss entertained….shee iss odd rite? 😉
It might be a fox.
The guy I live with has never read anything by Shirley Jackson, but did see that movie.
Mani you cuud bee rite…it cuud bee a fox!! They are furry cute……
Can you ask Guy if hee efurr red Miss Shirley’ss other story “T”HE Lottery”?
LadyMew meowed to mee shee red it inn Grade 8 an then they did a play based on story! LadyMew said even doin a play creeped her out so much! Shee had nitemaress fore weekss aftur!!! Miss Shirley must have a vivid emagination rite Mani??
He’s never read that story. He started to, online, but then got distracted.
The guy I live with has an excessively vivid imagination, and so do I.
We looked again when we walked by the tall grass, but there wasn’t anything. We did see an owl, though.
Readin Miss Shirley can bee frightenin Mani!! Maybee iss guud Guy got diss-tracted!
An mee sorta reeleeved there was no ohter 4 legged out when you were! An it musst have been nice to see Owl again!?
It was nice to see the owl again. Owls are only sort of scary.
Wee not fussy on Grate Horned Owlss here. Wee seen them hert Perrygrin Falcon chickss an other small berdss an they scare us!
Wee due like little Saw-Whet Owlss…they are adoorabell!
We have those here, too. Never seen one.
Thunderstorms can be very scary Mani but they usually bring moisture which is such a good thing. I am with the ‘guy you live with’ on smooth brome. It has invaded our native woodland and pasture and my garden. It’s a bit of a nightmare to deal with. Interested to hear what you spotted.
We got almost no rain at all yesterday. There was some scary thunder.
The smooth brome is awful, though in the field, which I guess is also called an “open space” (it’s a floodplain, really), it keeps down other weeds. Until it gets mowed, and then the weeds find a place to grow.
The guy I live with said we might never know what’s out in the field. I know what it smells like, but can’t quite find it in my Scent Library. (We dogs have those.)
Things that sneak about in the high grass are best avoided, in my opinion! – just as you avoid thunder.
We are suffering with hot weather here also and our Met Service has issued an Orange Hot Weather Warning for the first time ever and I wish we had some of your rain – please, send some!
It would probably be better to call it “rain”. We got what you see on the flagstone in the second picture. But it did cool down quite a bit.
It’s 31C here right now. The “rain” raised the humidity to about 25 percent, which is icky. The guy I live with hasn’t felt like doing anything in the garden today.
I really want to know what’s out in the field, even if it might be scary.
27 – 28C here this past week with humidity of 85%
The guy I live with would probably lose his mind with that much humidity; it makes him claustrophobic.
You may have gathered (I hear about it all the time) that Denver’s climate is not exactly the most wonderful for gardening, the low humidity is excellent.
Except for today; it’s unusually humid. 23C, 52% humidity, almost complete cloud cover, and not a breath of air moving.
Your lovely summer coat is so curly! You were very wise to look and sniff and not bark at the “something moving through the grass.” Of course you were right! Although, my not-pure-bred Border collie barks and is on alert when the wind blows, which I saw in nothing, but we have to go inside anyway.
Thanks; my coat is a little heavy for hot weather, and it’s certainly hot right now.
Naturally, I’m going to try to insist that we check out the grass again this evening.
That grass is very tall. Do you have rattlesnakes? I remember a scary book, perhaps The Haunting of Hill House. Something invisible was moving the grass, creepy. My Rosie, the world’s biggest coward, is easily creeped out. Not you, right? However, Rosie is not afraid of thunder or fireworks. There is just no explanation for dogs.
We’ve never seen a rattlesnake, though there was that one time when the guy I live with thought there was one under a trough. It made a sound like a leaky hose or sprinkler pipe. It was a bullsnake.
The story sounds more like something by Algernon Blackwood. He’s seen The Haunting, the original one, but never read the book. There wasn’t anything out there this evening, but I was thinking more about thunder.
I’m afraid of thunder, fireworks, flying stinging things, the oven, the toaster, and I don’t know what else, but I would run right into that tall grass in the middle of the night, fearlessly.
The guy I live with says I’ma typical border collie/.
“You may not know this, but my eyesight and hearing (not to mention smelling power) are vastly superior to the guy I live with’s similar faculties. I knew there was something out there”. ….. May you alway’s find a “splendour” in that grass.
Thanks, though I still don’t know what’s out there…