Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you about a very unusual thing. You may remember me from such posts as “A Walk At Sunset”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
This was taken at sunset, as maybe you can tell.
Here I am again. (This is going to be an excellent post, because it has lots of pictures featuring me.)
This one doesn’t have me in it, but it shows the difference in the way the phone camera gathers light if you point it in another direction.
There are some bulbs in flower now, though I guess this is what you would call a pretty lean year, because it’s been so dry.
I don’t know the name of this colchicum.
A bee on ‘Innocence’. I think it was asleep. These colchicums are mostly done now.
And Colchicum bivonae ‘Apollo’. The guy I live with posted a different picture of this on Facebook.
The cowpen daisies have been wilting almost every day, but they perk up after watering. They have very shallow root systems, but then, they’re annuals.
They kind of flopped, too.
The guy I live with said he wasn’t going to mow the buffalo grass again this year. You can see it’s gotten pretty unruly, but it’ll be going dormant soon. It’s my Private Lawn. (You can’t see it from the house because of the hedge of lilacs.) It used to belong to Slipper, a purebred border collie who lived here before me. His first cousin Chess never used the Private Lawn.
Seeds came in the mail the other day.
These are from Western Native Seed. A bunch from Plants of the Southwest came a day or so later.
I think these will mostly be sown directly into the ground, maybe at the end of next month. That isn’t always successful, but sometimes it results in seedlings.
Maybe you can see how dry things are in this picture of me walking along the canal. On the left are irrigated plantings, and on the right are native plums and other plants growing on the canal bank.
This is farther east than we usually go, but we do go this way sometimes.
I debated going into the water, but at this time of year it’s pretty chilly. It comes from the mountains.
We haven’t seen a muskrat, or any trout in the canal at all this year. We usually see trout when the water is clear, which it mostly is.
We saw an owl.
And I almost caught a duck. The guy I live with said not to do that, but I tried anyway. The thing about ducks, though, is that they can fly.
Then there’s this. What you might call a sign of the times. (The guy I live with says I’ve used up my quota of cliches in this post now.)
That’s the native currant, Ribes aureum. The flowers are strongly scented of cloves.
And the cotoneaster, Cotoneaster acutifolius.
Things are changing.
I suppose I should mention the unusual thing, since my post has the word “unusual” in it.
This was it.
You may wonder why I haven’t shown more movies lately. It’s because the guy I live with, who, for an old person, has a lot of experience with computers, couldn’t figure out how to process movies with Windows 10. He said it was much easier with Windows 7.
Well that’s it. It rained. Not a whole lot, but at least it rained. “They” say we have an eighty percent chance of rain showers tonight. That would be nice.
Other than that, things are pretty much the same, which is the way we both like it.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Dear Mani,
I enjoy your posts and would also like to see more owls and other wildlife. I live with people in Los Angeles, which is hot and dry. I sometimes walk on my leash in the garden—I don’t know if you can see the pictures, but this is brave of me and I am very excited about it. Recently, I caught two mice in the house—I am informed that I am a mighty hunter because of this, but it has always been true.
Your friend,
Boris
I’ve caught a coupleof rabbits, but the guy I live with says not to talk about that. One escaped minus some fur from tis hindquarters–but here I am talking about it when I was told not to.
The guy I live with grew up in Los Angeles so he knows about how dry it is there. That was in the 1950s, though.
Ah, RAIN! It must be so nice! As much as I enjoy the climate here, I do envy how other climates sometimes get rain when it does not rain here. Rain is so . . . wet!
The guy I live with says we might have gotten .0001 inches of rain, but at least it was something. The garden hasn’t had enough rain to keep the plants happy since the end of July, and even then, the low humidity and high light intensity means that it would need to rain about twice as much as it does in order to keep some plants happy, but those are mostly in other peoples’ gardens.
This can be a problem, because the conifers need some water before it gets cold, so they can manufacture the sugars that allow them to endure cold. I guess he’ll water them some time soon.
.0001 Inch is more than we got. We do not really need any more than what we get, but I do enjoy rain anyway.
We actually got about a tenth of an inch. Not much for the garden, but it was nice, regardless.
Well, at least it could have been nice to pretend that it was more.
I suppose we’ve gotten about half an inch since the end of July.It used to rain more, back in the last century, according to the guy I live with.
Rain has been pretty scarce in Ireland this September also but we have had some light rain in recent days. There is enough rain today to keep us indoors so it will be, as I call it, a sore bum day!
I think you deserve a medal for your hunting exploits!
We never have so much rain that we have to stay indoors. The guy I live with said we used to, back in the last century, but not any more.
I guess I’m going to be on a shorter lead when I’m around ducks.
Mani Mani Mani!!! Youss’ got rain!!! HURRAH!!!
Wee thinkss all yore flowerss are beeuteefull. An THE foto of THE Bee sleepin INN flower iss so precious!
An wee see Squinty McOwl iss still there, mew mew mew….
Maybee you cuud due ‘catch an reelease on THE Duckss 😉
Yore purrsonal fotoss are grate; out fave iss yore foto on yore sofa!! You are one hansum Poochie Doggie 😉
***purrss*** BellaDharma an {{{huggiess}}} BellaSita
Thanks. I really like my couch.
The rain didn’t help much. It’s so dry here the guy I live with said, when he was digging in the soil, that it was kind of frightening.
It didn’t rain last night, or today, like “they” said it might.
We haven’t seen the owls all that much lately, but I heard them across the field a couple of evenings ago.
THE same ‘They’ get our weather wrong most of THE tiem two Mani!!!
Wee nevurr quite know what will happen. Mee herd BellalSita on fone an mee mew Loveseat iss comin tomorrow afturnoon!!! Mee iss so happy!!!
This sittin on a stew-pid patio bench iss getting REEL old reel fast!!!
Weather can be really weird.
A love seat sounds nice. I like my couch, a lot. And my two forts.
Mee heerss you Mani!!! Havin a couch or loveseat iss EE-ssential rite??? Mee iss furry happy now as is LadyMew. Today iss cloudy an rainy an warm?!?! Iss weerd butt nice 😉
Furniture to lie on is really excellent.
It’s just dry here.
Mee agreess…this mew Loveseat iss comy!
An it rained all nite here…want mee to send you sum Mani an Guy?
We would love some rain.
That last picture of you gives me such a peaceful feeling. No one would think you capable of spreading fear among the wild creatures. So, does TGYLW subscribe to the idea of “garden as though you will live forever” or does he decide against planting things that take a while to mature? Sometimes I think “wow I don’t have much time left” but maybe it doesn’t matter. I have a few colchicums and I was kind of astonished how quickly they finished up. The dogs running over them didn’t help. Your garden looks pretty. I don’t see any weeds. I think you said they all dried up? Not here. We have plenty.
I can be both relaxed and super-deadly and tough. I’m an enigma, I guess.
There are some weeds, especially where some watering has been done. Colchicums don’t last very long in flower. They have a life cycle best described as weird.
I don’t think the guy I live with gardens as though he will live forever, he just does stuff.
He’s maybe not as attached to his garden as most gardeners are, just used to it, you might say, but he knows I like my big back yard with plenty of squirrels to bark at, and bunnies to chase out of the garden. (They sometimes get in, despite defensive measures.)