Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to bring you up to date on various things. You may remember me from such posts as “The Cow-Pen Daisies”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
This is my hoping-for-a-biscuit pose. (I got one, of course.)
Well, so, now it’s hot again, with no rain in sight for, like, forever, or even longer.
But, as the guy I live with pointed out, this happened just the other day when we had a ten or twenty percent chance of rain.
He said “Just imagine what might happen with a zero percent chance of rain.”
You may chuckle, or even guffaw, but the guy I live with pointed out to me that when there’s a ninety percent chance, nothing happens.
This is what the sky looks like when it doesn’t rain here.
I know rain is important but it often comes with scary thunder.
As usual, not much is happening here. The guy I live with said that some people like it when lots of stuff happens, but we prefer it when almost nothing happens. Except for rain, of course.
The plums along the canal road are getting ripe now.
These are Prunus americana, and are native here. The guy I live with said that if he were the sort of person who made jam, he would make jam out of these, but then he’d be stuck with a whole bunch of jam.
The coyotes will probably get most of these, though we haven’t seen a coyote in a while now.
Our neighbor said there was a bobcat in another neighbor’s yard.
I’d really like to see a bobcat, but the guy I live with said I really wouldn’t. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.
There was something different in our yard, just today. A pigeon tremex.
These are harmless, but pretty big, and when they fly around they sound kind of like little helicopters. It’s a horntail.
I don’t know why they have “pigeon” in their name, because I’ve seen pigeons and this isn’t what they look like. Humans can be very peculiar creatures with all their insistence on naming things. This one’s scientific name is Tremex columba. Columba as in dove, or I guess pigeon. What a weird name.
The same thing is true of the “cow-pen daisies”. I don’t know what a cow pen is, though the guy I live with tried to explain it to me. I’ve never seen a cow, or a pen, except the kind the guy I live with writes with.
I tried to picture a cow writing, but that didn’t help much.
I guess, really, these daisies show up around the perimeter of places where cows are kept. I try to picture a place where something I’ve never seen is kept, but no luck.
The daisies have a scientific name, Verbesina encelioides.
You can see here that they were kind of wilty today.
There are also some sunflowers, Helianthus annuus, right in the middle of that picture.
I guess the sunflowers and the cow-pen daisies, which are also annuals, need a little bit more rain than we’ve been getting, so the guy I live with watered them just this evening. This picture was taken before the watering.
The daisies in the “way back” border are so wilty and pathetic I don’t have the heart to show what they look like, but all of these are self-sown, so I guess it’s not all that bad.
There’s not much else to report. I mean there are lots of things to report, but most of them aren’t all that interesting. A pigeon tremex is interesting, but, say, what came in the mail today isn’t. (The mail was thrown away.)
Hot, dry, rainless weather isn’t all that interesting, either, though the nights here are very cool, and I make excellent use of that.
Maybe you can see the crack in the patio. That part of the patio was poured after the part on the right, and no expansion joints, like the one I’m lying on, were used, so the newer concrete cracked in the “awful” winter of 2006-07. I may have mentioned this before, considering the number of posts on this blog, but it’s one of the many “to-do” things that would have been important thirty years ago.
I could make a list of things the guy I live with says are no longer important, but it would be a long one. He says that’s one of the advantages of being over seventy. Kind of liberating, he says.
Oh, I guess I’m starting to ramble. We purebred border collies aren’t always as super-focused as we’re made out to be.
I’ll say goodnight, then, with another picture of me enjoying my patio, cracks and all.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
We live in hope of rain, and have been promised rain by the forecasters – with an over 90% probability overnight – so some relief is in sight. I have just read my emails and there is post in the postbox! It may or may not be interesting but I will go an investigate anyway.
We have a slight chance of rain this evening, and tomorrow evening, and then zero percent chance for the next several days.
The guy I kive with actually prefers to have nothing of interest in the mail.
Oh, books, plants and seeds are the especially welcome things in the post – and the pension payment, of course!
There is that.
Way back when, the guy I live with really enjoyed getting seeds from overseas. The different paper and things like that, as well as the vicarious travel, thinking about habitats and stuff.
He still gets compact discs from England.
Mee-yow Mani an guy wee live inn parry-llel unnyversess!!
They meow RAIN & it is Sunny. They say Sunny an wee et torrential downpour!
Up BYE THE FARM north of us they had a Water funnel that came on land an beecame aTornado!! It veered away from THE Farm thanxfullee!
Yore 1st foto iss GRATE~ you reelly are foto-genick!
An thanx fore meowin ’bout flowerss….Back 3 yeerss ago BellaSita an Aunty Mary-Ellen planted flowerss inn nayburr’ss garden. They did not know what they were…..you solved THE mystery!
Cowpen Daisiess soundss purrty kewl. Sadly this nayburr iss no longer frendly nor does he water his Garden an wee not alloud to….(long story…)
Anyway you look furry reelaxed Mani an mee hopess you enjoy yore happy nappy!
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an 🙂 BellaSita Mum
The cow-pen daisies are pretty nice, and the bees like them, too.
We certainly know about unpleasant neighbors. There was this “insanely strong” perfume smell this morning, that came into our bedroom. It was the neighbor’s laundry. The smell was so strong I was worried about the guy I live with, because it caused him heart palpitations. (He just had an echocardiogram so there was no worry there.) The neighbor knows the effect of these unbelievably strong smells but doesn’t care.
That’s why all the rare plants in the troughs have died, because he couldn’t hold his breath long enough to go out and water them.
It’s a pretty nice day here, though, otherwise.
EEEEEWWWWW what are yore nayburrss usin to wash laundry??? It soundss UCKY Mani!!
Our close nayburr (who used to bee nice) as 87 glade Plug-innss inn her place an when patio doorss are open wee chokin…that iss 1 of THE reesonss mee not sit out anymore….THE smell iss pawfull….
An so iss THE smell of Heavy drugss!!!
Sum peepel think they are entitelled an can due what they want!
BellaSita callss them ID-E-OTTSS!
So sad that rare plantss dyed beecause Guy cuud not water them due to stanky smellss! 😦
It was pretty awful this morning; he had sort of a panic attack. The luandry hangs outside so the smell is there all day long.
As you can imagine, the guy I live with has a lot of masks, but they don’t really help.
There was one neighbor, years and years ago, who used to spray all kinds of chemicals, but even the smell of those wasn’t as strong as the laundry.
Pleese woof to uy wee are furry sorry hee had a Panick attack! Wee DUE understand!
Iss so sad yore nayburr can not bee nicer…
Maybee they use those inn-wash scent boo-sturss! They make BellaSita so ill shee throwss up!
An our nayburr who usess THE 87 ladess used to put mothballss inn her wee garden! BellaSita begged her to ceese an deesist! Shee furinallee diid stop.
Now wee are findin poison discss made with same chemmycall as mothballss…Wee hatess chemmycalls!!!
The guy I live with says thanks; he saw a therapist after his wife died and she gave him advice on how to deal with panic attacks (just let them happen, rather than fighting them).
But our neighbor is a real problem. I kind of hesitated talking about this, because it might send the blog in a direction we’d rather not have it go in, but it has prevented us from working in the garden as much as we would like, and has caused the guy I live with a considerable amount of anguish ever since his wife died. Like rubbing salt into wounds, I guess you would say.
Wee toetally understand Mani an Guy! With THE nasty peepell smokin ummm “bad stuff” wee can not sit out on patio. Gardenin barelee getss dun. An BellaSita getss deepressed stayin in so much….
An yore a gardenin bloggie so of coarse youss’ want to meow/woof ’bout gardenin rite? An what yore nayburrss due iss like rubbin salt!! PHOOEY!
It pretty much is just like that.
We can get things done when there’s a breeze, but not as much as the guy I live with would like.
I guess it’s too hot to garden right now, though.
Same same Mani an Guy! Mee thinkss wee say out 8 timess this Summer…smell of Skunk Weed an other stuff iss horrabad! An then wee have THE nayburr who makess so much noise when wee come out…so wee don’t o out!!
Wish wee cuud send our nasty nayburrss sumwhere else! 😉
Living out in the country might be the answer, but the guy I live with said it would be too far away from the store.
Same here Mani! Wee live on west side of a place of 22,000 peepss. Wee have 2 riverss bye us which iss nice.
THE guud pointss are 2 corner shopss; our Family Clinick an Pharmacy an 2 restaurantss….so deespite all THE aggro, wee are inn a purrfect low-cation….
There isn’t any place the guy I live with can walk to, except a gas station. He used to carry a can of gas to the station to fill it up for the weed-whacker.
Youss’ iss furry rural then….wee inn a small place alltho wee apposta bee inncorpurrated like a city!! Heelareeus! 😉
Those are nice plums! American plum is naturalized here because it was used as understock for some of the orchards. They are variable though. Most are dark purplish red. Some are apricot colored, like the lighter colored sort in your picture. I never determined if they are different species. I suspect that they are just naturally variable. However, Chickasaw plum is supposedly another species. I do not know if I have ever seen it, but the fruit does happen to look like the apricot colored American plums. In the future, I would like to get a copy of it, just to experience the fruit and use it for jam. I know that there are more than enough plums of various sorts here, and I should be more than satisfied, . . . but the guy you live with can likely tell you about that. I even got a beach plum from New York, just because it is another plum from North America.
The guy I live with said that most plums and other fruit trees don’t do very well here because squirrels and raccoons get all the fruit, so there isn’t much point.
There’s an old apple tree across the canal that was probably planted a hundred years ago when there was a little farm, but the guy I live with has never picked any of the apples. I like apples.
Well then, the squirrels and raccoons would know more about how well fruit trees do there. It would be nice if they would share though. There is an old apple tree across the road from here that I thought was my own secret apple tree; but then my Pa told me that he picked apples from it with his mother about the time that he was in kindergarten. Coincidentally, I just reblogged an old article about it earlier today.
Fruit trees were the first things planted here, because everyone said to, according to the guy I live with. They’re all gone now except the one apple tree. We never get any apples from it, but it’s still nice to have. The only drawback is the pile of rotten apples that yellowjackets love.
That is not a drawback for the yellowjackets, although I would not want yellowjackets in my garden. I miss my fruit trees very much, and am ready to install replacements. I will figure out how to protect them from the deer later.
The fallen apples in the garden were covered with yellowjackets and bald-faced hornets. The guy I live with raked up all the apples and let them rot in one pile.
Rotting apples do smell good, though. Unlike most rotting stuff.
Don’t canine people find any sort of rotting stuff to be appealing? Rhody likes to roll around in rotting stuff that crows drag out of the dumpsters out back. He sometimes invited one of his friends to do the same. When I yell at them, they seem confused, as if everyone should enjoy rolling in such rotting stuff.
They do, but humans find the smell of rotting apples to be pleasant, unlike other stuff.
The guy I live with said that the poet Schiller kept rotting apples in his desk drawer; the I guess autumnal smell helped him compose poetry.
Well, . . . although I neither drink alcohol nor smoke, I do happen to like the aromas of whisky, cheap canned beer and an ashtray full of Marlboro cigarette butts. They remind me of my Uncle Bill. It would be rad if there were an air freshener with such aromas!
There’s a soap, made by Outlaw Soaps, that smells like whiskey.