Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you about our exciting times. You may remember me from such posts as “There And Back Again”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see that the sky looks like rain. That might be true in a different climate, but here, those clouds are over the mountains, and even though the weather in summer usually moves from west to east, we probably won’t get any rain.
It rained here two days ago, a little.
The Sedum ‘Matrona’ flowers have changed color.
And there are colchicums flowering. These are mostly ones that he planted a week ago.
The guy I live with says newly-planted bulbs (colchicums have corms, but we still say “bulbs”) often flower before ones that have been in the ground for years.
On my walk yesterday, the guy I live with got a pretty good picture of the “new” ducks; the ones that were ducklings earlier this year.
He also got a picture of me standing by these weird plants that grow along the creek. The brown ones, there; they’ve been eaten a lot by grasshoppers.
The guy I live with doesn’t know what these are (and doesn’t care all that much), but he says they have a smell of cumin and fenugreek.
Anyway, now about the excitement.
We generally prefer no excitement at all, just having one day be like all the rest, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way.
It started a couple of days ago when they painted my Private Lawn.
The guy I live with spent a lot of time out there, talking to the person doing the locating, because he did that for a while. People often object to having someone come in their yard and paint stuff, so the guy I live with said it makes things easier if the people doing that know he used to do that, too.
On my evening walk, yesterday, I went up to a hole to look at it, and the guy I live with said I jumped backwards into the air when I saw how deep it was. It was a narrow hole, but really deep. The guy I live with said it was a “pilot hole” for the directional boring being done.
They run a pipe in the ground, with a sort of drill bit on the end; the bit is guided electronically by someone walking on the ground. The equipment used can “see” obstacles buried in the ground (including other cables and stuff).
There’s a lot of noise outside now, because of the boring. You can see the truck in the distance, on my morning walk. Our garden is on the left, on the other side of those trees. The guy I live with suggested we go take a look, but it seemed kind of scary to me.
Getting closer now. You can see a part of our yard where nothing has ever planted (where the green boards are), because it’s always been a place for purebred border collies (like me) to be able to look out into the field and check up on things.
You can also see the foothills, about five miles away.
Well, that’s it for today.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me near the creepy willow tree, taken yesterday evening. It’s less creepy now that the branch hanging over the path on the west side of the creek was broken by snow a while ago, but there’s still a little part that hangs over the path.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
The colchicums are so very welcome at this time of year.
They really are. The guy I live with said that more rain would be nice, but I guess that’s not going to happen.
How considerate of your person to make work more comfortable for the painters/hole diggers. Is this a pipeline being buried?
ceci
It’s a new electrical line for part of the neighborhood.
The guy I live with remembers when this technology was first used for phones here. It’s a lot better than having to dig trenches through every back yard.
The guy I live with was going to go to a plant sale tomorrow, but the people are going to be in my back yard, so he’s staying home.
I’ve never had people in my back yard when I’ve been alone in the house, and he said it might be difficult for me.
The guy you live with is so considerate. Not sure the lure of a plant sale would have me being so. A little excitement now and then is good for us. Keeps us from becoming too complacent aka boring. I’ve found being complacent has become very easy during the pandemic.
Well, it turns out that more work is being done in our yard than the guy I live with thought, so he’s helping the workers get around in the garden.
It’s pretty exciting for me.
Oh gee, I really thought that Colchium grows from bulbs. I know that it is a mere technicality, but I should know better. I get annoyed by descriptions of Canna and Calla as ‘bulbs’.
Corms, like crocus, crocosmia, and so forth. They renew themselves every year.
When Crocosmia corms line up on their old stems, they look like corms on the cob.
That’s true; they do.
Excitement indeed. We had ours earlier in the year when our residential bridge had to be replaced. That’s enough excitement for one year. Everything looks so lush and green in your yard. Do you enjoy chasing the grasshoppers? Or is that too mundane?
I’m not interested in grasshoppers unless they land on me. The garden does look pretty green because we got about a tenth of an inch of rain.
I had to stay inside most of the day, though I got to go on an unscheduled walk, to tinkle of course. It’s a good thing that the guy I live with stayed home, because of all the coming and going in my back yard.
Mee-yow mee wuud jumped at THE small butt deep hole two Mani!!! If any man showss up here to spray BellaSita oess out an sorta deemandss to know wat iss oin on….shee furry purrtective…allso wee have had rass pained so many timess ann nothin iss dun….so BellaSita getss upset….shee iss funny that way!!
Yore Colliechum flowerss are furry purrty Mani an Guy…our teeny rose bush ave us a 3rd rose this week…an wee have a few Snappydraonss flowerin….
Wee had rain two butt still not enuff. BellaSita waterss our garden efurry nite!
Mani you look furr hansum inn yore fotoss! An THE Duckss are so grown up now!!
Hope any noise iss not too scarey Mani…..
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an đŸ™‚ BellaSita Mum
Thanks. We had about ten drops of rain, total.
When I went on my unscheduled walk yesterday, the guy I live with took me over to look at the equipment in the field. There was one tractor thing, with treads, that had really big tube in front, with like a big sharp point on the end. The guy I live with said it looked like something you would batter down castle walls with. (I don’t know what a castle is.)
When it drove up onto the flatbed, that was super scary. Basically, that big sharp point drills into the ground (deep), one person holds a device that communicates with it so they can tell if there are any obstacle like rocks and stuff.
At the other end is a kind of rope that’s used to pull cables through the dirt.
They’re coming back tomorrow to do more work.
Mee-yow wow!!! That Driller soundss purrty impressive an scarey Mani!!!
Wee hope all THE werk iss completed soon an you due not et stressed out bye THE noise an commotion!
Thanks; it was really noisy today.
Oh nose Mani! Are you OKay?? Did you hide out inn upstairss fort?? Did Guy stay with you?? Sendin you ~~head rubss~~ an **purrss** BellaDharma
I was okay in my Fort.
But today, some phone people came into the yard, because the buried phone cable got cut when the boring was done. The guy I live with let me out to say Hi to them, but I don’t really like having strangers in my yard, unless they come through the house instead of the garage.
So tomorrow some people are coming to dig a hole in my yard, way back in the southwest corner, in the “employees only” section of the garden. I hardly ever go back there.