Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you some possibly interesting stuff. You may remember me from such interesting posts as “It Almost Rained”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
That’s our fancy Austrian (or Australian) gear-driven sprinkler. The one I disassembled when I was little. It still works, but hasn’t been quite the same ever since.
The guy I live with said that autumn is “sort of” here. It’s really dry, so it doesn’t seem all that autumnal.
Except for the maple leaves turning. This is Acer grandidentatum.
The water in the canal is super clear; I suppose it will be shut off any time now. That’s kind of sad, because we like to see the water.
There was more excitement yesterday when someone came to take pictures of the place where the telephone cable was cut. Now it’s easy to get back there.
I was left alone for a while today, because the guy I live with went to see his friend, and they went out to lunch at their favorite ramen place. I’ve never had ramen.
This is the entrance (and also, obviously, the exit):
The guy I live with says this is very cool. They usually come from the street you can see there.
He said it was the kind of place you might run down if you were a spy and someone was chasing you. There’s an alley on the side where he was standing.
Then they went to a little nursery that I’ve shown pictures of before, because the guy I live with wanted to get a Rocky Ford cantaloupe, which he did, and also a whole bunch of mild Hatch chiles, which he also did.
He also bought three of these things:
These are the fruit of the Osage-orange, Maclura pomifera. They’re about the size of baseballs. I guess the Osage people used the very hard wood for bows, and so the French called the wood bois d’arc, which turned into “bodark”, the way words do.
Apparently people put these in the corners of their rooms to keep spiders from living there. The guy I live with isn’t against most spiders, but he says I do try to eat them, so maybe these bodark things will help. He’s kind of doubtful, but the fruit is pretty interesting. And not really edible.
So then he came home, finally, and there was a box of cyclamen on the driveway.
This is a bit late to be planting them, here, but the guy I live with is going to do it anyway.
After the cyclamen were put in the dishpan and watered, we had a visitor.
Not the greatest picture, but maybe you can see that it’s a hawk.
One of the guy I live with’s favorite plants is flowering now: Solidago ‘Wichita Mountains’ (he thinks it’s Solidago speciosa).
In the daytime, you can smell and hear this plant before you see it; it’s covered with bees and all sorts of other things. It has a very nice scent, too.
The Wichita Mountains are southwest of Oklahoma City and a very long drive from here.
Let’s see, what else? Oh. I’m supposed to say that we don’t always get emails telling us of comments on my posts; this is some weird thing that irks the guy I live with because he says technology is supposed to work. Sometimes it doesn’t, though.
It looked like rain on my evening walk.
About ten tiny drops fell, as we walked.
Anyway, that was my day. Me staying at home, listening to music on the internet radio the guy I live with bought especially for me, while he went out to lunch with his friend. I know how important that is, so I didn’t complain.
I guess we’re going to plant cyclamen tomorrow.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Technology constantly fails to perform here in my experience. I’ve never eaten ramen and I never listen to music. Otherwise, I’m with you all the way! I hope the cyclamen do well and that you have a few swims in the canal before it is closed off again.
The guy I live with said the water in the canal is probably too chilly now. It’s not very hot here so I guess I’ll just look at the water.
He spent quite some time peeling the mud off the part of the garden where the new cyclamen were to be planted. It was like peeling a chocolate topping off of a cake. It could easily have been worse; the hole where the mud came from has no plants around it, right by the fence.
It’s always a nuisance when these workmen come into the garden. Our electricity suppliers send a group around to make sure trees are not growing up into the overhead wires. It is best to stand watching them when they are working as it helps keep them careful with plants and do least damage.
The guy I live with says overhead lines are easier to repair than buried ones.
And tree branches can rub against the insulation of wires, and with electrical wires, arcing can sometimes happen. (This sounds scary to me.)
One time when he was working outside, back in the days when it rained here, he saw that happen, on a wet afternoon. That’s why the electric company sends people out to trim trees.
That is . . . . sorta cool that they guy you live with brought you some fruits of the Osage orange, . . . I think. They are weird. That is one species that I wanted to encounter while in Oklahoma, but did not. I happen to be in Los Angeles County now, and Osage orange is supposedly naturalized here. I have never met it though.
The guy I live with said there were a couple of big trees at DBG but they were cut down to make a new parking lot.
Now we have osage-orange fruits in the corners of the bedroom downstairs. Just as an experiment.
It seems like an odd tree to plant. They must be appealing to some degree. I was told by those who are familiar with them that they are thorny thicket like trees that are unpleasant to work with and handle. I would plant one just because I have never seen one before.
I guess so. The guy I live with really isn’t into trees, but he says a lot of people are.
Rhody is into trees, and likes to claim them wherever he goes. He says that dogwoods have ruff bark.
Uh huh. No dogwoods here.
Cattails?
We don’t have those here. Used to, and then the pond where they were growing was drained.
You had a busy day Mani. So nice your guy got to go out for lunch. I’ve always wanted to try real Ramen not the cheap noodle and seasoning packages I lived on while in college. Where did the big bucket of cyclamen come from? A nice surprise.
The guy I live with said the cyclamen came from Edelweiss Perennials. They’re pretty easy to grow from seeds but he wanted plants.
He also said we’re pretty fortunate here in having quite a few ramen restaurants (and also that his friend likes ramen too), but when they went out last week he had the fatty salmon poke (best thing ever, he says) and she had unagi with rice.
The ramen was delicious. Even the leaves falling with every gust of breeze didn’t detract from our lovely lunch.
Pleese pass us an Osage Orange Mani!! Tehre iss a Spydur loose inn here an mee sp00ked bye it!
THE Hawk iss furry kewl…an wee like THE cleer water inn yore creek!
Are Ramen THE noodless??? They sound tastey!
You look so nice Mani…Autmm suitss you well….
~~head rubss~~BellaDharma an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks.
The guy I live with says it’s a myth that osage-oranges repel spiders, but he wanted them anyway, the way you do sometimes.
It’s a pretty nice time of year, but rain would make it nicer.
Ramen are the noodles (like somen, soba, and so on). There are all different kinds of ramen; they go in soup.
Mee-yow mee wunderss if THE Mistur Noodless that BellaSita eatss are Ramen?? Mee must meow to her!
THE osage orangess are still furry kewl lookin…..whether they werk or not!!!
Wee cuud send youss’ sum rain Mani….well wee can try…. 😉
I don’t know. I think ramen refers to a noodle soup, and “ramen noodles” refer to the kind of noodles used.
It did rain here yesterday. A little bit. 1.25 millimeters.
Interesting fruit. Not the sort I’d eat. If you try to eat spiders, and those are in the corners, I guess you tried them to know they don’t taste good. That ramen place is certainly hidden away. I’ve never gone to a ramen restaurant, my one experience is with the dried kind from the grocery store, and not those for a long while.