Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you up to date on at least some things. You may remember me from such posts as “What Happened Last Night”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I’ve been in my fort a lot lately, because the sky constantly looks like it’s going to thunder. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
You can see how gloomy things look.
The guy I live with has been doing some work in this part of the garden; removing a lot of plants that he decided were too big, and so on.
One thing that got to me this morning, because I don’t like seeing the guy I live with sad, is when he read that attaching something called a “Slinky” to the pole with the oriole feeder might discourage the squirrels, and he thought about the times he and his wife went to toy stores, because she loved doing that. The toy stores they used to go to are gone now, and he became very sad, thinking of that, and all the other places they used to go to that are gone now. I know he misses her a lot.
But he looked online and found a toy store very close to us, one that sounds nice, so he’s going to go there this week, to get this “Slinky” thing.
He said even if it doesn’t work, it can also go down the stairs by itself. This I’ll have to see.
There are some plants in flower now. The beeplant, for one. There aren’t as many this year, which is too bad.
The best flower here right now is the “blazing star”, Mentzelia decapetala. It’s a native biennial so this will be it once all the plants flower. They flower in the evening.
And the guy I live with finally found some plants of the silverberry, Elaeagnus commutata, at ForestFarm. There was a large plant in the front yard, years ago, but one year it died, for some reason, and he hasn’t been able to find one since then.
They do sucker like nobody’s business but the guy I live with said he could deal with that.
I am also shedding like crazy. The guy I live with said there’s dog hair all over the house. I do get brushed a lot, but still, I keep shedding. I might even lose some weight.
The guy I live with took me on a walk and hoped I would do most of my shedding outside. That of course didn’t work.
I did want to explore the creek on this walk, and the guy I live with said that was okay.
He took a picture of the creek. The top layer is the native soil, then below that, the native subsoil. You can see water seeping from the topsoil and the subsoil in this picture. All that dark part is wet.
Then sand at the bottom. After the flood there was much more sand in the creek than usual.
He said it was like a layer cake.
The guy I live with said it would have made for easier gardening if the developer hadn’t removed the native soil from around the house and spread this really icky clay all around. But he can dig down through the clay to get to the native soil, at least in places.
Only half, if even that, of the back yard is the horrible clay, which is why there are all the raised beds.
Anyway, I went down into the creek.
Then I disappeared. The guy I live with said he knew I was still there. I wasn’t fooling him at all. The creek is much deeper now because of the flood.
I wound up on the wrong side of the creek.
Or maybe the guy I live with was on the wrong side.
I walked over to a bank that was easy to get down, and then climbed back up on the right side.
So that’s it for today. I hope you found this utterly fascinating. I know I did, at least the creek exploration part.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Happy to share a silverberry sucker with you, if FF doesn’t pan out.
The guy I live with says thanks, but he’s going to take extra care of these.
When there was a big one in the front yard, it suckered under the driveway. That was a bit much.
Very good. Ours suckered as well, and continues to do so. We just wish it got taller instead…
They get pretty big. The guy I live with said he might post a picture of the one that used to be here.
I’ve seen this species in a number of locations in the wild locally, but it rarely exceeds 6–7 feet, and in local gardens that seems to be the typical threshold, too. I was hoping for 12–15 feet. We’ve settled on other species…
It might be able to be trained to grow taller. The guy I live with said there was a pretty tall specimen in the late Allan Taylor’s garden in Boulder.
There’s a Russianolive called ‘Quicksilver’, which the guy I live with ordered, planted, and then killed by moving it around the garden. Unless it’s sterile, it probably isn’t legal to grow here anyway.
He said one time he saw some gorgeous specimens of Shepherdia argentea trained as trees.
That’s what I hear from my wife every year—why can’t we have Russian olive, for its fragrance. It’s certainly all over the eastern third of our state, so I’m sure I could find seedlings, but I appreciate that it’s planta non grata.
About a decade ago, we tried to kill our female specimen of S. argentea, for reasons I can’t recall. It responded by resprouting and assuming a tree form, and now we treasure it. Fickle humans…
Sent from my iPhone
There’s a dead buffaloberry here. The guy I live with says maybe he should remove it, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
He also said that back in the 1960s and 70s you could smell Russianolives all over the place.
Times have changed.
You don’t look like there was water in the creek? Our dogs are both very fond of wading and swimming in running water so I am an expert at what wet dogs look (and smell) like.
Ceci
The creek is dry again. I used to like to splash in the creek when there was nice, clean water in it, but when it rains a lot, the water doesn’t look very clean and the guy I live with says not to go in.
I do sometimes go into the canal, because the water there is usually pretty clean. Comes straight from the mountains.
The guy you live with certainly is fortunate to have you there to take care of him when he is sad, even if you can not always be near the bird feeder to keep squirrels away. Repelling squirrels is probably a very boring job anyway, since it would involve a lot of waiting for squirrels who will not show up while there is a good reason not to. You can leave that to the slinky; but what is so impressive about a slinky going down stairs. You can probably do that more efficiently. Privet (the terrier prior to Bill, who was the terrier prior to Rhody) fell down the stairs once, and learned that he could go down stairs faster that way than by the normal means.
Chasing squirrels off the feeders is very good exercise for me. Especially at this time of year when I spend most of my time secure in my Upstairs Fort.
It is probably good exercise for the squirrels also.
I’m sure it is.
It’s too bad we don’t live closer to each other. We could supply your whole neighbourhood with Eleagnus commutata (we call it Wolf Willow even though it’s not a willow at all). Want some seeds? Nice try disappearing Mani. The guy you live with is pretty quick so you will have to try harder to fool him next time.
Thanks, but there are these two plants. The guy I live with got one at a nursery a while ago, but he kept moving it around the garden, and it of course died.
There were some buffaloberries (Shepherdia argentea) here, too, but they died for some reason. Probably the root ball was too compacted. We have S. canadensis, too.
THE soil an subsoil DOES look like a Ladye rCake Mani an Guy!!! Maybee there iss NO worng side of THE Creek?!?!? HHHMMMM,,,
Wee sorry there has been Funder an you had to hang out inn yore fort….you DUE look cozy tho’! An so cute when out fore walkiess!
Wee hope yore flowerss grow well…
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an 🙂 BellaSita Mum
Thanks.
It poured rain here a few days ago, and then they said we’d get more yesterday and today, but we didn’t get much. It’s a lot better than being so dry, for sure.
Mee-yow Mani an Guy yesterday at Noon it suddenly rained for like 10 minutess……then stopped!
Today it staeted rainin at 7 Pee Em…..YIKESS!!!
Has stopped now butt Weather Peepss say wee will have rain on an off all nite! Mee hopess it will not rain so wee can feed Luna our Stray Kitty girl….
Glad youss’ had sum rain but not gettin flooded out Mani!
It poured rain here on Sunday, and the street started to flood, but the guy I live with had cleaned out the storm drain across the street, so it wasn’t as bad as last time.
It thundered all day yesterday but we didn’t get much rain at all.
HURRAH fore yore guy cleenin out storm drain!!!! Ourss on street overflowed but wee ae higher up so NO damage! An wee keep having these “Pop-Up” stormss outta nowhere Mani! Funder an Lightnin an mee ITB>>INN THE BED under pillow an sheet…..iss apposta bee unsettled all weekend!
Stay safe mee frend!
Thanks; you too.
It didn’t flood so much, and now we’re supposed to have some drier weather for a while.
HURRAH for dryer weather Mani! No rain heer today!! Another HURRAH! 😉
They say it might rain here today. Terrific storms down south, by the Black Forest, east of Colorado Springs.