Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here today to talk about my encounter, and a few other things. You may remember me from such posts as “In The Furnace”. among, so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It may look slightly stormy in the background, but the guy I live with said that was “just for show”.
I heard thunder, but the storm passed us by after a couple of minutes of sprinkling.
The storm went to the northeast, as usual.
I can tell how frustrated and disappointed the guy I live with is right now. We haven’t had a good soaking rain since July 16.
He has been enjoying the hummingbirds, which are still here, maybe because of the buffet on the south side of the house. Not a very good picture, but I think you can see all the redness.
And the buffet in the front garden.
The most conspicuous buffet selection here now is Salvia darcyi. It was wilting pathetically a couple of days ago so the guy I live with turned on the hose and pointed it right at the bases of all the plants. He stood there for a while, watering.
I have to admit this isn’t all that exciting to me, since I don’t see red, and even though the guy I live with tried to describe the color to me, I didn’t get it.
And anyway, I had an encounter on my evening walk yesterday.
I could tell something was afoot because my super-efficient nose told me so.
The fox, which is what this was, looked at me. I looked at the fox. The fox looked at me some more. I looked at the fox some more.
We looked at each other for quite some time while the guy I live with fumbled with his phone and tried to get a halfway decent picture. Maybe this is just quarterway decent.
We just kept looking at each other.
Eventually the fox trotted away, and naturally I wanted to drag the guy I live with on the leash down into the underbrush to look for the fox, but I could tell by all the complaining at the other end of the leash that I was overdoing it.
This was of course the first time I’ve ever overdone anything.
I guess that’s it for today.
This evening we walked all the way to the end of where we walk, toward the east, where the canal takes a turn, and the streets there were wetter than our street. They even got more rain three blocks from our house than we did.
The guy I live with had an opinion about that. I can’t repeat what he said.
I found something interesting to look at.
Then we turned around to go home.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
The fox looks like a chihuahua. Is it a gray fox? The guy you live with would know if it is red; but it does not like it is.
It’s a red fox. The guy I live with said that when he zooms in with the phone camera the color, not to mention the detail, often isn’t great.
Well, even for those of us who can see red, red foxes can really look grayish brown anyway.
These are pretty red.
LOL Hilarious accounting of your walk!
Thanks.
Our dry spell has finished, it seems, and we have had regular rain over the past week or so, enough to disrupt gardening as we dash for cover. One yew hedge has been left to be cut on a dry day. Garlic planted! No foxes but lots of pheasants around the garden.
The guy I live with said the dry spell here is extremely depressing, and he knows about depression.
We have yews here, too; two large ones (taller than the guy I live with) and a smaller Irish yew. The latter is a very rare thing for Colorado, apparently.
There used to be pheasants in semi-rural parts around here, but not any more.
Whoa…that was quite the encounter! Maybe the fox is on the hunt for water too. P.S. The storm didn’t go too far north judging by the 14 tiny droplets on the sidewalk. I had hoped for a decent shower but nature said nada, nope. Sigh.
Well the fox could just go to the canal, which is only maybe fifty feet from where we saw the fox.
I think we had a hundred drops.
That’s about 80 more drops that we received. Today was supposed to be a 50% chance for rain and all I’m seeing is a lot of blue skies and teeny clouds. 😦
The guy I live with said “a fifty percent chance” means either it’ll rain or it won’t.
He said he might try to do some predicting.
Like, “The rain will fall mainly on the plains.”
Mee-yow yore red flowerss are so ye-brant Mani an Guy!! WOW you saw a live Fox Mani?? Maybee hee thott you were his/her PawPaw?? Wee sorry you still not get a guud rain…this iss cray-cray!!! You ARE lookin fine wee must mew! **nose bopss** BellaDharma an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks. I did see a fox, for the third time I think. We now have a lot of them in our neighborhood.
The red flowers are for the hummingbirds but we didn’t see any today so I think they left.
WOW! You have Foxess?? Better than Coyotess mee thinkss….they terryfy mee. Wehre due HimminBirdss go fore ‘Winter’ Mani?
We have foxes and coyotes. More foxes, these days.
The hummingbirds fly to Mexico for the winter.
Here’s an article: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-basics-how-why-and-where-of-bird-migration/
Btw we got a quarter inch of rain last night; lots of scary thunder.
EEEKKKKK on THE Funder! HURRAH on THE Rain!! Wee think Foxess are nicer than Coyotess….fore reel….. Thanx fore article. Wee go reed it. Wee allwayss wundered where Hummin Birdss went Mani an Guy……
You’re welcome. The thunder was super scary.The guy I live with said that our area, including the foothills, have 500 lightning strikes in 15 minutes.
500 strikess inn 15 minutess??? That iss crazy Mani an Guy!! Wee glad youss’ are both safe an no –zappin– happened!
It was super scary, for sure.