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 nudiustertian events and their resolution. You may remember me from such posts as “One Continuous Mistake”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see the swamp cooler, there, behind the chair. I know where the action is.
The guy I live with is in a bad mood about the weather. It’s 91 degrees F (33C), with 17 percent humidity. It’s “supposed to rain”, and sure enough, we got a hundred drops.
The next week we’re supposed to have a heat wave. “What is it we’ve been having almost every day since last year?” Apparently 91 degrees or hotter almost every day in the last month isn’t a heat wave.
The word “nudiustertian”, which the guy I live with just learned, means “referring to the day before yesterday”, and today, the guy I live with, bothered by what he had done with the gravel the day before yesterday, undid all that he had done, and made it almost look like he hadn’t done anything.
The gravel is gone, except for a few peas here and there. It is called “pea gravel”, after all. It was spread on bare areas on the raised beds, and on the old paths.
I was relieved that the guy I live with came to his senses. Few people seem capable of that, these days.
The next thing, after he works on the final placement of the rocks you can see in the picture above, is the enclosure. The guy I live with says it’s a mess, with way too much vinca, and a bunch of plants suffering in the heat and drought. There are some happy lavenders, though. The guy I live with has ordered a bunch of lavenders maybe five times in the last ten years and then given most of them away. He’s going to order more, but this time, actually plant them in the enclosure, resisting the impulse to give them away.
He has a large mental list of plants he would rather have there than lavenders, but the plants on his list aren’t hardy here.
One more thing.
The guy I live with got a shipment of plants, mostly cactus for the front yard, from Cistus Nursery in Oregon, the night before last. The owner of the nursery was just here in the garden and I like him a lot, though I’ve met him before.
The shipment arrived late at night. The guy I live with put the plants on this shelf, and then watered them.
All of a sudden I saw a dark thing kind of slithering across the patio. It was very alarming.
The guy I live with made me go out and look, after he took this picture when the slithering had stopped. I thought it was a snake, but it was just water.
And that’s all I have for today. There’s no path now. And no snake slithering across the patio.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me on a different path; the canal road.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
We’re still waiting for the El Niño effect to take hold…with bated breath. Hopefully towards the end of the month. Paws crossed.
The man you live with did quick work with that pea gravel path. Here’s hoping everything turns out well, the cactus and lavender get planted and all things will right themselves soon.
The guy I live with says he’s dubious about any monsoon business. They keep predicting stuff but instead we get a heat wave next week, with wind.
He hasn’t ordered the lavenders yet. The enclosure has to be cleared out first and that’s going to be a chore. I’ll just watch.
Is it possible the guy you live with likes to move rocks more than the average gardener? Whatever he does will look great. And those cacti are beautiful.
He says thanks. The guy I live with does like to move rocks, especially ones that have been hidden under foliage for years.
I hear that because it’s so hot, he’s redoing the “hardscape” rather than planting a lot of new plants, though cacti don’t really count. Cacti do like water, but not as much as perennials and so on.
More hardscape is a good idea. I do love stone in the garden. I need to haul mine around before it gets too hot these days.
These were all purchased stones (that’s what you call them when you spend money on them, because it sounds fancier); the guy I live with thought the recently-moved ones didin’t fit in to what used to be a rock garden.
They’re sandstone, purchased from Tribble in Lyons, who apparently no longer carries that type of rock. Fortunately, because I know what would happen if they did still carry it. Looks like High Plains Stone (see? stone) doesn’t either.
There are some really cool stones in the garden from that shipment.
Although this may be an annoyingly metaphorical lens through which to view things, the title of your post ‘ new path, no path’ reminded me of the poem by Antonio Machado:
Traveler, your footprints/ are the only road, nothing else./ Traveler, there is no road/you make your own path as you walk./As you walk, you make your own road/and when you look back/ you see the path/you will never travel again./Traveler, there is no road/only a ship’s wake on the sea.
Funny; the guy I live with looked at that poem when we were discussing titles for the post.
I thought “no path” would be good, in a Zen-like sense, but there is a path, just not the path that was there before,but the one that was there before that one.
Mee-yow WOW! Mistur Guy you undid yore werk? Wee sorta like it back as it was. Pleese poace yore self an stay hydrated. Maybe join Mani bye THE Swamp Kewler?? That iss so weerd you thott you saw a Snake an yet it was just water Mani….maybee a murr-age?? Wee love yore canal walkin foto..it feelss kewler…
***purrss*** BellaDharma an {{hugss}} BellaSita Mum
Thanks. Yes, the guy I live with didn’t like his work at all. He’s pretty picky.
We drink so much water we’re like giant water balloons.
Mee-yow wee drinkin alot of water two Mani! Guy wee hope yore new werk meetss with yore appurrval 😉
We are drinking lots. I like the return to normal, path-wise.
Wee stay hydrated two Mani. An there iss sumthin comfertin inn our roo-teenss rite?
Routines are nice, and comforting.
Xactly Mani an Guy…roo-teenss are so-o guud!!! Like roo-teen treetss 😉
Yes, they are.
Mew mew mew…..
Nothing beats new plants but that heatwave is most unwelcome. We are in one here at the moment.
The heat here is grotesque. The guy I live with doesn’t mind it, but I do.
It’s been 32C here for ages but next week it will be 37C. What fun.
Pffffffff! That’s horrible. 28C here today was just terrible.
No kidding. The guy I live with says it’s going to be even hotter next week.
I’m very glad he got the swamp coolers. Very glad.
We are threatening to get a cooler here as well.
The two portable ones downstairs are “swamp coolers’, that is, evaporative coolers. The guy I live with said he thinks they work best in dry climates.
The portable air conditioner upstairs is a little Midea. It’s kind of noisy but it works really well, and was ridiculously easy to install. Open the window, fit the plate in the window, attach the hose, attach the hose to the air conditioner, and plug it in.
It was cheaper than the regular in-the-window kind.
The idea of having whole-house air conditioning and having to have all the doors and windows closed rubs him the wrong way.
One of his neighbors has a whole-house swamp cooler which his neighbors said he really liked, and the windows can be open.
Something smaller would probably suit here – a good fan!
A good fan that lasts would be just the thing.
Nobody had air conditioning in Denver when the guy I live with moved here in 1961. Now almost everybody does.
Denver used to be billed as “climate capital of the world”; now it’s more like “oven capital of the world”.
Back breaking work to move all the gravel again. Is there a new plan to keep the path from being muddy (assuming it ever rains)? The cactus look dangerous so be careful Mani. I got a a couple of pads delivered in paper bags. They harpooned me many times just trying to get them out and into pots. Beautiful but vicious creatures.
I guess it’s just going to be dirt there. We’re used to it.
I stay away from cactus but these are going in front, along the driveway. Near the driveway, anyway.