Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, and here today to show you the three rocks. You may remember me from such posts as “The Flags”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see that more work was done here, yesterday; those three rocks. The guy I live with said the largest one weighed over 300 pounds. It took him quite a while to wrestle it onto the dolly with the pry bar and grub hoe. He moved so slowly, to avoid hurting himself, that transporting these three rocks, which were hidden under a bunch of Mahonia repens, took him all day.
He said the rocks “echo” the ones along the fence. I guess that makes sense. He said that one area (along the fence) with rocks and the other without any looked unbalanced.
He also said he’s going to sow buffalo grass and blue grama seeds in most of the bare soil you see here; you do that in spring or early summer. Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, showed the method of holding the seeds in place using burlap and landscape pins. I hear that it works pretty well.
The guy I live with says it’s also possible to do “dormant seeding”, later this year, but he’s never tried that, and since the seed is super expensive these days, he’s going to do it the regular way.
I’m kind of excited about all of this because it will mean my Private Lawn, which you can see there, will be almost doubled in size. I like my Private Lawn.
Today, the guy I live with stood and watched butterflies sipping nectar at the big rabbitbrush. This is a monarch. We hardly ever see these.
And, of course, it rained.
The guy I live with made his usual “joke” about failing to go to REI to buy a rubber raft for both of us. It was funny the first time.
Also, I got to try out the new path. You can see one of the three rocks in the distance. Trying out new paths means a lot to a purebred border collie.
I looked at the new grass that was planted where the firepit used to be, and the flagstone that needs to be leveled.
That one pole, a 4×4, with the elephant planter at its base, needs to be straightened, too. The guy I live with said the apple tree pushed it to the east, which is one reason why the fence eventually started to fall apart.
And that brings me to the end of today’s post. It rained a little more while this post was being worked on, but nowhere near the amount of rain we’ve been hoping for.
Until next time, then.
You misspelled “ephelant”.
I know, but this pot was something the guy I live with’s wife bought, so it’s different.
Oh, of course.
The guy I live with said it’s just been sitting there, unplanted, for a very long time.
Those three stones do echo. Three hundred pounds is quite a feat there. That monarch photo is so cool! I’m glad to know they like rabbitbrush. I saw a butterfly on one of mine a few days ago, which looked very much like a monarch but didn’t make it to the plant in time to confirm. Occasionally have seen them on Asclepias here. Wonderful photo!
Thanks. The guy I live with said the rabbitbrushes around here have lots of painted ladies (Vanessa cardui, Latin carduus=thistle, how we get “carding”, as in carding wool) visiting; they’re the most common butterfly on rabbitbrush.
The guy I live with said the heavy pry bar came with the house; it was in the garage, and has been very useful.
You guys are so lucky-you received twice as much rain as we did. 😉 Kudos to the man you live with for wrestling those 3 big rocks. It looks lovely.
Thanks. He says we got a total of 0.02 inches yesterday.
Meanwhile, New Mexico has received two trillion gallons of water from rain in the last couple of months.
Doesn’t sound very fair.
Yeah, we agree nature has been very unfair. We only received about 6 drops in our neighborhood. But at least the 90+ degree days seem to have left. 😬
Super unfair. The guy I live with said he felt two tiny drops on our evening walk. I didn’t notice them.
The weather is a lot nicer, for sure.I even feel like helping in the garden.
Mew mew mew about THE Raft joke Mani an Guy…youss’ sure have not gotted much REEL rain! Same heer butt nothin like yore lack of rain. Bet THE Buffylow Grass will look furabuluss! THE new path lookss lovelee Mani….as due you inn yore Fort
😉 BellaDharma an **blowss kissess** BellaSita Mum
The guy I live with insists the raft joke is funny, even after twenty-five times.
It’ll need to rain more next summer, the way it used to, for the buffalo grass to look nice, or, if the reservoirs get full after this coming winter, it can be watered once a month.
Mew mew emw wee think Guy iss funny. Mani trust mee BellaSita makess DAD jokess all THE time ;)Shee iss heelareeus even if THE jokess are silly…. Pawss crossed fore Buffylo Grass!
The surprising news that that section of the garden will have more buffalo grass + blue gamma makes me ask: have there been any experiments with other kinds of ground covers besides the lawn-ish varieties? I’ve been attempting the effect of a green carpet with wooly thyme, low growing sedum like ‘turquoise tails,’ Moroccan pincushion, and even ‘wine cups’ callirhoe involucrata (bad idea) and at this point, I am putting my eggs in the basket (so to speak) of the veronica family – ‘crystal river’ et al. I was especially hoping to try CO native pussytoes but couldn’t find plants to purchase this fall. It would be wonderful to hear what has worked and not worked in your garden!
(if my post wasn’t clear – none of my experiments have been satisfactory!)
Yes, blue grama and buffalo grass. The guy I live with isn’t a “waterer”, and almost no ground covers have lasted very long here. Turquoise Tails has, and a brown-leafed sedum of the same ilk. And some smaller sedums too.
The guy I live with said the list of plants that have died here would be embarrassingly and boringly long. So, so many plants; he estimated about ten million dollars’ worth of now-dead plants. (I thought that figure seemed high.)
There’s a “French culinary thyme” here that’s survived for several years, and what he got as Thymus glabrescens from Mountain Valley Growers has been here for years, but not as a groundcover.