the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here this evening to bring you some movies, and to talk about some other stuff. You may remember me from such posts as “Another Rain Movie”, among at least a few others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see the hairs on my posterior fluttering in the breeze created by the swamp cooler.
Both I and the guy I live with have decided we’re going to spend the rest of the summer enjoying the swamp cooler. The best way is to do it while napping.

So today, the first thing that happened was I was attacked by an unleashed dog on my morning walk. The guy I live with said I defended myself admirably, and no one was hurt, but he got really angry. He doesn’t act on his anger, but I knew he was very upset. It’s against the law to walk a dog without a leash, but some people don’t care.

Then he had to go get blood drawn for his annual physical, next week. He said he was disappointed that the wall next to the chair he sat in had all these vampire cartoons, because he claims to do a pretty good imitation of Bela Lugosi. He’s had his blood drawn like a zillion times in the last three and a half years.

When he got home, he decided to plant out all the cactus, because the weather here has changed, rather dramatically.
I had my dinner, and then this happened.

The weather people were talking about quarter-sized hail, but fortunately by the time the storm came over the foothills, that part had weakened.
I had my dinner, we went on our evening walk, the guy I live with rode his bike downstairs, and then it started to thunder.

It’s raining again, right now; really raining, and windy.
I’ll leave you with a mildly pathetic picture of me hiding from the thunder in my Upstairs Fort, where I’m very safe.

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about some plants, and other stuff. You may remember me from such posts as “Dry Grass”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It’s been really hot. Every day. Like, roastingly hot.
I’ve been enjoying the new swamp cooler, but I also like to lie out on the patio even when it’s hot, until the guy I live with tells me to come inside so I won’t roast to death outside. He’d have an awful lot of explaining to do if I roasted.

I guess, technically, it’s rained here every day for a while now, though usually only a few drops.
The guy I live with took some pictures of what you might call “post-rain clouds” the other night.
And it rained a little just this evening. Not a whole lot, but some.
So, anyway, about the title of today’s post. The guy I live with ordered some plants from Cistus Nursery in Oregon. Mostly cactus, but some other things as well.
He might be one of the only gardeners who orders plants when it’s like 95 degrees, especially considering the vagaries of delivery services these days, but the box arrived this morning and everything was totally fine.
The guy I live with is probably the only gardener who plants things when it’s 95 degrees, too, but maybe that’s another story.
He makes little flags, and sticks them next to new plants, to remind him that they need water. And every new plant is repotted into the special mix so that they grow more roots before planting.
The cactus are going in the front yard, so I won’t stick my nose into them, and believe it or not, there are even places for them.

However, and I know this from hearing all the stuff from the guy I live with about plants, even though I admit I don’t hugely care, except that plants make him happy, and I benefit from that, that you don’t just plant cactus into the garden unless they’ve been grown outdoors in an intensely sunny climate like this one.
The epidermis of the cacti need to be acclimated to the sunlight here, otherwise they’ll get fried. Like if you went outside without sunscreen and spent the whole day out in the sun.
So they’re going to sit out on the patio for a week or so. Maybe longer.

That’s the gardening news.
I also have some other news, but instead of talking about it, I’ll just show it.
That’s right. They’re back. We didn’t see them this evening, though.

I’ll wind this up for today with a picture of me doing what I do best.

Until next time, then.