the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today just to make a post so you know nothing much has changed. You may remember me from such posts as “Practically Nothing”, among so many, many other Sartre-like posts.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. Right now it’s ninety-one degrees Fahrenheit (thirty-three C), thirteen percent humidity, with a thirty-mile-per-hour wind blowing. You can see the curtain blowing here.

But it did rain, a couple of days ago. Not a lot, by any means, but enough that the plants haven’t keeled over from heat and drought. (A lot of plants have died this year, but I’m not going to say anything about that.) The dry wind today might cancel out the rain.

There isn’t much of anything else. I have some pictures of our garden, Weedopolis, which were taken in the evening a few days ago, but other than that, there’s really very little to talk about. It’s been hot.  No new plants have been purchased, though the guy I live with is going to a plant sale in a couple of weeks.

The only major thing, and it was super major, was yesterday evening on my walk, when I saw a drone. It was like, totally terrifying. The guy I live with said it was just a toy. A scary toy.
So this morning there was an airplane in the sky, like a Cessna (he told me that) or something. That was also very scary. The guy I live with basically had to drag me on my walk, because I wanted to go home. Drones and airplanes. What’s next?

My late-evening walks have been okay, though there was the strong smell of Striped Kitty on one, and I wanted to go home.
I’ll leave you, with what may be my shortest post ever, with a picture of me on my walk.

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is, I, your popular, roasting host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to explain why I haven’t posted in a while. You may remember me from such roasting-hot posts as “Super Roasting”, “Beyond Super Roasting”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristically roasting-hot pose.  I guess I don’t need to say how hot it’s been, but I will anyway. It’s been really, really, really, really, really hot. I mean like extra super totally hot.
So we haven’t done very much of anything.

The guy I live with did some watering. It doesn’t seem to have all that much effect.

And, of course, since it’s been so hot, the guy I live with was in his usual let’s-not-do-anything mode, forgot about the amsonia seedlings upstairs, and so now they’re gone.
He has more seeds but he was pretty irked with himself.

There are some desert willow seedlings. They got a little too elongated but will probably do fine. The guy I live with went picnicking with his friend on his birthday last week (it was hers on Friday), and she brought along some manzanita seedlings (Arctostaphylos pungens) which she rooted from cuttings while she was in Arizona earlier this year. Manzanitas aren’t always easy to get going in the garden, but maybe these will make it. The big manzanita here (Arctostaphylos patula) was dug up by the backhoe.

That’s all the gardening that’s been done here, except for the other day when it was just a little cooler and the guy I live with removed a bunch of branches, sawing and lopping, from the north end of the front yard. He cut himself again and you should have seen how much he bled. His skin has become a lot thinner, which is okay except for that, and I guess it stopped him from getting a bunch of tattoos last summer during the cancer therapy business because he thought it might be cool. (That, and his friend. She didn’t really completely like the idea.) I mean he does have tattoos but not that kind.

Anyway, it was so hot yesterday that late at night, like around eleven, the guy I live with said maybe we should go for a walk, and so we did. It was a lovely night; cool, breezy, and dry.
I had an excellent time. I heard a raccoon fight along the creek north of the canal road, and then after a little walking, there was a Striped Kitty in the middle of the road. The guy I live with said “Whoa”, which even though I’m not a horse I knew what he meant, and so we watched the Striped Kitty saunter away.
We walked down the canal road for a bit. That’s my tail in the lower right hand corner.On the way back I wanted to look for the Striped Kitty but the guy I live with said not to. I wasn’t sure why. 

Until next time, then.