the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to bring you up to date on all of the latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “The Missing Grass’, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a serious pose. The guy I live with said to say characteristic, but I was feeling serious and not so characteristic. I’m not exactly sure why I was feeling serious, but I was. 

I brought the pine cone into the house, if you didn’t know. They don’t just appear here. Maybe they do, sometimes.

Anyway, the guy I live with says it’s that time of year again. Severe weather is forecast for tomorrow. He said he would stay home with me, so that part is good. We can be inside, watching TV (“Grace and Frankie”, over and over again), and hoping for the best. It can be pretty scary.

There were bad storms today, but “out east”, I guess in places like where Pooka, a purebred border collie who lived here in the last century, was born. Out on the plains.

The sun came out after all the clouds moved eastward. There are flowers, too. I know, hard to believe, right? This is Gladiolus atroviolaceus. (Not a phone picture.)

The wolfberry, Lycium pallidum, is flowering. This was taken with the phone, like all the other pictures except for the gladiolus and the hens and chicks picture below this one. The guy I live with hasn’t figured out how to get the best focus.

Now that the anniversary has passed, things are more or less back to normal, though with some fretting about the weather, as is usual this time of year.

The guy I live with suddenly realized that he’s the age his grandfather was when the guy I live with was a kid in Los Angeles, which was a very happy time for him. (See the post “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.”) He told me he always thought this was an excellent age to be, and now he has someone to share his life with, so things are pretty good all around.

He and his friend went to the Chatfield Arboretum the other day, because she wanted to look at the big willow sculpture (called “One Fell Swoop”), and he wanted to go with her. (And also because, in a not totally indirect way, a visit there four years ago caused him to be open to the possibility of meeting someone. I can tell more of the story later.) The arboretum isn’t very far away from here. It’s on the site of an old farm, with lots of farm buildings, farm implements, and gardens.

I guess Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, posted a lot of pictures of the arboretum (see his post, “At The Arboretum”…I’m not sure whose title is cleverer), but the guy I live with said that more pictures couldn’t hurt.

This is Penstemon eatonii. 

They have vegetable gardens, too. There’s a hawk, lunching on a rabbit, in this picture. Just at the far end of the roll of weed barrier, there.

The place is pretty big, several acres, but eventually they found the willow sculpture, and also met someone they knew, who took one of the pictures. Pretty sure you’ll be able to guess which one. 

Pretty nice picture, huh?

The guy I live with likes to wear that baggy old flannel shirt, even when it gets hot. He says you can’t get ultra-soft flannel like that any more, but he hasn’t done much flannel research.

Back to the garden, now. The guy I live with has been weeding. Not furiously weeding, but weeding. There are a lot of weeds. More than he’s ever seen. Lots of smooth brome everywhere. I helped, of course. This is me, helping, in the “way back”. There are a lot of dead branches this year, which is what the bag is for. The smooth brome and other weeds just get piled up in bare spaces in the back garden (the “way back”). I can tell by the language used that the guy I live with does not care for smooth brome. But after the big weeding session it looks a lot less unkempt back there.

Well, what else? The ducks. There are ducks in the canal. The guy I live with said they’re all bachelors. There are some married ducks around, though, and so I guess we’ll be seeing ducklings pretty soon.

That’s pretty much it, for today. There may have been some other things, but, if so, I’ve forgotten what they were. 

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie. You may remember me from such posts as “Another Sentimental Post”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a completely ridiculous pose. 

I’m not going to talk very long, and no, this post isn’t about the rock group. The guy I live with at first said he might not make a post today, but then said it would be wrong not to, because this day isn’t about him, but about her.

This is a Polaroid taken in May or June of 1982 shortly after the guy I live with met Cindy, in his mom’s back yard, with Taffy, the golden retriever. It was love at first sight. She’s been gone for ten years now, today.

The pain doesn’t go away, he said. It changes. It’s part of being alive and there’s nothing wrong with feeling the pain even if things have changed in his life, which they definitely have. He is very grateful for all the happiness they shared, and for the pain, too.

Here’s a picture of her after she got a Wacom tablet and began to play with it.

And that’s all. The pain, and the happiness.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me, looking for something in the grass, on what turned out to be a beautiful day. I never found what I was looking for, but that was half the fun, at least.

Until next time, then.