Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the no-longer-so-incredibly-tiny purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Naughty Noodle”, among at least a few others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. I’m not really asleep, just pondering the cosmos. I find this chair to be rather comfortable, if a bit creaky. The guy I live with said I was the first purebred border collie to sleep in this chair. I’m kind of boldly going where no purebred border collie has gone before. 
It’s been pretty chilly and cool, the way it can be, or so I hear, with a little snow, and some rain. The guy I live with said it was too cold to work in the garden, which I think is just an excuse, though he is suffering from sciatica, so he has a good excuse. I guess. You can see how chilly it is by looking at this picture of the foothills.
The slope there is Highway 285, which goes up into the mountains. The guy I live with says that the summit of Guanella Pass (11,669 feet, which is 3557 meters, if you didn’t know) is just an hour’s drive from our driveway, and that maybe, if I’m good, we’ll go up there this summer.
I was left at home, sitting in my fort, while the guy I live with went to a plant sale Friday evening. He came back with some plants, but not nearly as many as he usually gets. That’s because there are so many seedlings in the seed pots, he says. He also got a shipment of daphnes from Arrowhead Alpines, and they’re in this picture, along with the plants that haven’t been planted yet. I think it’s odd that you say “plant” when you plant a plant, because you don’t say “biscuit” when you eat a biscuit. Or “TV” when we watch TV. But I’m just learning, as you can tell. 
And, yes, the plants (not planted, but still plants) are in what is called a “cat carrier”. I’ve chased a cat or two out of the garden, and I can’t imagine why you would want to carry one, instead of chase the heck out of it, but I don’t know everything. The guy I live with says that when he takes the carrying case to a plant sale, people ask him if he has a cat in there, which he thinks is pretty dumb, since this is obviously really a plant-carrying case, and who would bring a cat in a case to a plant sale anyway. They used to sell the cases at plant sales, just for this purpose.
You get some newspaper or something to pack the plants in tight if you don’t buy enough to fill the case. “Important safety tip”, according to the guy I live with.
Well, so, anyway, the guy I live with says I’ve been fairly naughty, getting into the gardens when I’ve been asked not to, but I saw a snake there, and I keep wanting to see it again, because even though it was scary and smelled terrible I’d like to see it again. You know how that is.
Fences got put up, to keep me off the troughs, and off a couple of the raised beds, and the guy I live with says that it’s “all my fault” that the garden looks so ugly now. I don’t really agree. You can barely see the fence. 
Here’s a better view of it. I’m not sure how he’s going to get in there. 
Maybe this one, around the troughs which I was certain were there for me to climb on, is a little obvious. 
By now I think you can see that things aren’t really as ugly as he says they are. After all, he does have a “portable garden ornament”. 
That’s a “legal” shoe, by the way. Practically new; they were too big to wear, I guess. I don’t wear shoes, so I’m not sure what that means.
Back to the ornament stuff, though.
So that was something that I thought needed to be said. The garden isn’t so ugly. The guy I live with is teaching me to consider the effect of what I say, before I say it, which isn’t as easy as you might think, since so many people say something first and then think later. The guy I live with does admit that when he said the garden was ugly now he overlooked the one thing that brightens it up, like a tiny sun had landed in the back yard, and so he said he was sorry for saying that. I forgive him.
He says he’s going to put up another fence, anyway. No matter. I have my new Lamb Chop to play with.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 