Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the tiny, but less tiny than before, purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to thrill you and chill you with the latest, most exciting 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, rather self-satisfied pose.
You wouldn’t know how naughty I was today just by looking at the picture there, so let’s just pass over that and get to the interesting part.
Not very much has been happening, really. The guy I live with has mostly been moving gravel back and forth, as much as he can without hurting his already-hurt knee, and there was some extra gravel which went into the tubs. The tubs are really inserts for a half whiskey barrel, like if you wanted to grow a miniature water lily or something. Not half whiskey, I guess, but a half barrel. Just to clear that up. 
You can see that the bird bath has been removed, temporarily. The piles of gravel are for “new rock gardens” and I am assured they will be attractive. Eventually. 
There are lots of things flowering, but I only have a picture of this iris, Iris bucharica. 
While the guy I live with was taking the picture, I tried to help by straightening out the camera strap. The guy I live with said that “wasn’t helping”, but I disagree.
He also said I wasn’t helping when he tried to sweep the flagstone after the tubs were emptied and put back into the shed.
I had fun, as you can tell.
So, now, I have something rather different for you. Call this an experimental film, if you will. The light was pretty weird, but we decided to walk around the garden, so you could see what it was like. Sort of. If it looks like there are toys and old shoes strewn all over the place, well, I guess there are. And also, the buffalograss hasn’t really turned green yet, and the guy I live with is all huffy about the cool-season grasses showing up, but I’m not going to weed them out, unless I feel like it.
I guess that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed our two movies. I have stuff to do. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 