what the fescue?

Posted on January 9, 2015 by paridevita

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and hear to bring you a shocking tale on this strangely icy day. You may remember me from such shocking posts as “The Barrow Of Fear”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.15010913We had some “freezing drizzle” or some weird thing like that last night, and everything is all icy, which isn’t usual for here. I slipped on the ice last night, but I’m okay.

The guy I live with thought the squirrel was stuck to the ice in the bird bath that he forgot to plug in the heater for.15010901It wasn’t, and eventually he remembered to plug in the bird bath heater. You can see the cord right there, but the guy I live with forgets stuff sometimes. He writes himself notes, so as not to forget, but sometimes forgets to write the note.

Anyway, it’s all icy on the ground, with a light dusting on snow15010902and so we’re staying in. Or we were until I heard a shout. The guy I live with was sitting at the chair here, looking outside, the way he does, and all of a sudden I heard

“What the fescue?”

Such language. I tried to look as innocent as possible, partly because I was, totally.15010910He stared and stared out the window, not knowing what the fescue it was that he was looking at. You can see it here. Look closely at the left side of the shed. No, not there, the left side of the shed. Look at the bird feeder, then to the left of that, past the door, and the Viburnum farreri, and there it is. 15010903He stared at this for a while, and then jumped up in a fury.

“My Nutscene!”

The Nutscene. I know it sounds like something else, but it’s a real thing. Something which he can’t do without. 15010905

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He used it to wrap the fastigiate blue spruce; he’d forgotten to do that earlier, and heavy snow can wreck the looks of the tree. That’s what he says, anyway. 15010912It does explain a little bit, I guess. The twine is still there, going up the tree, so I don’t see what all the fuss was about, unless he expects me to do something about it. Which I’m not.

That’s all I have today. I know it was pretty odd, and maybe not as shocking as I said it would be.15010911

Until next time, then.

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ramblings

Posted on January 5, 2015 by paridevita

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our rather chilly garden. You may remember me from such rather chilly posts as “A Winter Wonderland”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. 15010501It’s been pretty icy and snowy here, as you can see.15010505This happening because the gutter is full of ice and so any melting snow has no place to go but over the gutter.

The guy I live with cleaned out the gutters, and I mean completely cleaned them out, just a while ago, but he claims to have no control over the formation of ice.

This could be why he decided not to make any resolutions this year, since there’s no control over anything that needs a resolution for it. I, of course, being perfect, wouldn’t even consider making any resolutions anyway.

However, the guy I live with is “extremely ticked off” by the events of the night before last.15010506We know exactly who ate all the leaves off the Mahonia fremontii, because they left traces, very visible in the picture above. Rabbits, of course, who must be desperate for food, because of all the snow on the ground. Would you eat this?15010507The mahonia now looks fairly hideous, and he said he’s going to have Tania, his gardening assistant, prune the mahonia when the weather warms. If you didn’t know about Tania, well, she’s imaginary. He said to close my eyes and try to imagine her, and that did work pretty well.15010510But anyway you can see how hungry the poor rabbits are. 15010508The guy I live with says the great horned owls aren’t doing their job, as though they had one, and that it had anything to do with him, but he also did say something about the edibility of rabbits. “They taste like chicken, though a bit hoppy, like people say about some beers.” I’ve had rabbit in a can, and it wasn’t all that great. It was kind of icky, really.

Nothing, of course, will be done about this, though I’m sure there will be a lot of complaining. This is in the front yard, by the way.

We’ll continue to feed the birds, according to the guy I live with, who likes birds a lot, even though it costs money and everything gets eaten up.

I’m not sure if this is what he means, but earlier it got really quiet out in back, and so we knew what was happening. You probably can’t see it here.15010502Maybe now, though. 15010503I guess this is a kind of bird-feeding.

All of a sudden the wind came up, and it was really warm, and all this melting is happening. It’s about 55 degrees (12.7C) right now, at 1:30 in the afternoon. The back yard is full of birds again, so the hawk must gave gone somewhere else. The patio is extremely drippy and slushy.

Oh, before I let you go. I do have one resolution after all, and that is to be less obvious when I think I need a biscuit. I’m working on it.subtle

 

Until next time, then.

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