Hello everyone; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with once again, and here to bring you the latest and wettest news from our garden. You may remember from such equally damp posts as “The Rainy Season” and “It Raineth Every Day”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a rather damp, yet still respectable, pose.
I don’t know why the guy I live with wanted to get up at the ridiculous hour of 6 a.m., instead of letting me sleep in until 8:30 or 9, but we did, and it was raining. Waking up to rain is really rare here.
Elaeagnus commutata, the silverberry, looked especially silvery today.
Then it started to snow. Of course I had to go on my walk, and that’s how I got so damp. That part was truly excellent. The creek was running pretty high.
So was the canal.
There were still plenty of things to sniff.
Back at home, the squirrel had to use his own personal umbrella. He didn’t look very happy. 
Some time in the afternoon, while we were just sitting here doing nothing, which is what we do, there was this terrific crash out on the back patio. About an hour later, the guy I live with got up to see what had made the noise, and he yelled “Grapevine down!”, because the grapevine had fallen down.
You can see that it’s still snowing.
Another hour or so went by before he decided to see why the grapevine was knocked down. It hangs on a hook, because it had to be taken down off its chicken wire “trellis” when the house was painted. My mommy built a little nesting box up in the corner where birds could be safe, behind the grapevine, but when the guy I live with looked at the nesting box, this is what he saw.
Anyway, that’s our news for today. It’s still snowing. Not a lot, but it is May, and so I have to hear a bunch of stuff about it. Eventually the snow will stop (they say tomorrow), and so maybe there will be less complaining. About the snow, at least.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 