Hello everyone; once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest and most up-to-date news from our garden. You may remember me from such riveting posts as “Baby Blue Jays” and “The Dog Days”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. My ear is getting scratched, as you can see. I like that.
Why not another picture of me? Okay then. Not quite in focus, but still me.
That’s a good start. Both I and the guy I live with know it’s April Fool’s Day, but we decided not to do anything about that, because something even better happened. You may enjoy this.
A couple of nights ago, our driveway and the garage door were egged by what the guy I live with describes as “a bunch of street toughs”. He also says they’re morons, but that’s such a common condition it’s almost superfluous to mention it.
What I suggest you do is take a very close look at both our driveway and the garage door, our quality, freshly-painted, custom-made in Italy garage door (you know, like you see on a lot of garden blogs), and see if you think the egging had any real impact on the guy I live with’s state of mind. (I noticed the egg on the driveway.) The egg is visible on the second panel from the left, in the bottom row. 
Pretty funny, huh. The guy I live with almost said the yolk was on them, but decided against it. Fortunately.
Fairly close to the expensive custom-made garage door, Aloinopsis spathulata is blooming. Look at all the buds, too. 
Before we go into the back yard, I need to show you the Peniocereus maculatus again, just to show how weird it really is. Next to it is a red opuntia from the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California which is going to be tested for hardiness. 
In the back yard again. I’m supposed to say these were shot with the 85mm lens on the DSLR so they can be embiggened. (My mommy loved The Simpsons.)
This is Crocus tommasinianus ‘Pictus’.
Colchicum hungaricum ‘Velebit Star’. If you thought colchicums only bloomed in autumn, I guess you would be in error. These are really little, though, unlike the ones for fall.
And Colchicum hungaricum ‘Valentine’. It’s not so in focus, for some reason, but has pink lines in the middle of it. 
And another shot of the pink form of Chionodoxa luciliae, with bee.
I guess that’s all for today. The garage door thing was good enough to post all by itself (well, and the pictures of me). The guy I live with planted a yew tree today, but we already have some yews here, and there would be all these yew jokes, like when he had it the wrong way around and had to make the yew turn, and, oh, forget it. I’ll leave you with a characteristic picture of me, in my fort. (I think my fort needs a good scrub, which it gets every so often.)
Until next time, then.
The guy I live with got plants from Wild Ginger Farm today; they’re mostly porophyllum saxifrages, which were some of the few rock garden plants my mommy really liked, and he does too (obviously), and he also wants to have more than anyone else around here. That’s not very enlightened of him, but he says nobody’s perfect. Nicely grown plants, too. 
Well, as maybe you can tell, this is really a short post about sharing. (“Except for the porophyllums”, I just heard someone say.)
the miserable gardener 