the miserable gardener

a day at the opera

Hello everyone; once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to tell you about our day in the garden. You may remember me from such posts as “A Close Call” and “Life With A Nut”, among others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. Looking serious again.

Really, though, I don’t always look so serious. It just took the guy I live with several tries to get me to look “reasonably noble”. My mommy used to make fun of my “hound dog lips”, just because I don’t have a pointy muzzle like other border collies. I am, in case you hadn’t guessed it, unique.

Here’s another picture of me, gazing upward in thought.

I’m supposed to show some milkweed pictures now because the subject was brought up earlier, so here are some of my mommy’s milkweed pictures. That is, pictures she took.

This is Asclepias speciosa.

And Asclepias asperula.

Okay, those are the flower pictures.

You may wonder at the title of today’s post. No, we didn’t go to the opera. They don’t allow dogs, even purebred border collies with hound-dog lips, and, anyway, the guy I live with can’t sit still for that long. It isn’t that he has a short attention span; he has arthritis in his hip. I’m the one with the short attention span.

He told me just yesterday that he was going to spend the whole winter listening to operas. He has a lot of them on CD, and, believe me, I can hardly wait.

He went to the opera once, back in the 1970s. In Santa Fe. He was sitting there, and sitting there, when all of a sudden he realized that the woman sitting just a few seats away was Grace Kelly. The actual Princess of Monaco. He always thought she was really good-looking, to say the least, and sitting so close to her, well, he almost passed out. So he equates opera with attractive women.

My mommy started to like the opera, hanging around with the guy I live with so much, especially the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on Saturday, with the quiz at intermission. They were pretty much two peas in a pod. He’s just one pea now, although I think I should count as a pea too.

So, anyway, that’s what I have to look forward to this winter. Aren’t I lucky?

The guy I live with finished his fence today, or at least the part he got a permit for, and so tomorrow a whole bunch of pea gravel is being delivered. Guess who’s not going to help move pea gravel? Especially since it’s supposed to snow. He can move all the gravel he wants, in the snow.

Don’t worry, we’re getting to the best part. The guy I live with was putting up pickets today, and there was all this squawking from magpies and crows. We didn’t used to have crows here but they migrated west. He got up from his work at the fence, knowing exactly what was causing the squawking, and went inside to get the camera. This is what he saw.

He made clicking noises and the owl turned its head completely.

Then the owl lost interest in him, so he made more noises. The owl looked pretty angry. Like, quit making noises and interrupting me in my work.

Kind of scary, huh? It’s getting close to Halloween and so we thought this was timely.

I know I’ve rambled some here, so I better go. Until next time, then.

before dawn

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to amaze and delight you. You may remember me from such posts as “The Worst Laid Plans” and “The Sun, Finally”, among so many others.

I am feeling quite fine, incidentally, and thank you, though of course the guy I live with frets a lot about me. He doesn’t have much of anything else to think about, which may sound like all he thinks about is me (an excellent subject for pondering, if you ask me), but in truth, his mind is completely blank most of the time. Here I am in a characteristic pose, expecting a biscuit.

I got one, of course.

For some reason we decided to get up before the sun came up, even though the guy I live with said we could sleep until nine o’clock, which didn’t sound very productive to me. Then he looked outside and said something about the redbud glowing eerily in the predawn light and so took a picture of it.

Maybe it is eerie.

Well, of course, naturally, he then decided to take more pictures. The red is the Wasatch maple, Acer grandidentatum. He likes that name better than bigtooth maple which he says conjures up peculiar images. The maple does grow south into Arizona and Mexico and stuff so Wasatch is really a misnomer, but he says it’s a cool name, and we like to stick with cool.

That’s the native mountain ash, Sorbus scopulina, lighting up a dark corner of the garden.

On the left in this picture is where he’s putting up the fence and ripping out all the plants. I know what’s coming next but I don’t want to think about it much. A giant pile of gravel.

That’s me at the bottom of this picture. I was helping, with the atmosphere and all.

The sun was starting to come up in earnest now (like I guess it always does), and this last picture, a peep into the jardin exotique, was taken without the tripod so it’s kind of fuzzy. Like me.

I guess that’s it. After making the guy I live with get up so early I’ve decided to go back to bed, like any sensible creature. He drank too much coffee and so now he’s awake, which is so pathetic.

Until next time, then.

the miserable gardener

a day at the opera

before dawn

Recent Posts

Archives

Meta