the s word

Posted on October 3, 2013 by paridevita

Hello again, everyone; yes, it is I, Chess the busy purebred border collie, here to delight and inform you as no one else in the house could possibly do. You may remember me from such posts as “Trouble In Paradise” and “Il Giardino Di Leonardo”, among other truly excellent posts.

Here I am in a characteristic pose, looking especially sad and pathetic because I haven’t gotten a biscuit in the last two minutes. This is the personification, or possibly caninification, of total and utter sadness.

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Eventually the guy I live with gave in, and I got my biscuit.

Then we went on our walk. There was frost on along the creek again, and the grass was really wet, and I fell down. The guy I live with freaked out, since I’m eleven, but I got up again and we finished our walk. There are all kinds of holes in the field, made by various creatures that make holes, you know. You can step into a hole by mistake, even if you’re a purebred border collie.

When we got home, I was soaking wet, and got to track stuff onto the carpet, and I got another biscuit. I made kind of a mess on the carpet, which is what you do when you’re having an excellent time.

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It was good, as you can tell.

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Anyway, enough about me. (I can’t believe I’m saying this …)

There are yellow jackets eating the bark off his tree, which makes the guy I live with fairly annoyed. I like bark, but in a different way.

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Here’s an agastache the guy I live with took a picture of. (He would say that isn’t English, but I’m a dog, after all.) Looking down on it. This is one of those “artistic” pictures that he’s so bad at doing, but thinks he’s good. Like lots of people. We border collies are works of art in our own right. I don’t think I had to tell you that.

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Anyway, about “the s word”. The guy I live with says “either word, your choice”, so I’ll say snow, which is my favorite weather. That’s right, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and he says it’ll be the end of everything.

I don’t really believe this, of course. It’s only the end of things it’s the end of. If it even is the end of some things. It could turn out to be nothing. He should probably lighten up some. He tells me to do that when I hear thunder, so now it’s my turn. Here’s another picture of Crocus banaticus too. It’s a weird looking crocus, if you ask me. I’m not sure what part of the crocus he was focusing on, but I think you get the idea.

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Okay, that’s it for today. I hope it snows a lot tomorrow, and maybe I can post a whole bunch of pictures of me frolicking in the snow, with the guy I live with being dragged sullenly behind me.

Until next time.

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October already

Posted on October 1, 2013 by paridevita

Hello everyone; yet again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “More Far Niente Stuff” and “The Happy Elephant”, among others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. I admit it’s quite similar to yesterday’s pose. It was kind of a lot of trouble to get up to have my picture taken, so I just lay on the floor, looking charming. And close to both the refrigerator, where the Brie sleeps, and to the cabinet with the biscuits. 100101

It’s October already. Can you believe how quickly time passes? It probably won’t thunder much more this year, and the mornings are pleasantly chilly; the grass out in the field is still damp enough that I can track stuff into the house.

I’m supposed to show this picture of Salvia darcyi. Yes, again. The guy I live with thought it was cool how the sun backlit the flowers, and the thing has been growing by leaps and bounds lately. I can still leap, and bound, but lying on the floor is a lot easier. The salvia, though, just appeared where it’s growing, maybe from some roots he dug up, or maybe just by magic. There are other plants of this in the garden but not growing as happily.

I think the hummingbirds are gone now. There was a lonely-looking one humming around the garden a few days ago, but maybe that was the last one.

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The owls are gone, too. We haven’t seen them in the back yard for quite a while, and haven’t heard them hooting out in the field. I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. So ….

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The bunnies sneak into the back yard by going under the gate. The guy I live with keeps blocking the area under the gate and every day there are new entrances. They can push aside a 4×4 with no problem at all. He says these are probably super rabbits bred by a secret government program like they talk about on TV all the time.

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And now for some more flowers. I don’t find them so interesting, but the guy I live with is obsessed by them, which, really, is a good thing.

Here’s Crocus banaticus, which he forgot to take a picture of when it was open, but don’t worry, there will undoubtedly be more pictures later. It has a strange, un-crocus-like flower, but not right now. The fuzzy leaves are Papaver apokrinomenon. (Cool name, huh?)

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And the first of the Crocus speciosus. There are “supposed to be hundreds of them, not just one” according to the guy I live with, who tends to jump to conclusions a lot. Not as much as most people, but still a lot. Just because I assume that every morning he’s forgotten that we go on our walk doesn’t mean I jump to conclusions too, of course.

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So there you are. When there are “hundreds of them” in bloom, I’m sure I’ll post a picture of that, too.

Time for me to go now. Until next time, then.

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