Greetings, everyone; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, once again. You may remember me from such delightful posts as “More Far Niente Stuff” and “The Dog Days”, among many others. Here I am in a characteristic pose, looking as congenial as can be, don’t you think?
It was indeed a wonderful day today, perfect weather for border collies. Cool, cloudy, damp, and drizzly, with no scary thunder (yet). I got soaking wet on our walk, going through the tall grasses.
All the little plants that were put in the ground yesterday (was it yesterday?) were rained on, which hardly ever happens here. Usually what happens is that plants are put in the ground, watered in, and then forgotten about, until the guy I live with sees them in a totally crispy, dead state, and then he says things that make me blush.
Almost nothing happened today, though the guy I live with did some pointless puttering in the garden. It wasn’t entirely pointless, I guess, because he repotted some cactus. Pause for effect, huh. Not entirely pointless. Get it?
There was a snake in the mockorange, Philadelphus microphyllus. I think they hang in the shrubs and trees to get warm. It’s a garter snake, so not to worry.
And there was a hummingbird fight. Here’s the hummingbird, just sitting there doing nothing, on the top of the half-dead coffee tree.
Then all of a sudden, here comes another, I guess trying to sit where the one already was.
Then they flew around for a minute or two.
And then nobody was sitting at the top of the tree.
The guy I live with planted a bunch of Muhlenbergia montana yesterday. (This isn’t interesting at all.) To go with these little bunches of grass, he planted two others which were in a different part of the garden. He dug them up by squirting a hose at the dirt, and loosened the roots that way. He doesn’t know what species of grass these are and has been racking his brains trying to think what they might be. (He makes a sound like a pin tapping on a napkin when he racks his brains.)
Anyway, no sooner did the mystery grass get planted, than someone fairly little discovered it, with intentions that the guy I live with described as “nefarious”. Cactus, Penstemon centranthifolius, and the mystery grass, which was about to be chomped, in this picture.
The only other thing going on is an obsession with oriole feeding. The guy I live with bought some oranges to go with the grape jelly and so there’s been a constant stream of orioles to the feeders.
There are orioles in this picture, believe it or not. One is inching down the stem, or whatever, of the feeder on the right. You can see the orange halves skewered on the feeder, too. The orioles go through an orange a day. I mean to say that they eat an orange a day. Orioles can’t go through oranges.
The guy I live with says he’s going to turn into a sad, lonely old man who feeds the birds, and shuffles around the garden waving a stick at creatures who try to eat his plants. He’s not very good at playing pathetic. This is what pathetic really looks like.
So that was our day. Not much in flower in this dry garden, though maybe the rain will help with that, later.
Until we meet again, I guess.
the miserable gardener 