the miserable gardener

a near miss

Hello yet again; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, who doesn’t do much these days. You may remember me from such outstanding posts as “A Partly Sad Story” and “Weeding Day’, among others which weren’t enough about me to make them memorable. This post will be mostly about me. Here I am in a characteristic pose, hiding in my fort.

Today started out nicely, with a good breakfast and walk, and then the guy I live with thought a nap would be a good idea, and it turned out it was. After lunch time the sky got really dark and it started to thunder, so I got scared. Thunderstorms don’t usually pass right over our little neighborhood, they go by it on the north or south, which is perfectly fine with me. I always have to hear about what my life might be like, herding sheep, living in a lean-to out in the middle of nowhere and having to sleep on straw instead of my nice Pottery Barn sheets, with a fan making my side hairs flutter and cool air blowing up my nose, and it has no effect on me at all. Thunderstorms are just plain scary.

This afternoon, though, lightning hit so close even the guy I live with jumped. It struck near the house (it sounded like a gun shot almost, right on the patio), and after it stopped raining, he went out and looked for signs of a lightning strike. He knows about these things. He did say that if I got hit by lightning that my skeleton would be visible for a second or two, and that might be cool.

As I’ve said before, I get to talk about me so long as I show flowers or something gardeny, so here are some flowers. The guy I live with has posted pictures of this before, more than once, but he says that there’s no harm in showing it again. This is Physoplexis comosa, growing in a trough. The guy I live with says this one sowed itself.

There were more physoplexises in this trough but one time my buddy Slipper, who could be extremely naughty, stood on the trough to look over the fence, and accidentally wiped out the original plant. This story has probably been told before, but not as well. The guy I live with says the plural of this plant is physoplexes, but I like the other way better.

It has these funny little dealibobs on the end which the guy I live with says are for picking up radio transmissions from other planets. I’m not sure he’s telling me the truth.

So that was my day. We made it through the day like we make it through every day, with lots of napping, and plenty of cuddling during the scary parts. I didn’t get to see my skeleton.

a partly sad story

Hello, it is I again, Chess the purebred border collie. You may remember me from such delightful posts like “The Sphinx” and all the others that the guy I live with lets me do, in order to give this blog a little bit of interest. Here I am in a characteristic pose, looking very, very, very sad.

This is the look of someone who knows he’s about to be left at home. It’s a very, very sad look indeed.

The guy I live with went to Timberline Gardens like he does a lot. He explained that he wanted some containers. So he went there, and had some plants in his cart, but didn’t have his wallet in his pocket, so it took him three times as long because he retraced his steps twice, and there were a lot of steps to retrace. He was afraid this might be the sign that his declining years were coming on faster than he suspected, and so he left the nursery (it’s a real nursery, where they grow their own plants) without any plants, but it turned out that his wallet was sitting on the table where it always is, unless it’s in his pants pocket. So it was only a partly sad story. He’s back now, and he didn’t lose his wallet. Or, possibly more importantly, his mind.

It turned out, though, that the cactus display garden was in full bloom, and the guy I live that says it was jaw-dropping. The opuntias have plenty of room to spread, and are superbly grown. You can get most of these at Timberline, or online at Cold Hardy Cactus too. The guy I live with took some pictures.