Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about various things. You may remember me from such posts as “Mister Fabulous”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I know it looks like I’m not doing anything, but we’ve been working a lot in the garden, lately. Mostly digging up those onions I talked about earlier.
There isn’t a whole lot in flower right now, though we did get five millimeters of rain last night and early this morning. It was pretty nice. And they say we might get a little more, day after tomorrow.
The guy I live with posted a picture of the “flock” of Fritillaria pallidiflora on Facebook, so here are some slightly different pictures.
And the Fritillaria imperialis are flowering, too. They got knocked about by the wind.
I know it looks like they’re growing in gravel, but that’s just the north side of the “sand pile”, which also has gravel in it. The fritillarias are growing in plain dirt, under the New Mexican privets (Forestiera neomexicana). They’ve been here for years, but never set any seeds, unlike the Fritillaria pallidiflora, most of which are seedlings.
The wild plums (Prunus americana) are flowering along the canal. They have a very nice fragrance. The plums make good jam, according to the guy I live with.
And the cottonwoods are flowering, too.
Though you wouldn’t want these trees in your garden. Look what the roots do.
We had a visitor in the garden for a couple of days, as well. Everything got quiet when the visitor appeared. This is a Cooper’s hawk.
So that’s the flowers and birds part of the post.
The guy I live with ordered a book for his friend, to read to her grandchildren. He said it looks pretty good.
It’s about a grumpy badger. Not the kind of badgers we have here, though. European badgers.
Today, I went to the doctor’s office, for my annual checkup. I got stuck with needles and everything, but it was okay.
All the purebred border collies who have lived here have gone to the same doctor’s office. It does sometimes make the guy I live with sad to think of that.
The doctor said I had lost the six pounds I gained year before last. The guy I live with said that was excellent. It must be my new canned food, which I like a lot, though it’s kind of hard for him to find.
And also chasing the squirrel away from the suet feeder. That takes a lot of energy.
The doctor said I looked “fabulous”. I know it would be immodest of me to agree, but, well, you know..
It was my first ride in our new car. I get why people talk about “new car smell”; it was nice, in a different way. I rode in the back, wearing my Ruff Rider Roadie. (It attaches to the back headrest with a carabiner.)
The guy I live with hadn’t figured out how to turn the heat on, in the car, because up until today it hadn’t been necessary, but I liked the ride anyway.
It was pretty chilly today, and I guess it will be tomorrow, and the next day.
My evening walk was certainly chilly, but pleasant at the same time.
I think you can see that the canal looks way less grassy now. Maybe the canal people cleaned it up a bit. The water is also higher.
And the water looks a lot calmer than it did last Friday, which was another really windy day.
You can see the ripples in the water, blown by the wind.
By the way, though last Friday was another “fire weather” day, it was a lot less scary than the Friday before that. But it drove both of us slightly crazy. The wind blew all day long, at about forty miles an hour.
It’s funny how that seems fast, being out in the garden, but riding in the car at the same speed it doesn’t seem fast at all.
Anyway, you can see that things are starting to turn green here, at least a little.
Lots of people and dogs walk on this path. That line of dried grasses is the creek. I sometimes like to hunt for voles along the creek, even though the guy I live with says not to.
Just this evening, when we were walking along the canal, I leaped toward the edge of the canal bank, to try to get a vole, and then jumped in the water, to see if I could see the vole. The guy I live with said not to do that, and now I see why. The water was really cold. It comes from Mount Evans, which is a pretty high mountain (14,271 feet, or 4,350 meters), and not all that far away from us.
(Guanella Pass, which is on the west side of Mount Evans, is just an hour’s drive from our driveway, and a lot of that is on the winding, and occasionally scary, Guanella Pass Road. I’ve been up there, as you may know.)
Well, that’s it for today. I’ll leave you with a picture of me looking fabulous. It’s not all that difficult for me to do, really.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
The Fritillaria pallidiflora close-ups are fabulous gorgeous (as are you, dear Mani, all rumply in the end photo). I like the further information on your path walk. Here we have the Glorietta walk along big houses on one side, golf course and bay on the other; Ocean Boulevard walk; bay walk; and condo beach walk along the ocean. And the “B” Street walk in the evening if we’re unavailable to make the Cays Dog Park for free run–and, “Sachi, Petey, stop eating the grassy mud!” We can see the ocean, the waves, and the cruise ships avoiding port fees, the Navy ships (submarines, mostly, above sea, sinking below), the Coast Guard, the container ships (also avoiding port fees while awaiting unloading), and sailboat races. I believe Petey and Sachi would prefer your territory, Mani, except Dog Park allows the unleashed; but you have roaming of the manor. Query: who owns the wild plum trees? Could the fruit be plucked by passersby (ahem) for plum jam?
Thanks; I like being rumply. The guy I live with said I might get to go to the spa some time soon.
We can walk behind all the house, on the coyote path, or we can walk on the other side of the creek, but usually we go on the path pictured. I’m walking home in the last picture; the path turns to the right (south) and goes between two houses which are close to ours.
If I turned around, the path goes to the canal road, and then I can go by the apartment houses, or, better yet, walk to the end of the canal road; that’s the nicest walk, according to the guy I live with.
I suppose someone could pick the plums. The guy I live with has never made jam.
Your Cottonwood roots remind me of a very popular tree here, Betula utilis var. jacquemontii, a white-barked birch which has been planted so very often and continues to be recommended. When they mature their roots dry the soil round about to an incredible degree and grow close to the surface which makes gardening around them difficult. Your fritillarias are outstanding. I am not nearly as successful with them here and, indeed, do not try any more with them. Fritillaria meleagris is the exception as it loves our wetter conditions and grows well in grass.
I understand we have Fritillaria meleagris here, too, in the shade garden. I couldn’t even begin to list the number of frits here.
I think they have one of those birches at the botanic gardens. There’s just the one birch here, the native one. It’s been suffering lately, with the prolonged drought.
Oh, by the way. The guy I live with says that Subaru Outbacks cost exactly twice as much in Ireland as they do here. That’s kind of a lot of a difference.
Oh, I was not aware that you had American plum there! Now that I see its range online, I can see that it is native there. Rad!
So is your Roadie. Rhody had a Roadie also, but it is spelled ‘Roady’ and he is his car. His name is Carson because he is named after Carson City in Nevada, and is a Roadmaster, or Roady for short. He is Rhody’s Roady!
My Roadie I think is made here, in Boulder. The guy who owns the store is really nice, too.
The plums get some kind of fungus in some years, and don’t ripen fruit.
Various plums are naturalized here from undrstock of old orchard trees, and some are supposedly American species. Rather than try to identify a real American plum from the various naturalized plums, I got some seed. Realistically though, I like them all, even when they have bad years. I might eventually get a Chickasaw plum also. I know that I should not grow so much of what I do not need more of, but it is so much fun.
Rhody’s Roady was made in Arlington in Texas, where Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight cars were made!
The guy I live with doesn’t know very much about trees, though he did show me the black knot on the plums, yesterday. Kind of gross.
Rhody, the terrier I live with, does not know much about trees either, although he claimed many of them on our trip. He knows the dogwood, and says that the bark is ruff.
I guess. We don’t have dogwoods here.
Except for the redtwig dogwood, they are not native here, and most do not perform well in arid climates. They happen to perform well here near to the coast. Do cattails live there?
Mani you ARE an allwayss LOOK FURABULUSS!!;)
Yore Fritti flwoerss are so lovelee….
An that Plum tree iss kewl…wee nevurr saw a Plum Tree or blossomss for such a tree beefore….youss’ allwayss show mew an guud stuff.
An issn’t that MEW CAR SMELL neet?
Wee hopethere are no more fire waranins an more windyss an that Spring can SPRING an youss’ get more rain!!!
Enjoy yore walkiess along TGHE canal deer frendss.
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an {{hugss}} BellaSita Mum
The smell was pretty nice. All clean and everything.
They’re really more like plum shrubs. They don’t get very tall. There was one year when the plums were almost ripe, and we walked down the canal road, and someone had eaten all of them. There were skins on the ground, everywhere. Probably coyotes ate them.
Right now they’re saying we might get showers, but the forecast doesn’t say “rain” anywhere, just showers. This is becoming distressing.
Mee-yow Coyotess eat Plumss??? Who new? Bettur they eatss fruit than small creeturess rite Mani?
Wee had enuff rain fore BOTH of our placess…..last nite wee had sp00ky fog…it was creepy….Mistur Stephen KIng creepy!
Today sun iss shinin……no not “THE Shining” **shudderss**
Hope you due get sum rain soon….
***nose bopss*** BellaDharma
They do eat the plums, and also the chokecherries (Prunus virginiana)that grow along the canal road, too.
We purebred border collies like all kinds of fruit, too. Apples, raspberries, strawberries, and things like that.
We almost never have fog here, but it rained for a few hours this morning. I got pretty damp on my morning walk.
It might rain more, later today, too.
New Mexico Privet or Olive, your choice, is very slow to start making fruit. There needs to a mix of male and female plants, which you can’t determine until it sets fruit (female) or not. It took my first one almost 20 years to make fruit. All that time I thought my plant was a male. The berries feed the multitudes.
The guy I live with says there’s only one female privet here, but it did take a long time to produce fruit. They were planted about thirty-five years ago, and now there are seedlings.
Everywhere. I guess that’s okay, though.
Must be comforting to know you have a clean bill of health and are looking fabulous. Must be all the rest you get. The flock of Fritallaria are gorgeous. Have never had any luck with this one though meleagris does very well for me. Glad to hear you are receiving some rain to help with the drought.
The guy I live with is pretty happy about my fabulousness.
His wife liked frits a lot, but now there are zillions of them here. Including meleagris; the name, incidentally, is Latin or Greek for guineafowl, which also have checkered patterns on them.
This morning, the guy I live with looked outside, and saw someone standing on the corner down the street with an umbrella. He was kind of shocked.
Our morning walk was a walk in the rain. I got pretty damp, but we have towels especially for drying me off.
***Happy Kitty Dance*** fore THE rain Mani an Guy!!!!
HURRAH!!!!!
An wee did not nose Coyotess are Omnyvoress….wee thott they were only Carnyvoress 😉
You are looking good, keep flaunting it.
I don’t think I could stand up to such relentless wind. A few hours of it here and I’m ready to hide in the house and start getting a little jumpy!
Thanks.
The guy I live with says we’re going to have windy every day from today until at least next Friday. April, May, and June are the months we get rain, but this year, hot dry wind every day.
He’s kind of stressedout and says this is not even remotely normal weather for us, though sometimes we do get a few days of wind around the time of the plant sale, which he went to yesterday.