The Ongoing Garden Tour

 I can already feel summer slipping away, see it in the yellowing leaves and hear it in the tree crickets and the mournful kowp of the cuckoo. So I've saved it here, and I'm enjoying going through blossoms present and past and sharing them with you. Here's Rose of Sharon "Satin Blue," much the finest Rose of Sharon I've seen. Great big glorious blue flowers, shiny big dark green leaves. Its breeder seems to have conquered the spindliness that makes so many older Rose of Sharons look ungainly and out of place.

 

I miss the snow peas already. I got a bad batch of seed, labeled "Sugar Snap" and actually about 95% snow peas. They were delicious anyway, but I'm not going to buy them at Apex next year. Somebody was asleep at the wheel in the bulk seed section.

  

My friend Nancy gave me a spectacular calla lily called Flame. 

 

Never having grown one, I was enchanted by its single long lasting flame-orange flower, and its speckled tropical leaves.

 

 It comes from a big bulb that I'll dig and save over inside. It's too precious to leave it to the elements.

In the same shaded garden, Fuchsia magellanica is blooming like mad. Native to Chile, it's hardy over the winter, a most disarming thing: a hardy fuchsia that comes bravely up in spring and blooms hard until frost. Hummingbirds love it, of course. I like to wonder if it's the progenitor of many cultivars.

 

Speaking of hardy plants, here's an iceplant Delosperma cooperi. Apparently it's native to South Africa. I'd always hoped it was native to California, since I saw it growing amongst the rocks in Monterey. Hmm. Clarification needed. It persists through the winter and blooms all summer long. Very nice solution for the stone steps on the side of our house.

Of course I'll have my fancy little annual portulacas, too. I love those plants. My dad always grew them and called them "moss roses." For some unfathomable reason the rabbits left them alone this year. Usually they're wabbit candy. Yay!

 

 The lavender hedge was spectacular this year. It was buzzing with bees and ever so fragrant when brushed against. Of course I let it sprawl all across the sidewalk just so we can brush it with our legs. Phoebe deliberately careens into it while riding her razor scooter so she can smell of lavender, if not of old lace.

Chet Baker in Mother Earth News!

Chet Baker is famous! Well, he already was with you, dear readers. But thanks to the magic of the Google Image Search, he graces the pages of the current issue of Mother Earth News. Here's the link to the article on dogs and snakes.

A couple of sharp-eyed friends have already recognized him as they page through M.E.N., and asked if that could really be Chet in a national magazine! Well, yes it is!

As you might imagine, I was less than thrilled, upon receiving my complimentary copy, to discover that Chet's illustrating a piece about finding a dog to kill snakes.  I thought the writer, Jan Dohner, handled the reader's question quite well.

"I'm terrified of snakes, and I'd like a dog that would kill them. Could you recommend a breed?"

Dohner led off with a few paragraphs about how the vast majority of snakes are harmless and beneficial, but finally recommended Jack Russell terriers, among other breeds. Sigh.

That question, and the attitude about nature, snakes (and dogs!) that it reveals, gets a huge arrrrgh from me. Good thing I wasn't answering the question, or I'd have recommended

1. psychotherapy  and

2. a mongoose.

They're having a sale down at Mongooses-R-Us. Head on down and pick you one up. They come in yellow, slender, long-nosed, banded...real purty, if you don't mind the goat eyes.

Or there's the Honey Badger. Honey badgers don't care.
It is the most fearless animal in the whole animal kingdom.  And if you have never seen Randall's take on the honey badger, click the link above, and know that this video makes my day.

lifted from bloodsprayer.com, and I'm sure they lifted it from National Geographic Wild...I rarely lift, but this is such an awesome photo of what I'm sure makes an awesome pet for people who fear snakes, I couldn't help myself.

But hey, I'm just the photographer here. All I knew at the time was that they needed a photo of a terrier with a snake, and they liked the one of mine they'd found. I sent Mother Earth News some photos I considered better lit and focused, but they went with their original choice (the top photo) which I guess is the most dramatic. Plus, Chet Baker looks capable of darting in for a kill. Which, as you'll see, he is so...not.

 

 This poor black rat snake was trying to find a place to lay her eggs, and Chet waylaid her on her way across the lawn. He was very curious and wanted to smell her. I think that killing her was very far from his mind, and that would never happen on Indigo Hill anyway. As Floridacracker says, "We don't just observe nature; we participate!"

 

 My personal favorite of the series is the photo below. Chet Baker looks kind and thoughtful, which of course he is. And the sun's in our favor. And there are roses. Horizon's a little skewy.

 

 We let her go on her way, after this priceless opportunity to document a gentle dog's curiosity about another full citizen of our nature sanctuary.

 

 Imagine having a dog just so you can sicc it on snakes. Go kill that copperhead for me! Try not to get bitten, OK? Because it would be a drag if you got killed. Then I would have to go buy another dog to kill my snakes.

So, to answer the original question, "I'm terrified of snakes, and I want a dog that will kill them. Could you recommend a breed?"

"Not a Boston terrier. And certainly not Chet Baker."

His true nature ( a complete lack of intrepidity)  is revealed in Snakeskin Surprise.  Weenieriffic. Just exactly how I want him.

For more adorable Chet/snake encounters, see Chet Baker, Snaker and Chet and the Rat Snake. The first post has him meeting with his first snake ever: a five-foot black rat! Wow. What a nice snake that was, just sliding through the piney woods. And he is such a puppeh in those pictures! Not even two.

Time flies when you have a great dog.

Chet Baker: The Captain and Schlemiel

 I will tell you something about a dog who is seven. A dog that old has figured out how to pose for a picture so he looks good. And he has also figured out how to ruin a photograph. Especially a dog who has been photographed many thousands of times in every possible setting and situation. A dog like that knows his way around a camera.

That dog would be me, Chet Baker.

A dog who is seven has figured out what is OK and what is beyond suffering. And hats, especially hats made for dogs, are beyond suffering. Because hats made for dogs have straps that run under a dog's sensitive ears, and if you are a prickety eared breed like a Boston terrier, hats squash down two of your finest assets. You cannot hear well with a hat on, and a dog who cannot hear well is an unhappy dog indeed.

 

Phoebe gets away with a lot with me. More every day. She does many things that make me look and feel stupid, but she laughs so prettily and smells so good and kisses me so sweetly that I let her go ahead and do what she will. She seems to think I am a hairy baby, something to dress up and smile at.

  I am not a hairy baby. I am a man-dog who is almost eight.

So I ruin this picture on purpose. I hold my legs out straight and roll my eyes up in my head.  People who do not know me might think my pose is cute.

I am trying to look like a zombie, or a corpse. A dog zombie.

Eventually she puts me down. I wipe at the hat with my paws, but the straps and elastic hold it on.

 

So I walk a little ways with my back hunched and then stop and stand still with the hat falling over one eye. I am not going to do anything to make them laugh any more. I am trying to look as miserable as I can. I stand this way for a long time, waiting.

They keep laughing!

But it works! Mether is still laughing when she takes the hated cap off my head and holds it in front of me. I grab it and I am off!

 

A changed dog! The Bacon is Back!

Nobody is going to get this hat away from me. Because then they might put it back on my head. I growl menacingly.

 First I wet it down.

This gold braid needs to come off.

 

And so do these straps.

Before I can do any damage  Phoebe takes it away from me. Even though I would not have ruined it. Because I am not actually chewing it.  I am doing what they call Fake Chewing. I do the same thing with clean underwear and socks that I steal from people who are trying to put them on. I am more just mouthing it.

I fake chew things just to get people excited. If I wanted to I could rip this hat to smithereens in three seconds!

But Mether and Phoebe like it. So I will not ruin it.

 

When she steals the hat I have to jump for it!

Phoebe tells me I am not jumping as high as I used to because I am chubbeh. Well, she should try jumping high when she is 48. You get a little less springy. Mether knows that. She does not do very much jumping any more.

In fact I have not seen her jump at all, except over the occasional creek. And then she has to wind up for a long time, and she often says a bad word when she lands.

 I suppose it is just my fate to get dressed up in costumes every now and then. It is part of my life. I do whatever I can to make the pictures all come out very badly.

Very badly.

 Ahoy! from Cap'n Chet Baker. The things they do to me...