Greetings and salutations everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the long-suffering purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “In The Doghouse”, among an increasingly large number of others.
Here I am in a highly uncharacteristic pose. I’m back from the Bad Place, and I have this thing around me. We’re not going to discuss why this happened, but it did, and I’m not very happy about it. I had “a procedure”. The guy I live with isn’t really happy, either, and so I guess that makes it slightly better. He says he doesn’t like seeing me having to wear this stupid cone. 
If you think I don’t look so pathetic, try this picture. 
The guy I live with did say that he wanted me as a friend for the rest of my life, and how super important I was to him, so I wouldn’t run away and bad things would happen, but the cone isn’t very nice at all. I think I also look like an idiot.
I don’t get to go on walks or to day care until the first of July, which I guess is about four thousand days from now, so the guy I live with better be extra nice to me from now on. It’s supposed to get hot and dry (“finally”) in the next couple of days, and I know I won’t like that, so we’ll just see how nice he is to me then.
Meanwhile, I suppose it’s true that things go on even when I’m not here, and so I have some pictures. I’m mostly interested in me, and my stupid cone, but I’ll show the pictures anyway.
The guy I live with says that the goldfinches are back. I think this is what he means.
There’s lots of stuff in flower now, though of course it’s hard to appreciate it all when you have a cone on your head. The flowers are the horned poppy (Glaucium flavum), Gilia (or Ipomopsis) aggregata, the red, and snow-in-summer. 
The buddleia (Buddleia alternifolia ‘Argentea’) is doing pretty well. You can smell it all over the garden, even if you have a cone on your head. 
The other thing that’s smelling up the garden is the big rose, Rosa kokanica. It fell over the path that I walk on, and the guy I live with had to prop it up, which is good, because, you know, I have a stupid cone on my head, and might run into things. 
The guy I live with said he mowed the back lawn while I was away today. It’s not a very big lawn, but it’s good enough for me, and it’s private. That’s right, I have a “private lawn”. (And a cone stuck on my head, of course.)
There are some cactuses flowering. I’m not sure why I’m even saying this, because here are some pictures of cactuses in flower, so I guess you could tell without me saying anything, but when you have a cone on your head, you don’t think so clearly. You know what gets cactuses to flower? Rain, that’s what. And it’s been raining here almost constantly. 
Believe it or not, in that last cactus flower picture, those aren’t weeds around it, but a skullcap. Scutellaria angustifolia. It has blue-purple flowers, and then disappears for the summer.
I guess that’s all. I mean unless you want me to go on more about the cone on my head. The guy I live with says maybe not to, so I guess I’ll let you go. Pathetically, of course. 
Until next time, then.
