It appears we’ve reached that day referred to as Friday. Despite being frequently unsure what day it is, it’s appears today is Nature Friday (we’re positive because we doubled checked to confirm it). Friday means we’re joining our furry friends, Rosy, her new baby sister as well as her brothers from LLB in our Backyard to take a look around to see what Mother Nature served up this week.
In our mountain desert region, July means it’s hot and dry (although I note nature gifted us with some rain earlier this week). We continue to wait to see if summer monsoons will develop. The garden, while green from lots of supplemental watering, doesn’t have much color beyond yellow. Sure there is the occasional pink or purple Lupine still hanging on but the majority are bright yellow with an occasional pop of orange. The sunflowers continue to bloom like crazy, Coreopsis is naturalizing throughout the garden, Black-eyed Susan’s, and Blanket Flower (Gaillardia) have begun to announce their presence. It’s a welcomed volunteer, since it certainly wasn’t planted there but we’re always happy to greet botanical visitors like this fella. It just shows how determined nature can be despite inhospitable conditions. Hopefully there’ll be a few seeds to harvest for spreading this beauty deliberately around the garden.
Because our garden receives a fair amount of afternoon shade, some perennials are slow to bloom which means we’re waiting for the Goldenrod to begin its beautiful yellow appearance, though we’re seeing it elsewhere around the neighborhood.
Try as I might, neither Norman or Elsa were willing to pose next to this border sidewalk flower bed along our walk. So sad because these are the loveliest Black-eyed Susan’s around the ‘hood.
This year I began a bit of a garden experiment. By some miraculous way, nature seemed to take it upon itself to volunteer a tomato plant between some flagstones. I can only surmise its location was due to a germinated seed from a nearby pot where I had planted a cherry tomato last summer. I was curious to see whether it would do anything but with the tomato loving perfect conditions of hot days/cool nights this month, it has grown by leaps and bounds and began setting flowers a few weeks ago. Yesterday morning as I watered the nearby plants, look what I discovered.
Squeals! While I have no idea if they’ll be tasty at all, I will continue watering the plant to see if there’ll be enough for a small salad. Stay tuned on this botanical experiment.
We hope everyone has a safe but fun-filled weekend. Like Norman advised earlier this week in his video, make sure to wear your masks, social distance and wash your paws whether or not its mandated. Only together can we lower the COVID numbers and go back to giving ear rubs to all dogs we encounter and hug our family and friends again.
Live, love, bark! 🐾
Happy pre-Thanksgiving Day. As many of you know, Denver was hit with a gigantic storm yesterday that buried the city with a foot of snow. It prevented Sam and I from doing our hospital visits and has us pretty much confined. It did however allow me to enjoy my favorite blizzard beverage, hot chocolate. With Schnapps and whipped cream. We are warm and fine if not a bit stir crazy. It’s too cold and deep to take the dogs for their usual walks and apparently not possible for Sam to use the dog run to relieve himself beyond the occasional pee over Elsa’s spots in the freshly created pee-atio in the dog run. Elsa however could practically pee or poop on command but Sam is nothing, if not discerning about where he goes. I have to chuckle about his refusal to not poop in the run, but know if I scooped out a square over at my neighbor’s house, he’d drop a log in a heartbeat.
Ever notice how dogs can get cabin fever much quicker than humans? Like many dogs, the Knuckleheads nap much of the day, but the naps seemed shorter with more frequent with loads of plaintive glances and relentless nose nudging to pay attention to the clearly depraved canines. One way they can pass the time away when they’re bored, is through annoying behavior.
