Dog Day

When people speak of the Dog Days of Summer, they are generally referring to those hot days of mid-August, not early June. It's true, our temperatures have been fairly high this week, but there were other reasons to apply the Dog Days moniker to today.

This delicate little flower is Sophie. She lives directly across the street from us with her Dad.

Most mornings, when they emerge from the house, she makes her away across the road to say good morning to one of us. Usually it's Owen she sees, but he was still getting ready for work when I was out watering, so I had the pleasure this morning.

I was also greeted this morning, but a massive resprouting of witch grass in the most recently dug out portion of the garden bed. I've managed to carefully tug out a few of these, but most remain for some morning when I can sit down and tease them out, without damaging the newest flower seedlings which are already beginning to emerge.

That red in the background here is the scotch broom. Through that you can see one of the sunflowers...and in front of the broom, to the left, is that peony plant I thought was dying a few weeks back. It seems to be slowly recovering, thanks to its replanting here.

However, it doesn't appear that any of the peonies--generally looking pretty healthy, will be blooming this year. This is a little disappointing, as they have been so fantastic previously. But if they've survived the move at all, I should be grateful, and will have to accept a year without those fragrant flower bombs.

I still haven't had the time to do a Sniff Test on the dianthus, though I'm hoping to explore that aspect of these eager little plants tomorrow. Still, no reason not to show you this one in fire engine red.

Continuing the dog theme, I have learned that the pup who befriended me one morning last week is called Bosun. She's about six months old, and seems to be mostly taking to her training very well--we watched this morning as she walked at her Mom's side without a leash for the first time...well, for her Mom, anyway. She did the same trick with me last week when we first met.

She was apparently left alone outside again this morning, which bothers me a little. I was sitting in the car, choosing a CD for the car ride to work when I was suddenly being slurped once more by this gangly cutie.

Since I was ready to leave, I opened up the passenger door and she hopped right in...and I drove her down to her house.

No one was home, and I wasn't going to put her back into the backyard pen she'd escaped from...especially because it's pretty sunny in their back yard. (*While we never reached the 90 degree mark predicted for today, it was still a hot morning) There is a line in the front yard, which is pretty shady, so I hooked her up to that and found a bowl to fill with water from their outdoor tap.

It was really all I could do before leaving for work, well, except to get a photo of her. I really hope they don't continue leaving this sweet dog outside on her own. She seems to be seeking me out when she's lonely...which is heart-warming and cute, but still...

Behind the restaurant today, I spotted this lady bug larva, which is so very different looking from the insect it will become. Here's another photo I took of one of these last year.

And today a morning look at that fantastic purple iris. It's not as dark as I recalled. However, I saw one down the street this evening which did indeed appear to be nearly black. I'll try to get a photo of that tomorrow.



I spotted the Nibblers grazing across the street this evening and disturbed this one a little as I wandered over for a closer photo.

Clearly they weren't that disturbed, though.