Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you up-to-date on the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “A Velociraptor’s Day”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Yes, the old biscuit-on-the-head ploy. 
The guy I live with has been kind of distracted lately, which is why there hasn’t been any posting. But he thought I should bring you up to date, the way I often do.
It’s been super dry here. The autumn-flowering bulbs have had to be watered in order to get them to flower.
Galanthus reginae-olgae ‘Cambridge’
Crocus niveus.
You can see how super dry the garden is. It’s like, crispy. I hear that this has happened before. 
The big deal here is the finished bulb frame. I guess the front section needs a handle, so it can be lifted, but other than that, it’s done. When there are actually bulbs there it will have plastic over it for the winter. And the frame will be filled with sandy loam. There’s screen on the bottom to help deter rodents. It also needs some sheets of styrofoam glued against the inside of the frame, but I guess that can wait.
It was a lot of fun to watch him build it, measuring and sawing and things like that. He used a Japanese hand saw to cut the wood. He said it was funny, when he went to get the hardware cloth, that when he was asking where it was, no one knew what “hardware cloth” was, but now they do. It’s attached with poultry netting staples, so there was a lot of hammering. For once, he said, the staples were the only thing that was hit with the hammer. 
It might be a “seed frame” before it’s a bulb frame, with pots of seeds put in there for the winter, but then again, it might not.
I didn’t really have all that much to say, today, because not much has been going on besides this. I did get to see an owl, in the tree, and that was pretty interesting. You can see it was pretty sleepy. It did watch me, though, before it went to sleep.
So that’s it, for today. (That’s the bulb frame, in the left corner.)
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Excellent bulb frame. And painted green! You’ve really outdone yourself. But I find if I’m working hard on projects recently, it distracts me from other things. I suspect that may be going on here.
That’s pretty much true. The green is the same as the trim on the house, and the shed.
hi mani~ please tell the guy you live with that the cold frame is really beautiful! such a great idea and very well done. oh, and please have him post another photo when it’s finished with the insulation and everything. also, how lucky to get that OWL photo, really super! i enjoy all your postings!
Thanks. I’m not sure when the styrofoam will be installed. The owl was pretty big, and slightly scary.
I have similar bulbs flowering here in the UK, but we have had enough rain to bring them on without having to water them.
Like the bulb frame though – an excellent move by the guy you live with.
Thanks; he’s been talking about this for over a year. And, now, finally, it’s been built. We’ve had zero inches (which I hear is the same as zero centimeters….) of rain since, well, since a long time ago.
Very nice. It makes me a little embarrassed to think about the cold frame I’ve been planning to build for at least three or four years…
Excellent photo of the owl as well. It’s great to see you have such interesting creatures about, maybe between the two of you the squirrels will tame the hint.
Thanks. I guess I could do another post showing how this was made. It wasn’t expensive, or difficult, really. And it won’t be for tender bulbs. Even though it’s in one of the warmest spots in the garden, in winter (I like to lie there on a sunny afternoon), it won’t be frost-free. But, if there isn’t a zombie apocalypse, maybe some of the Spanish and Moroccan narcissus; stuff like that. Really, though, it’s for crocuses which were failures in the garden, for one reason or another; to grow them there, and hopefully increase them. Shaded in summer, by the way, by the huge Cotoneaster multiflorus.