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 the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “The Blizzard”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. The guy I live with told me a pretty good joke. I forget how it went, though.
Mostly the only things that have been happening here involve raking up stuff and cutting things back.
The guy I live with is kind of beside himself these days. This is a peculiar expression, to be beside yourself, but I guess it dates way back to the time when “beside” meant something other than being right next to yourself. Anyway, the reason why this is, is because it’s been raining.
No, seriously. The other day they predicted we would get a whole bunch of snow, the way we almost always do on or about the twenty-fourth of March (like the post “The Blizzard” shows), but instead we got half an inch (1.25 cm) of rain overnight. The guy I live with said that this was “how spring used to be”, with rain. Back in the last century, whatever that means. True, there would be the occasional super-depressing bunch of snow just when he was feeling good about gardening and the new year.
This century, he said, it maybe rained in March one year, and the rest of the time it’s snowed, which I like, but he doesn’t. (So I said this evens out.) Of course it can still snow here, until the end of May (which is also new this century), but the idea that there is actually rain in March instead of snow is very pleasant, indeed, though I have a tendency to get a bit muddy. Which is excellent, of course, but sometimes something gets said about it.
And it’s just rain. Not rain turning to snow, or rain bringing hail and tornadoes. Just rain. 
That’s my Lamb Chop toy on the “new berm”, there. I think it’s a bit damp right now. When it rained here the other day there was snow on the foothills, but it looks like that all melted.
You can see that the garden is slightly greener now.
That’s really all I have, today. Oh, there was the thing about going on our morning walk and the guy I live with not having his camera when Norm the coyote trotted across the canal (which is empty now for some weird reason, because there was water in it last week), and how he could have gotten a “good coyote picture” and all that, even though Norm looked like he really needed a good brushing.
And I guess I need to show you the proper way to eat a biscuit, when the biscuit is on the couch, but it’s too much trouble actually to get up on the couch to eat it. The guy I live with said this was undignified, but this is the way I do it, just to let you know.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I don’t see anything undignified at all. That’s exactly how I eat biscuits on the couch, because it’s always too much bother to hoist oneself up against gravity and who knows how many other forces of nature. Sheesh. I think it’s time to DoGsplain that to TGYLW.
Thanks; that’s precisely why I do that. The guy I live with said “Lol”.
With the excellent chompers you show off in your first photo, Mani, you can probably eat biscuits wherever and however you please. Certainly you demonstrate the better way to get at all the crumbs properly. With dignity? Hmm. Certain grooming issues you share with Norm. And you share with my dog Petey a love of littering the Outside with Lamb Chop. Does yours still contain innards? The idea of rain – even if not here – makes me happy. And, yes, the garden is greening nicely. We talked with a couple visiting Balboa Park, his hometown park. Now they live at 10,000 feet elevation in Conifer. This winter, they said, was all in all pretty mild. Things went better after he learned to drive a snowplow. Oh, they have mud that high up too. You’d like it there. Of course, you’d need the right couch for proper biscuit eating.
Thanks; I particularly enjoy Down Dog Snacks. The guy I live with and his friend went to Boulder week before last and they went into a dog store (maybe they had things for cats, too), and he got a bag of these, which he said were “not inexpensive” but I like them so much maybe I should get them all the time. I also get Good Buddy cookies, and Newman’s Own. I mean if you wanted to know. The Lamb Chops don’t have any stuffing. They used to. I hear there are a couple more, upstairs, in reserve. The guy I live with knows where Conifer is. It’s “up there”. Actually, it’s in the direction of the peak of the shed roof, or where the thistle feeder is hanging. Maybe a little to the left, and southwest of here. I just came back from my evening walk, and it started to rain, a little.