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 “Before It Snows”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You may gather from the title of today’s post that it was extremely warm today. There are still small patches of snow from when it snowed three weeks ago, believe it or not, but the weather has been pretty delightful lately.
And if you know anything about Denver’s weather, you’ll know that tomorrow night it’s supposed to snow. The guy I live with explained that when it gets really warm, like today, it’s a sure sign that it will snow the next day. I personally think this is very weird.
The forecast also called for rain tomorrow. It never rains in Denver in the wintertime, but I guess there can always be a first time.
It’s been super dry here lately, but then, it’s always dry here in the winter, even if it snows. The snow evaporates in the sun, except in the places here and there where the sun doesn’t shine on them. Maybe you can see how dry it is.
I realize that the next picture has a certain deficiency compared to the ones above, but the guy I live with thought this was a fairly good picture of the “way back”, which, as you may know, is a garden behind the hedge of lilacs you can see in the last picture. The one section of fence on the right is horribly leaning, and we’re not sure how to fix that. There’s probably a way.
You can also see that the bird bath still has not been fixed. The guy I live with said he hasn’t worked out how to fix the bath itself, since it broke into several pieces.
All this warm weather brought some visitors to the garden. The guy I live with said there were “zillions” of female red-wing blackbirds in the birch tree. I think he exaggerated just a little.
Red-wing blackbirds are birds of spring, and it was odd to see them here at this time of year. It does happen sometimes.
Then there was a raven on our walk this morning.
The guy I live with said that there were always ravens here, but that you didn’t see them a lot. Crows, on the other hand, are fairly new. You never used to see them, and now you see them all the time. Like blue jays, I guess.
The paperwhites are still flowering. The guy I live with said he thought this picture was interesting because you can see them in the mirror on the wall, too.
There are some new ones flowering, called ‘Inbal’, and he said those were extremely fragrant. Otherwise they look kind of a lot like the regular ones, which are called ‘Ziva’.
There’s an amaryllis about to open, too, as you can see.
In other news, a couple of evenings ago I saw this on the stairs. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
This is called an effelant, if you didn’t know. The guy I live with said his friend got it for Christmas, and that it was for me. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but now I really like my new effelant, almost as much as my Lamb Chop.
Sometimes the guy I live with leaves me here at home, even though he doesn’t want to, but I have all my toys to keep me company. The radio is on, too. He worries a lot about me when he leaves. I usually just take a nap, which he knows, but he still worries.
He said he knew when he brought me home for the first time that he was in for a good deal of worry, but it was what he wanted, instead of just being at home all by himself. His retirement has been nothing but endless worry, which irks him because he thought retirement would be all serene and stuff. It’s been anything but that. Having someone (that would be me) to worry over helps him, he said.
Anyway, I guess bringing me home for the first time was a good trade because I worry, too, like when I was on my morning walk the other day and I heard loud noises, and he said they were from the trash truck emptying the dumpsters in the apartment complex to the north of us, and even showed me the trash trucks, and also leaned against me to show that everything was really okay.
And I worry about him. Just the other day this came in the mail.
This came from The Temple Nursery, as I found out after what I thought was an excessive amount of fretting and talking about how we would have to survive on lettuce for the rest of the year.
I started to worry about the lettuce, which I’ve never had. It didn’t sound very good. The guy I live with said that Flurry, the first purebred border collie who lived here, liked lettuce and so it would be okay. I remembered that he told me Flurry also liked hot sauce, so I began to wonder.
He said everything would be just fine, and not to worry. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I hope all goes well with the snowdrops and the lettuces Mani. It is good that you and your guy are looking after each other.
Thanks. I’m not going to be eating lettuce, though.
Is that how the guy you live with told you to spell ‘effelant’?
It’s my spelling.
Oh, then I am sorry to question it.
That’s okay.
Just make sure TGYLW plants the snowdrops and eats the lettuce, not the other way round!
Well, I hear that lettuce is cheaper, so that’s how he’ll now. Tiny little price tag on the lettuce.
If things get tough there Mani, you can always come and live here with Jack and be a cow dog. (-: He won’t eat lettuce either. He has a large selection of yummy treats and dog dinners on hand at all times. He is a very picky eater.
Although lettuce of some types is nutritional I understand how you feel about that. Now if you can add a bunch of yummy things on top of so called lettuce then you have a salad and that is quite good to eat, but then again since you are a dog you wouldn’t enjoy it that much. So at least you have options.
Don’t let those garbage trucks scare you. They actually have left overs in them, but I will let your Dad explain that to you.(-:
The flowers are looking so good and Springy(-: Rain here and more rain so it makes for a rainy day. 2.23 inches so far this week. Yay!
Thanks; I don’t really get to eat people food. The food I get is actually much better than people food. It did rain here, for about five minutes. Very strange. Of course it does rain in the winter if you count five minutes of rain. A more precise way to put it is that it rains in Denver in the winter as much as it snows in Malibu in the winter.
We’ll be eating lettuce here as well.
Interesting to see the blackbirds, when they and the grackles show up I always thought that was a sure sign of spring. I’ll have to be more wary now.
That’s what the guy I live with said, that blackbirds were a sign of spring, but we’ve had them in the garden in winter several winters before this one. He and his friend went to Denver Botanic Gardens today, where she spotted snowdrops before he did. They looked like regular elwesii; couldn’t see a label. The trouble here is that the ones which would be in flower at this time of year or earlier are in too much shade; they should be in sun, now, and shade in the summer. Some snowdrops were ordered. But the guy I live with said I would still get my Taste of the Wild food. Whew, huh.
Oh, dear Mani, you are an excellent dog living an excellent life, as reflected in the characteristic pose. You are assuming elegance. This summer I loved your garden in green, and now I find I am charmed as much when your stomping grounds show all the brown. As for that gorgeous indoor growth, I deem it worthy of every bit of lettuce that gets eaten. Love the catalog cover too. Welcome to your new effelant creature, whom I suspect may have been somewhat altered by now.
Thanks. It turns out that the effelant has a rather tough hide, and is not easily altered by me. The guy I live with said that was good. I’m not going to be eating lettuce, after all. The guy I live with said that all the purebred border collies who live here before me got “people food”, and we even allowed to lick plates after dinner (guests were told that that was how the dishes were washed). That practice is no longer followed here, which I think is perfectly fine, since I really like my food. I had to go through several kinds of food to find one I really liked, and would sing for, and we’ve settled on Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream (mostly the dry, with a bit of canned on top), which I’ve been getting for quite a while. The guy I live with sometimes says I have “cat breath”, which is really gross. Cat breath. It’s a wonder I can sleep at night.