Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to bring you up to date on the many fascinating happenings in our house and garden. You may remember me from such similarly-themed posts as “One Hundred Snowdrops”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. 
Then like half a second later, with me still posing characteristically, some snow slid off the open frame on the right.
I guess it would be superfluous to mention that it snowed here. But allow me to take you back in time, to a few days earlier.
The water started flowing in the canal again. It’s been shut off four times now. (It’s off now, for the rest of the season. Maybe.)
The ducks went back into the canal. The guy I live with said there was a phrase about ducks taking to water, and that made sense.
There was even a bizarre object in the canal. The guy I live with suggested that it might be a Mystery Egg.
There was something in the southern sky, too. We see this every now and then, though not when it’s snowing. The guy I live with said we’d never try this, unless he became a spy, and had to do this because he was being chased by evil agents. He might just hide, instead.
And there have been sunsets. This is the time of year for the best ones. The wind comes off the mountains in just a certain way. 
The best sunset picture got posted on Facebook, but I think I should show it here. The guy I live with really likes this picture. It was just pure luck that everything and everyone came together here.
Well, anyway, it snowed. But first, it rained. It can rain in November, and sometimes does. It’s about as common as seeing Mystery Eggs. And then, that night, the rain froze, or at least some of it did. (The macro feature on the point-and-shoot doesn’t always work very well.)
And then it snowed.
That’s my tail, there, in the picture below, if you couldn’t tell. It’s too great a tail to be cropped out of the picture.
The willows are really photogenic at this time of year. I know I show a lot of pictures of them, but they’re pretty cool.
There were strange tracks in the canal, too. Tracks in the slush. 
Then the next day it was nicer. The sun came out. 
So that’s the weather here. Back and forth. Or up and down.
A week or so ago the guy I live with read about a snowdrop sale, and so he decided to order some. Two hundred of them, if you can believe that.
And they arrived in the mail. The bulbs looked pretty good, with flowering shoots emerging, but with no roots at all, and that’s a problem, here. The snowdrops should already have formed roots by now, if they were in the ground, and roots are more important than shoots, so he decided to plant them in nursery pots, of which he happened to have a lot of, because the chances of the bulbs forming roots when it’s this cold are not so great.
It’s different from other bulbs, because these snowdrops would be up in less than six weeks. And the guy I live with explained something about cryoprotective sugars, which are a product of photosynthesis, which pretty much requires roots to function.
This turned out to be one of those plans that sounded better than in theory. It was a huge amount of work; the guy I live with’s hips and knees are really achy and sore from the hormone therapy, and there was a lot of colorful language, especially when he tried to get up after all the planting.
But it all got done, and hopefully the snowdrops are busy making roots. (They were soaked in water for a couple of hours before being planted.)
If everything goes according to plan, like it almost never does, the bulbs will be planted out next spring. Maybe even “in the green”. They look like green onions then. You can imagine the fun of planting two hundred green onion things.
He told his friend that most of them were going in her garden. If this all works, I mean. The last time he got bulk snowdrops, like the post I mentioned right at the beginning, only some of them came up, and I think none has survived. These are just Galanthus elwesii which is easy to grow here, so maybe starting with good roots is the key.
While he was struggling with that, he took a picture of the view from the upstairs bedroom window, where the snowdrops are. (Cyclamen, too.) That’s the shed roof, covered with snow.
And then just a little while ago, today, he took a picture of a snowdrop in the Snowdrop Frame. It’s “ridiculously late” this year, but there hasn’t been any rain, and that dip down to 0° in October probably didn’t help.
Galanthus reginae-olgae ‘Cambridge’
It doesn’t really matter that this autumn-flowering snowdrop is so late. What matters is that this was originally one bulb, and it’s been increasing very nicely. I think there are even more bulbs than the ones whose shoots you can see.
Well, that really is it for today.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Great owl in the sunset photo. Love the tracks on the frozen canal. Two creatures, one in front of the other?
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks. There are two owls in the tree in the sunset picture, by the way. The pair of them, male and female. âOurâ owls. The guy I live with said that the tracks were probably made by the same creature that laid the Mystery Egg. I wonder.
:—D. I’d love to see that creature!
Hatched from giant green Mystery Egg. Personally I think the guy I live with is full of something..
Life, full of change and excitement around your place, Mani. Seeing your characteristic poses, both of them, is like watching a short stop-action. Such sweet bulbs, in the garden, snowdrops in a pot. I hope the newly-potted snowdrops flourish so you don’t have to hear more salty language. I love your garden thawing, I love your garden snowy! And I wish you and the guy you live with and his friend, all, a merry thanksgiving.
Thanks; the guy I live with says same to you. He’s going to eat turkey with his friend on Thanksgiving.
It’s supposed to snow again tomorrow night. It’s snowing here kind of a lot for this time of year. That’s what he says, anyway.
Mee-yow wow 200 hundred snow drops iss ALOT!!! Mee had LadyMew count for mee an mee was surprized just how many 200 iss!
An THE little Crow-cuss iss so purrsistent!! Speshelly with it rainin an snowin an not knowin what Seeson it iss there. Ladymew wunderss if THE Duckiess were walkin inn canal aftur snowin? What do you think Mani??
An yore rite ’bout yore tail…it iss too gorgeous to not bee seen!
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
It is a lot of snowdrops. The guy I live with said we’ll only know if it was worth it in a couple of years, which is kind of a long time to wait.
Might have been ducks walking on the slush in the canal. It’s snowing right now, and we’re supposed to get a whole bunch of snow. The guy I live with is a bit down about that. But he doesn’t have anywhere to go for a few days.
Have you seen more Duckss Mani??? Wee have herd yore goin to get more snow! An THE snow storm inn Minny-soda iss apposta come to us over THE weekend. LadyMew herted her back an her rite knee. Shee has cancelled her appointmintss out. Miss Suzy G iss goin to drive her to Farmacy to get Heat patches an rub an back home…Iss onlee 4 blocks butt LadyMew can not even walk THAT far!! Shee iss a REEL wreck! 😦
Oh. The guy I live with says he’s sorry; he hurts his back kind of a lot, and his right knee almost gave out when he was at the store today. A couple of weeks ago it was his left knee. He saw this email earlier and thought about heat patches but forgot when he went to the drug store. Have had some email trouble which is why it’s been taking so long to respond. We see the ducks in the neighbors’ back yard, where there’s food for them.
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Snow is so pretty. At first. We are supposed to get quite a lot, for here, tonight. Naturally, tomorrow’s the day I get a delivery of bare root daylilies. You have a beautiful Border Collie tail!
Have a nice Thanksgiving!
Thanks, I agree that my tail is pretty gorgeous. I do get burrs in it from time to time, and that’s kind of a nuisance.
We have a foot of snow here. The guy I live with says he’s ready to give up gardening ….
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.
“We have a foot of snow here. The guy I live with says he’s ready to give up gardening ….”
https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/02/snow-natures-fertilizer.html
The guy I live with says the snow hasn’t melted yet, so he can’t read pro-snow articles with any degree of open-mindedness.
That Paul Hetzler is a funny guy while he imparts knowledge. Reminds me of another writer I read …
I guess. The guy I live with says snow is never funny, just cold. I like it. He also says that if each time it fell it was a different color that might make it more interesting. But it always comes down white, and stays for a very long time, like a house guest who never leaves.
Guud greef our Hu’manss are a *hot* mess Mani!! Mee sorry yore ‘guy; forgot pain patchess. LadyMew usess them when shee REELLY hertss herself. Shee mew shee shuud not pick up THE grocery bag butt shee was stubbern an look where it gotted her! Poor stubbern sweet LadyMew!
You never know what can happen, do you? The guy I live with was better today, not so hurty. He says he might not do anything for a while now.
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Yore so rite Mani!!! How is yore ‘guy’ today?? LadyMew broke her fevurr an THE Sinusitis has calmed down. Her back iss ree-spondin to Flexxyril…shee sayss 1 more dose. an shee shuud bee A-Okay! Her knee iss still wonky butt shee iss used to that. Pawss crossed shee can go Catmass shoppin tomorrow with her frend….wee see what happenss…mew mew mew…
I hope things are better for LadyMew. The guy I live with’s legs felt fine until he sort of “sprang” a muscle behind his right knee this afternoon, but he’s done that before.
This is the time of year when humans get sick and so the guy I live with said he wasn’t going to touch anyone, but he has to go to a doctor’s office tomorrow, to have more blood drawn, and there are a lot of people there, so, who knows.
Ouch ouch ouch fore yore ‘guy’ hertin his rite knee too! What iss it with our Hu’manss an their rite knees Mani???
An LadyMew has such low Immunity shee shuud wear a Hazmat suit to go out from Novemburr till April, mew mew mew…..
I don’t know. Today it’s his left knee.
Ouchie!! Mee hopess yore guy iss bettur today! Sore kneess are NO fun for our Hu’manss or fore us when wee have to watch them are hert an sad…… 😦
It was better today, thanks. The guy I live with says it’s the hormone therapy wearing off.
Wee here hopess yore ‘guy’ has a pain-free (or as close to it as pawssibell) this weekend so you an hee can go fore nice walkss Mani!!!
Thanks; I was able to go on two walks though the guy I live with had attacks of arthritis and general stiffness this evening.
It was okay, though; arthritis has been a visitor here many times, especially to aging purebred border collies.
They guy you live with might be old enough to remember a really inane sitcom known as ‘Mork and Mindy’. Mork was an alien from another planet. He arrived in Boulder in a space ship that looked like an egg. However, it looked nothing like your mystery egg. It was more like a gigantic white hen’s egg.
The guy I live with and his friend walk by the house, sometimes, when they go to Boulder.
They aren’t afraid of space aliens? They can be scary, like a moth.
The guy I live with said that the aliens left, long ago.
Oh, of course. Mork lived near hear for a long time. Privet ran into his home and did something naughty on a rug.
Lol.
That is what Privet said. I was mortified.
We dogs think things are funny that humans don’t.
Like pooping in gopher holes? Bill used to do that.
We don’t have gophers here, so I don’t know. Vole tunnels, we do have, and entrances to them.