Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you a post largely about me, so you can be assured of its total excellence. You may remember me from such about-me posts as “Most Improved”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
The guy I live with, who, if you ask me, was trying to be too bossy, said for me to open my eyes, and un-retract my ears, so I did one of those things. 
I guess that made him happy. Some other things didn’t.
It snowed. And I don’t mean just snowed. We got over a foot of snow. You can imagine the complaining and whining and colorful language when that happened, but I really liked it, and ran around the back yard just to show the guy I live with how much I like snow.
And my walks have been excellently snowy. 
Maybe you can see a few leaves on top of the snow there. The weather forecast called for a high wind warning, with wind gusts up to ninety miles per hour (about a hundred and forty-five kilometers per hour), which sounded like a lot of miles per hour to me, but the guy I live with said that that wasn’t really excessive for here, that it happened quite a bit “back in the old days”, but that this wasn’t the old days, and there would be hardly any wind, and he was right.
In fact, he said that the weather website right now said we were having wind gusts up to eighteen miles per hour, but really the air was dead still, like it almost always is. Creepily so, according to the guy I live with.
Anyway, when it started snowing, we were walking along the canal road, and the owls were there, in the willow tree. The guy I live with posted owl pictures on Facebook but these might be even better. Both owls are in each picture. 
A couple of days before that, I scared a hawk who was eating something on the ground. When we came back that evening, there was almost nothing left of what the hawk was eating.
The sunsets have been pretty good, when it wasn’t snowing, I mean. These are mostly jet contrails, and the guy I live with said he thought they were sort of cool.
The point-and-shoot camera does a fairly good job of moon pictures, though not as good as the other cameras, which he doesn’t take on our walks. He can hold the point-and-shoot, after calibrating it I guess, and just hold it in his right hand, with the leash in his left hand, and, you know, shoot pictures. Eventually maybe I’ll take over picture-taking, but not right now.
So just this morning I decided to walk a different way, which we’ve gone on before but don’t do a lot. That’s the canal on the right; the bank isn’t as high, here.
And there was another egg. 
I was going to get a serious case of the creeps, but the guy I live with said the egg was obviously frozen now, and that probably nothing horrible would hatch out of it. I certainly hope not. I know dragons are green; I’ve seen them on the television.
Well, so, that was the last few days. Not everything is happening outside. This started to happen. I wasn’t sure I like it all that much.
After all of that, then there were these:
It is that time of year again, you know. It comes around pretty regularly now. The guy I live with is often sad, but he said one thing that would cheer him up, and the whole kitchen, in fact, were some packets of turkey gravy. I didn’t really understand this, though I figured it had something to do with eating, which always cheers me up, so I got that part, but he said no, his wife liked to have these packets in the pantry, “just in case”. Like if there was a gravy emergency or something.
It wasn’t about the gravy; it was about just seeing the packets in the pantry. So he went on a turkey-gravy-packet hunting expedition like the day before Thanksgiving. He said if he didn’t return that someone else would take care of me. I knew he was just being funny. But it was a successful hunt; right brand of turkey gravy, now sitting in the pantry the way it always did, when his wife was here. 
He said it actually made pretty good gravy.
And he bought himself a couple of other things. One was this sansevieria. He’s decided he’s going to get into sansevierias and that there will be more in the house, eventually.
You can see that someone (no mentioning who) runs to the window all the time, to guard the house and front yard and driveway and sidewalk and street and stuff, has pushed the green marble table top way over; the guy I live with has to push it back all the time.
He also got this, just to be extra-sentimental like with the packets of gravy:
He sat on the couch the other night, looking at the book, while I lay on what I call “my end” of the couch. This picture makes my rear end look bigger than it is, but that’s okay, because you can tell how cozy things are.
Well, that’s pretty much it for today. No gardening, of course, unless you count watering pots and looking at the sansevieria. It’s supposed to warm up this week but the guy I live with says that probably won’t get rid of all the snow. Some wind would, but it just isn’t windy here any more; not the way it used to be. “Whatever”, he said, which I guess is our motto. Or at least one of them.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
EEKKK another Dragon egg showed up Mani!! Iss a guud thing it iss frozen. An those Owlss are sorta creepy all tho’ they are lovelee birdss. An THE hawk iss hansum…..mee thinkss it iss a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. An so much snow!! Mee-yow wow that iss a lot!
Wee were told wee were gettin yore Colorado Low an wee got rain, then icy pelletss an then sum snow….a whole 2 inchess. Iss so cold out. Iss not fair to bee so cold an onlee 2 inchess of snow! Down where LadyMew used to live in Hammytown (Hamilton) they gotted lotss an lotss of snow an a lot of power outss!
LadyMew got teery eyed reedin ’bout yore ‘guy’ goin fore THE gravy packetss. Shee still buyss her hubby’ss faverite cookiess! Hee has bin gone 13 yeerss now…Mee wunderss what hee was like??
An Guud Luck with THE sanseveria plant….LadyMew used to have a lot of them…
**purrsss** BellaDharma
Thanks; there used to be more house plants here, but the guy I live with says he isn’t very good with them. I think the real reason is that after his wife died he just neglected a lot of things. He still does, in fact.
We don’t know what kind of hawk, thought it was a red-tailed, but we’re not up on hawks, much.
The guy I live with said he’s been to Hamilton. Drove from Toronto to Niagara Falls, which he’d never seen before, and thought was totally cool. In April, so there were chunks of ice the size of houses there.
The gravy packets. It’s funny (maybe not so much) how people don’t understand, and how a simple thing like just being able to see the packets in the pantry is sufficient for the holidays. There are some other things which I might show later; just little things.
He often tells me how sorry he is that it’s just him, here, and that I would have gotten twice as much love and affection and tickles, but he tries to make up for it as much as he can. When his friend visits, I get plenty of love and tickles from her, but she doesn’t live here, and I understand that that’s the way it has to be. He said that Flurry and Pooka, and then Slipper and Chess, and then just Chess, purebred border collies who lived here before me, never had the TV setup in the little upstairs bedroom that I and the guy I live with have, and maybe that’s sufficient.
And sometimes I get three walks a day.
Meow mew LadyMew said shee can ree-late to lettin thingss go when her husband Kevin died July 2003. Hee committed Sue-I-side an shee iss still not ‘over’ her loss. Shee still missess ‘angel’ Unkell Siddhartha Henry…hee was a speshell man cat. What furabuluss names fore all THE Colliess bee-fore you Mani…furry kewl.
An LadyMew looked at Hawk photoe again an shee says yore’ guy an you are rite…iss a Juvenile Red tail…guud eye shee told mee to tell youss’!!
LadyMew lived inn Niagara Fallss THE city fore 3 monthss an went to see THE Falls dailee plus many tripss when shee lived inn Hamilton. Shee even went down to THE tunnel an stood UNDER THE Canadian Falls. An shee went on THE Air Gondola over Niagara River when shee was a teenager….shee sayss THE Falls are furry spiritual fore her.
3 walkss a day soundss lovelee Mani an havin a TeeV iss purrty kewl too 😉
Oh dear. The guy I live with thinks that that’s probably something you don’t get over. You just learn to live with it, sort of.
A lot of the plants in the blog, up until about the time I took it over, were plants that the guy I live with just bought, because he didn’t know what else to do (despite so many people telling him what to do). Eventually a lot of the plants died or were given away.
I’m not sure that he’s settled down in that respect, though today he and his friend went to a shop that he and his wife would go to, before the holidays, and being there with his friend was very good for him. She bought a bunch of stuff, and so did he. I might show the guinea pig butter dish he got for his niece.
Mani yore rite…mee meowed to LadyMew ’bout Mistur Kevin an shee showed mee sum photoess of him an told mee shee iss not ‘over’ his death an that shee just sorta stumbled along til shee cuud feel again. Shee said there iss NO getting ‘over’ sumone takin their own Life an leevin loved one(ss) beehind.
An her huzband before Kevin, Mistur Paul died of total organ failure an hee onlee 33. Hee was a Quadriplegick since hee was 21 1/2 an LadyMew met him AFTUR his accident an fell inn Love. Shee even purposed to Paul!! Hee musta bin inn shock when THAT happened, mew mew mew..
They had 13 yeerss together butt losin him broked LadyMew’ss heart an spirit….till shee met Mistur Kevin an shee bee-leeved shee had one more chance at happy-ness. Mistur Paul died April 1996 an LadyMew met Mistur Kevin May 1998 an they got married Octoburr 1999 an onlee married 4 yeerss an then hee was gone…furry tragick an sad…. **sniffsss**
It is sad. The guy I live with has a story to tell, for a post pretty soon.
His father was a hemiplegic, from Korea, so he knows a bit about that. How rough it can be.
Mee-yow wow wee had NO idea ’bout yore ‘guy’ss’ PawPaw. Wee wuud like to hear his storey fore sure. THE lady above us iss a Hemiplegick an shee fallss a lot an LadyMew callss Ambylance an goess upstairss to help THE lady. Iss furry sad as THE lady iss onlee 2 weekss older than LadyMew…an she bin this way since shee was 16….iss a furry long time to bee diss-abelled rite Mani?
It is a long time. The guy I live with’s father was wounded in 1952, and he died in 1999. He fell a lot, too.
You can read some things on the post called “You Never Know”, which has a link to another post.
Mani – I think what with all that guarding the house and front yard and driveway and sidewalk and street and stuff, you must be very busy. Perhaps you could show us what you are guarding TGYLW from in a blog if you have enough time?
It would mostly be dogs walking down my street. Like this morning at five o’clock, in the dark, two dogs being walked down the street. That sort of thing. Every now and then, a rabbit hops by the front window. Very alarming.
Hi Mani,
I spent the weekend just up the hill from you in Rollinsville, The wind was intense for almost 36 hours there, The snow fell up instead of down at times. Nobody could go outside much and the power went off too, until Sunday morning.. But we had a fire and my sister’s dog, Brownie, and we all sat around and whined about being bored (except Brownie) and played records on a Victrola for a while.. And what’s nicer than a spaghetti dinner by candlelight and an early bedtime? I hope you had a bite or two of turkey.
Thanks, though I didn’t get any turkey. I like salmon better. The guy I live with says I might really be a grizzly bear. I like to think so; all tough and ferocious and all.
The guy I live with said he’s been to Rollinsville, a couple of times. But never to Rollins Pass, though he’s wanted to. Railroad tie trestles built right into ledges, stuff like that.
It was windy today. Pretty nice, actually. The guy I live with said it might help melt this “white ….” but a lot is still here. The wind was the thing, though. Very different.
I like all the pictures of you Mani, even the big-butted one. Owl picture #3 was kind of tricksy. I had to make it very huge before I could see the owls, and one I’m still not sure of. Mmm, what kind of loaves are those? Spice? Pumpkin? They look very good. The gravy envelopes? Maybe not as good. We have more troubles here. Miss Daisy had a lump on her paw and a big funny claw and she had to have that part of her foot removed. We are hoping very hard that it’s not cancer, or if it is, the surgery got it all and it is not aggressive. She is still able to walk, but has to wear a very big cone of shame. I have a lot of bruises because her face is so far back in the cone she can’t tell where she is and so she runs into me. So please think good thoughts for her. Thank you.
Oh dear. We do hope Miss Daisy gets better.
The third owl picture, if you draw an imaginary horizontal line through the middle of the picture, there’s an owl on the left, right on the line, that’s the same distance from the edge of the picture as the one on the right is, but the right one is higher.
If the guy I live with had had the camera pointed just slightly to the right, you could have seen both owls in the very last picture, too.
The gravy isn’t bad at all, according to you know who.
Those are loaves of Moravian coffee cake, from Beard on Bread. The book was given to the guy I live with’s wife, and it has some of her notes in it, but he mostly took over the baking, and likes that book a lot, especially the tone of it. He’s been baking that coffee cake for many years, taking some to work, giving it to friends, and so on.
Well Daisy has squamous cell carcinoma ( or had, maybe, is a better word.) The vet thinks he got it all with good margins, but that won’t stop me from compulsively checking and rechecking various parts of her body.I think TGYLW will understand that type of worry. Looks like I have plenty of time to feed her steak, though.
“Had” is a better word, according to the guy I live with, who also understands the checking and rechecking. (When he thinks there’s something wrong with me, he checks, rechecks, re-rechecks, and so forth. Drives me crazy, but there was a slight problem, a while back, with my plumbing, I guess you’d say, and it was only because of re-rechecking that he was able to take care of it. It was something I ate that I shouldn’t’ve.)
I hear that steak is a good idea, and we’ll think good thoughts.
I like that you begin with another stop-action two-shot. I hope it’s the second in a series. Yes, Mani, I agree with the guy you live with, Beard IS fun to read. Very much back in the day. At garage sales and the like, I scoop up old cookbooks, and the very best have handwritten notes in them. I turned in another article – this on a landscape/garden conference – and I have renewed admiration for your writing abilities, dear dog. I bet you could take some very fine photographs too. All that snow! No frozen paws from running around? I assume you’re ecstatic. Love the last photo of you looking particularly winsome underneath that GREAT tree. You live in wonderful country for snow; unsure about the wind.
Thanks; I try to hone my blog-posting skills, but sometimes I get distracted by a silly idea the guy I live with has. Then I forget what I was thinking.
I do sometimes get ice in my paws; I stop, and the guy I live with very deftly gets out the ice. He has lots of practice. It’s easier for me to walk in the ice and snow than it is for the guy I live with, who is extremely sore and creaky these days. (He said that will probably go away.)
After his mom died, the guy I live with found a first edition of James Beard’s Cook it Outdoors, inscribed in 1952 by his grandfather, from his brother-in-law (who died within weeks of the inscription).There are some pages marked in the book, though the guy I live with’s grandfather didn’t do much barbecuing, as far as he can remember.
He only kept the book because he does remember the huge steel barbecue, big rectangular thing, painted silver, with wheels, that was in the back yard of his grandparents’ house, at least for a while.
Wee will have to reed that post fore sure Mani!!
An wee are sorry fore yore ‘guy’s’ PawPaw dyin….hee sure was a brave purrson to live with his Diss-abilitee.
An mee knows ’bout arthritis as LadyMew has Osteoarthritis….shee meowed to mee shee gotted it at 25 yeerss of age plus Fibro. Shee was still abell to werk till shee was 34 an then went to College. It tooked her 5 yeerss fore her to get a 3 yeer Diploma. An shee gotted sicker an ended upss on a Pension. An then shee werked part time butt aftur shee was assalted umm wait…assaulted an all most died shee ree-tired an gotted Old Agerss Pension. Our Hu’manss sure have gone thru; a lot haven’t they Mani??
I guess they have. Though we have our share of troubles, too, don’t we? I know that some of the purebred border collies who lived here before me got really sick, too. Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Meow meow yore rite Mani….Us 4 leggedss have trubbellss too. Mee just found out mee frend Murli from Austria ran off to Purr Land. Shee was onlee 14 an seemed inn guud health. Her Pawentss are furry heart broked an mee an LadyMew are furry sad here….
Life iss nevurr guaranteed iss it??? Wee must bee grate full fore each day mee frend!
Mee hopess you will live a long an happy life Mani!
**purrsss** BellaDharma
Thanks; same to you. The guy I live with says for sure that we have no idea what life may bring.This certainly wasn’t the way he thought his life would go. It hasn’t been all terrible, though, as you can tell.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Did you ever see ‘Alien’? If not, don’t. It started with scary eggs. Mork is not so scary, just weird.
I did, on the TV here. More than once. The guy I live with said not to look, but I sill did.