Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again, but for the first time this year, it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here with yet more boring stuff to talk about, and also to wish you a Happy New Year. You may remember me from such equally possibly tiresome posts as “Caulk And Vernation”, among at least a few others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. 
Even though I intimated that this post would have boring stuff in it, this is really interesting. It’s me, about to have my dinner. That’s pretty excellent.
You can see my eating platform, or dinner tray, if you will, there; it’s an old cardboard box, with an even older dish towel on it. The box and the towel stay the same, though the towel gets washed every so often.
This eating platform was Chess’s, the purebred border collie who lived here before me. There’s another one, which was Slipper’s, another purebred border collie, but that one is never used. It just isn’t, I guess, is why.
So that’s the interesting part of my post. The rest is pretty much stuff you’ve seen before, but different pictures of it.
Well, this is different, but nothing you’ve seen before. I didn’t get to see it, because I was at home on Christmas Day. The guy I live with was coming home from his niece’s and stopped by the library, even though it was of course closed, because he saw this, and had to take pictures of it.
It’s a bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, which you don’t see a lot of around here. You can see it’s growing in a lawn, a soccer field actually, so it gets lots of water.
The other moderately interesting thing is this object, which is nailed to a tree in the sort of forest by the creek, on the other side of the canal.
The guy I live with said it was a nesting or roosting box, for birds, and that he might duplicate this design and make a whole bunch of them. (He can do things like this.)
Then, getting a bit less interesting, are the snowdrops. You can see more are coming up in this big pot. Very exciting. Not necessarily to me. 
And, the guy I live with said he was going to get into sansevierias, which, for me anyway, is about where the interestingness bottoms out, but he says they should do well just sitting around in pots. He might order some from Arid Lands, because they have some other species.
For some reason he likes plants that “just sit around” without him having to do anything. 
That’s really all that’s been going on here. I guess I should show the now-obligatory pictures of sunsets, willows, and owls, since we have some here. The guy I live with posted the sunset pictures, which are also willow pictures, on Facebook, but if you didn’t see those there, here they are here. 
Okay, I admit that these are fairly nice pictures. The guy I live with was happy with them. And they merge into owl pictures pretty effortlessly.
We don’t see the owls every evening, but almost every evening. Sometimes they aren’t where they usually are. (I know they fly, because I’ve seen them do it.)
We think this is the female. 
And this is the male; half asleep, and then completely asleep. Sometimes they sit in the same tree together, but usually they sit in separate trees, quite a distance from each other. The guy I live with and his wife slept in separate bedrooms for most of their marriage, and he said that was the secret, or at least one of them, to success. 
Well, that’s it. Not very much at all. But, I guess, something. Maybe not as much as something, but slightly more than hardly anything.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me on a cozy winter evening. That’s something. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mew mew mew yore last photoe iss so adoorabell Mani…you look so comfycozy…..iss nice to feel THAT ree-laxed! Wee hope you an yore ‘guy’ had a good Catmass an a Happy Mew Yeer. It was sorta a pee-culiar holly-day fore us. Ferst wee got hacked on 22nd an wee were offline til THE 1st. Wee spent alot of time just sittin together an . LadyMew’ss Neece called on THE 24th an that perked her up. Catmass Day shee came home inn teerss. Shee not tell mee why. Mew Yeer’ss Eve there were more teerss… it was pawfull…An bed at 11 Pee Em….
Thank SkyCat for a MEW Yeer!
Those sunset photoess are specktaculer Mani! Wee have had cloudss an more cloudss….hardly any Sun at all. An no Owlss like yoress.
LadyMew sayss yore ‘guy’ iss furry clevurr ’bout Sanseecareuss plantss…they are purrty self sufish-ent shee told mee…what do fish have to do with plantss???
Wishin both of you an yore ‘guy’s’ lady frend a wunderful 2020…
***purrsss*** BellaDharma
Thanks; same to you two.
The guy I live with said that the holidays can be times when there are, often very suddenly, a whole lot of tears.That certainly happened here, more than once.
Self-sufficient doesn’t have anything to do with fish, silly, it has to do with being sufficiently selfless, or something like that.
Getting hacked sounds icky. The guy I live with has had all sorts of problems with his new laptop; the programs and stuff, you know. Quite a few phone calls. He was pretty ticked off, but he would never let the person on the other end know that. He used to do that sort of thing and knows what it’s like to be on what he called “the receiving end”.
Yore ‘guy’ iss purrty smart Mani! Hee sure knowss alot of stuff. LadyMew said most peepell here did not reelly feel inn Catmass spirit this yeer…..mee not sure what mee feeled. Mee iss so gratefull to have a home an LadyMew to love mee.
An guess what?? Shee bott mee a MEW 2 level pedestal bed today! Mee furry gratefull fore sure.
Ummm oh self suf-fish-ent like beein inn-deependant rite Mani?? Sumtimess mee has trubbell meowin Hu’man. Doggiess seem to do bettur than us catss….
An THE ree-ceevin end of a Hacker iss horrifick! THE man (mee usess that werd looselee) yelled at LadyMew an told her it was her fault fore gettin hacked an shee dee-served it. Hee told her if shee went back online on another Pee C it wuud get hacked too. So shee wuud not borrow any of our frend’ss Pee C shee was so terryfied. Mee was scared fore her too. An mee stayed up late at nite watchin out THE window to make sure no one broked inn. (Mee knowss hee was far far away now, butt at THE time mee was so scared!)
**purrsss** BellaDharma
Oh, the hacking sounds so scary…
Yes, self-sufficient means independent, kind of. It’s hard to be completely self-sufficient though.
The guy I live with says that sometimes holidays can be sad. We didn’t do anything for the holidays, like decorations or candles, but it wasn’t terrible.
Mani it has bin a ruff few dayss. LadyMew got back inn-to Facebake an dee-activated her account. Shee iss furry worn out from all this hackin stuff.
An same here; wee sorta had deco’ss up butt one nite LadyMew sorta took efurrythign down. Shee tore up most of THE cardss. An shee cried alot.
Mee sat with her once shee calmed down. Catmass iss not mee faverite time of yeer eether! 😉
The holidays can be really rough. I’m sorry they were so rough for you.The hacking sounds pretty scary.The guy I live with is letting me use the phone to answer this.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Yore so clevurr Mani! Too operate Samsung phone! Furabuluss!! Mew mew mew…..
As fore Catmass an Mew Yeer’ss mee sorta, no REELLY glad iss all over! LadyMew iss back to normal; well, ‘her’ normal an wee have had quiet dayss together. No teerss!
**purrsss** BellaDharma
We’re glad too. Its 60 degrees here today. Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Mee-yow wow you shuud see THE fog tonite here Mani!! Iss Furiday nite an iss 45 deegreess out an THE tempyture iss slowlee droppin an fog iss rollin inn like it iss London, England!!! Iss spooky out there!
Wee apposta to get rain/snow mix tomorrow….an bee chilley too!
**purrsss** BellaDharma
Oh, we never have fog here. The guy I live with told me about it. Kind of scary, maybe. 21F here.
Fog iss furry scarey Mani…you sorta think you see ghostiess comin outta THE fog!!! EEKKK!
An iss now down to 32 F an freezin rain today…mee stay inn-side fore sure!
It sounds pretty scary. All the more reason to stay inside, I would say.
Mew mew mew mee agreess 150 purr cent with you Mani!!!! 😉
Too chilly to do anything, anyway, which is okay, but a little boring.
But with whom did Chess and Slipper sleep? Perhaps that was the secret to success. Curious parties need to know.
Well, first there were Flurry and Pooka. They would have fights because of firecrackers and thunder, so Flurry slept upstairs with the guy I live with. The door downstairs was closed. So then, when it was Slipper and Chess, Slipper would sleep upstairs, even though he and Chess never fought, because they were first cousins. It just became the thing. The guy I live with and his wife each had their own personal border collie.
And the door downstairs was closed so there wouldn’t be a lot of “border collie hoo-ha” in the middle of the night, barking at a cat walking on the sidewalk two blocks away.
After his wife died, Slipper looked all over the house and garden for her, for three days, and Chess hid in the closet at night for about three months, but finally both of them settled down to their less happy new life by both sleeping in the upstairs bedroom with the guy I live with. Slipper would sleep at the foot of the bed, and Chess would sleep on the bed, on his back, with his front and hind legs stretched out. They were all together there, which was good, because Slipper got really sick about six months later, and they could all be in the bedroom together.
Your snow drops reminded me… I saw some of my crocuses popping up in the garden today and it made me unreasonably happy. A great antidote to the woes of the day. Oh yes, and my sarcacocca are blooming. These small things help get me through the winter.
Beautiful sunsets as usual.
I won’t show my pup the picture of you on your sofa Mani, as it will give him ideas.
Happy new year to you and yours.
Thanks; same to you.
There’s absolutely nothing in flower here, except for a few snowdrops in the frames. Actually more than a few. I’d show pictures but the guy I live with is super-irked that everything is so late. Two months late. But then, winter started here in October. He says nothing is normal any more.
I talk about the couch all the time, because it’s the couch. I mentioned Flurry, the first purebred border collie who lived here, in another comment; the guy I live with said he remembering hearing him get on and off the couch in the middle of the night, by the creaking.
“By the creaking of the couch…”, he just said. Like Shakespeare. The couch is over eighty years old. The chairs you see in some of the pictures, and the tables on either side of the couch, are that old, too.
Maybe I find the couch so comfortable because of all the other purebred border collies who lived here, and loved the couch, too. Maybe.
Mani your eyes are beautiful
Thanks. All the better to see you with. (The guy I live with said to say thatâ¦. It must be some reference to my basic fierceness, which of course I cleverly disguise.)
We had a beautiful bald cypress around the corner here, but they cut it down this fall. I wonder if there were new owners and they thought it was dead. It’s open season most of the time on trees around here. People think they are messy and don’t like the leaves. They’re the same people who
are out spraying roundup in the spring. Of course none of that is as interesting or happy as your eating arrangements, Mani. The girls couldn’t use a platform. They are very vigorous eaters and the bowls would go flying quickly. As it is, they’ve damaged the paint by their eating spots. The bowls are stainless steel. Why do you use a platform? As a digestive aid?
There’s always been a box to eat off of. The guy I live with said that his wife read that eating off of a box was better for dogs. I guess it’s a digestive aid.
There was a bald cypress in the garden here, for a year or so, way back when. It died, like so many other trees and shrubs did. There’s a really big one about a mile north of here, right out in the middle of nowhere, sort of. Supposedly it was planted over an old well.
We have to have the big honey locust here cut down; it’s mostly dead. The guy I live with talked to a tree person who said that the big temperature drop of November 2014 damaged the tree’s defenses and opened the way for borers.
That’s going to be a big deal, to have that done.
Oh yes, it will be. Very shocking to take down a tree, even when it’s on the way out. Just makes a person cringe.
It will probably be a very big deal. No way to get a truck in the back yard, and all the troughs will have to be moved. Some will probably break. The guy I live with says that’s okay, though.
I think sansevierias can be pretty interesting, in a very slow way. After a few years instead of one, there are three! They have beautiful leaves. Plus, you can’t kill them. I like one of their names, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue. I guess it has to do with the numbness if you taste the sap, but I like to think it’s because they have a sharp end, sharp like my late mother-in-law’s tongue!
I’m not so sure the guy I live with won’t find a way to kill them, but, so far, the house plants here have been doing okay. I hear that there were more, way back when, much larger plants. After the guy I live with lost his wife, he stopped caring for a lot of things, including plants, indoors and out, but that’s mostly changed now.
All the extra oxygen will be good for us.
Wonderful photos. Thanks for the updates and happy new year.
Thanks, and same to you.