Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today mostly to complain about the end of Daylight Savings Time, and maybe talk about some other things. You may remember me from such posts as “The Haunted Toaster”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Listening to music coming from the kitchen. 
You can probably tell that my ears are especially suited for listening (except to the guy I live with, of course). If you wanted to know what I was listening to, though maybe you don’t, it was the mazurkas of Szymanowski. I am a pretty sophisticated purebred border collie.
Well anyway, it’s kind of weird that pretty much the same things happen here year after year; if you look at posts at this time of year in earlier years, you can see there was a really cold night in October, and then some complaining (the guy I live with says “observing”, but we differ there) about all the browned leaves rattling in the wind.
The big cottonwood in the field has completely brown leaves, and the rattling is pretty strange. The guy I live with says if the leaves stay on for a while, and it snows, large branches may come down in the field.
Even though it snowed a couple of weeks ago, or whenever (we kind of don’t keep track of such things), everything is now super-dry again (the humidity today was six percent). I think these were tankers carrying fire-suppressant to the fires that are still burning up north.
There was a lot of snow up north in the mountains, but not enough to put out the fires. It turns out that snow can not only not put out fires, the fire can sometimes still burn under the snow, which is totally bizarre.
The people fighting the fire said that rain would have been better. The guy I live with said that’s almost always true, but the weather patterns here have changed so much that it’s very unlikely for us to have anything but snow from September to April or even May.
The snow did melt deeply enough into the soil that the autumn-flowering crocuses are very happy now. This is Crocus cartwrightianus ‘Halloween’. The bees really like it. That is saffron you see there, but not the highest grade, you might say.
The cyclamen were pretty happy, too. I have some pictures of the leaves of Cyclamen hederifolium to show, though the guy I live with was disappointed that the ‘Silver Arrow Leaf Form’ plants were gone. There were a couple of plants there some years ago, but chemicals were thrown into the garden by people working next door, and things haven’t been the same since. 
The garden itself, like the general aspect, is pretty brown and dry, which I guess, from all the muttering and stuff I’ve been hearing, is just fine.
Maybe you can see here how dry the “way back” garden and my private lawn are.
This is looking northwest. You can see the cottonwood out in the field, with its brown leaves.
This is looking north. And, yes, we know…
That’s our view now. Not much to be said, I guess.
On a more pleasant note, we see the owls almost every evening.
So that’s it, except for the Big Thing. The guy I live with tried to explain it to me, but it just didn’t make any sense at all. How it was going to be dark for longer each day.
This evening, I waited and waited for my dinner. And waited some more. Then there was still more waiting. And after that, there was more waiting. The minutes ticked by like hours. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
I knew it was time, but the guy I live with said it wasn’t, which made no sense at all, since I don’t need what he calls a “clock” to tell when it’s time to eat.
But I still had to wait.
Then, just as I thought I was going to starve, my dinner was served. Everything was fine again.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me looking about as hopeless as a purebred border collie can look, but knowing that I finally did get my dinner, maybe it’s not as pathetically hopeless as I made it out to be.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
My pooch is also very confused with this time change business. More silly human stuff. I agree.
It’s really been terrible. The waiting. So pointless. I keep trying to tell the guy I live with that my Tummy Clock hasn’t been reset, and he keeps saying “Just a few more minutes”.
I thought I was going to pass out from hunger this evening. Had to wait almost half an hour.
“my Tummy Clock hasn’t been reset” What happens in the Spring when clocks are moved forward?
Everything is fine. It’s like I’m eating earlier.
Mee-you Mani iss wunderfull to see you today!!! Wee bin offline fore 2 weekss an wundered how you an yore Guy were doin! Wee furry reeleeved THE Firess are far away from you! Wee saw them on THE mewss an it was scarey to see.
Yore lawn an garden look lovelee to us! Wee have soggy plantss beecause wee got so much rain followed bye SNOW yesturday (Sunday). Yore Crocussess are deelitefull.
An that Owl iss sure keepin an eye on youss’! Mee scared of them!! **shuddurss**
An mee heerss you ’bout this stew-pid time change…..yore foto sayss it ALL!! LadyMew said with a face like that shee wuud give you dubbell suppurr! (Shee can bee inn-fluenced!) 😉
Mee has THE opposite problem: Mee cuud not werk out when it was time to eat. LadyMew had to serve mee suppurr an snax an wake mee up to eat!!
Apparentlee, there are 4 Provincess (like yore Statess) that do not switch time at all…..wee sure want to join that club! LadyMew has had so much trubbell adjustin too! An it beein Dark O’CLOCK at 5 Pee Em iss reediculuss (just meowin!)
Anywho it iss lovelee to check in with youss’ again. If wee go MIA it iss Lady Davina dyin…..shee iss on her last (potatoe) chip…..
***purrss*** BellaDharma an ❤ LadyMew
The guy I live with had a laptop that he had to hook up to a regular computer monitor, and sometimes it took almost an hour to get fully going. He was pretty patient, though.
I don’t like the time change at all. The guy I live with says we’re done with that for a while.
It snowed here but it’s very dry again. In the seventies (Fahrenheit all week), with humidity lower than ten percent.
Lady Davina lappytop iss runnin guud. ternss her off but does not close the screen down an that iss keepin THE hinge from beein messed up. Wee doin our best to keep her runnin.
Mee-yow wow! No snow?? Tempyturess inn THE 70’ss?? Weerd rite?
Iss still furry chilley here…..
An mee still tryin to figure out when to eat Mani! Iss so confusin!
**purrss** BellaDharma
The hinge on the old laptop here is iffy, too. As well as some keys, especially the T key.
It’s supposed to snow here next Sunday or Monday. I forget which.
EEKKK yore Pee C has wonky as ourss Mani?!?!?! LadyMew had to glue THE “pg dn” key back on. Shee NOT efurr use it…weerd rite???
An now wee know how cheeep THE lappytop hingess are wee will leeve any Pee C open from now on!! 😉
Our old laptop is in pretty bad shape but it still sort of works. The new one is better. I guess I don’t need to say that…Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Mew mew emw Mani mee heerss you mee frend! LadyMew iss furry carefull with Lady Davina…shee iss fragile fore sure!
They can definitely be fragile. The guy I live with got a pretty good one I think last year, but it still does weird things.
Ohhh, cyclamen. They just give me a thrill. I noticed one of my fancyish ones, a Christmas Tree purpurascens has spread! And a silverleaf hederifolium! Some compensation for these dark times, although perhaps not for a late meal. Maybe you should broaden your interests a bit. Of course, you are at the top level in the interests you DO have.
Hmm. I might talk to the guy I live with about other interests I could have. I’m pretty good at sleeping during the evening, though.
The guy I live with usually watches TV, or really, he has it on, so there are other human voices in the room, but this evening he’s been cleaning things in the kitchen. That was pretty boring to watch, so I went back to being all cozy on the couch.
I hear that cyclamen are very interesting. You should see how many are in the upstairs bedroom, under lights. The lights aren’t really adequate, but all the cyclamen are doing up there is growing. They might go into the garden next year.
LadyMew sayss her wireless mousie iss wonky too! Mind you shee sorta thru it across THE room! (Shee getss frustrated easy like!)
An shee meowed to mee that efurry one of her 5 Lappytopss have been weerd inn one way or another. Mee wunderss if they are not built strong Mani??
Desktopss do not act so weerd!! 😉
I think wireless mice are not all that sturdily built. A plug in one might be better.
😉 Mee agreess with you Mani! Now to get LadyMew to see sense!! Mew mew mew….
The corded mice are pretty cheap, and easier to use, except there is a cord.
Hey sweet dog…. this came across the screen today: “the authors investigated the personality of 217 Border collies across a wide age range (from 6 months to 15 years) using a comprehensive test battery known as the Vienna Dog Personality Test (VIDOPET). The researchers also invited the owners and the dogs back to the lab four years later, and tested 37 subjects again.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74310-7
Cool. I will be perfect in just a year or two.