Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you up to date on almost nothing at all. You may remember me from such posts as “The Long Lead”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Having a biscuit on the couch.
I sometimes like to go upstairs and get on the bed, and have the guy I live with bring me a biscuit, which he does, even though he says that’s pretty spoiled.
I don’t think of myself as being spoiled, at all. I mean, look at all the things I have to do around here. I can’t make a list of them right now, but maybe I will someday.
Things have been weird. The news has definitely been weird.
And about ten days ago, on one of my walks, I got attacked by another dog, not on a leash (I wasn’t hurt), but the guy I live with got knocked down onto the ground, protecting me. He was okay, too, but he was sore for a few days.
The other thing, which was extremely weird, was that just a few days ago, the guy I live with noticed that there was a blank space at the top of the blog. He said this was a space for a header. He couldn’t remember that the blog had had a header for quite some time, but there was the blank space, which he couldn’t get rid of, so he uploaded a picture of snowdrops, which you now see, even though they aren’t flowering right now.
Which brings me to my usual theme, the endlessly dismal winter we’re having. I wouldn’t know this, except for all the complaining. I think it’s perfectly okay, except we don’t do a lot of gardening. We had one nice day in the sixties, with wind that evaporated a whole bunch of the snow, but then it got cold again, so there’s still ice on the paths.
The guy I live with told me that when he was working, he would always take a week off at this time of year because the weather was so warm, like sixties or almost seventy, for at least a week, sometimes longer, and he used to daydream about taking his wife to this restaurant he always wanted to go to. (At one time it was a place that served things called “Philly cheese steaks”, but the last time he and his wife went there, she was slightly put out because the waitress was so friendly to him. He told his wife he hadn’t even noticed. I don’t understand that.)
The restaurant is gone now, and the last few years haven’t had anything like those warm spells of the past.
So there’s almost nothing in flower now; it’s supposed to snow again, and be cold for another week.
Thanks to the pandemic, he can’t go see his friend if it’s this cold all the time, but they did meet in a park last week, to look at the geese and stuff.
They also saw this fairly huge Yucca elata.
He says this was obviously planted as a large specimen. He’d like to have one in his garden, but large specimens are very expensive.
We have some smaller ones here.
And very small cactus:
Some of the cactus seedlings are doing better than others. The guy I live with said they’d probably like some fertilizer, but we’re out of it right now.
I guess the days where he would just get in the car and drive to get some fertilizer are gone, too. But hopefully not for good.
By the way, those are the same B.E.F. Grower’s pots which he’s used outdoors and in for about thirty years. You can’t get them any more.
He was going to sow some seeds outdoors, in more of those pots, but he didn’t have any labels, and looked all over the internet for some. They had to be just the right kind of labels, four inch plastic ones, which last for a very long time here. He finally found a place, and ordered a couple hundred, which should be more than enough.
My walks, aside from that one incident, have been about the same.
We still see owls. This is a male, and was hooting when we saw it. They look like big chickens when they hoot; they lean forward, with tail feathers held high, and hoot away.
There are hawks, too, but they almost always fly away when we get close to them. I must really frighten them.
So that’s it for today. Hopefully things will return to normal before long.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Wow, they found a nice Yucca elata.That is the species of Yucca that I believe to be the State Flower of New Mexico. I can not confirm that though.
It is.
EEEKKK!!! Mani an Guy yore sure youss’ both OKay aftur THE nasty doggie came aftur you both?? Was hee/shee a wild doggie or sumone’ss ‘pet’…(sum ‘pet’ if hee/shee was!) Mee sendss xtra POTP inn case youss’ need it!
Yore winter iss alot like ourss: gloomy an cloudy butt wee have big chilley. Mee onlee went out inn Condo yesterday fore 20 minuttss….there was sum weak Sun shinin….well sorta shinin…..
That Yucca iss amazin! An yore baby Cacti are lookin purrty guud. Yore Guy has a guud Green Thumm.
Wee happy hee an his lady frend gotted to go vissit THE Geese. An guud ole Mistur Owl keepin an eye on thingss…..
Wishin yousss’ a peecefull an safe week.
**purrss** BellaDharma
Pee S: Mani you are gettin ‘room sirivce’ like mee does. PAWSUM!
Thanks; same to you. The little cactus are pretty easy to grow, really, so long as they get watered regularly.
I know this dog; it just got out of its house, accidentally.
Mostly sunny here, warm in the sun, really, but only about 45 degrees F every day.
Mee iss sorry you know THE Doggie an it tried to hert you. That was furry notty beehaviour…..hope you an yore Guy are OKay.
An it iss 32 deegreess purrty much efurry day……it iss usually far colder up here!
**purrss** BellaDharma
It was pretty naughty, but we’re okay, thanks.
It’s supposed to snow here tomorrow. Not much, but it will be cold, of course.
Mee an LadyMew glad both of youss’ are Okay.
An biskitss deelivered iss kewl.
LadyMew all wayss bringss mee treetss an snax inn what efurr bed mee iss inn 😉
Snack in bed are indeed excellent.
Furry xcellent Mani!! 😉
Definitely.
Absolootley Mani!!! 😉
Yep.
Mew mew mew wee goin fore THE last werd Mani!!!
Oh no, a loose dog. The destroyers of nice walks. Were the owners anywhere around? I’m very sorry that happened. Those cacti are looking very spiny already, but they are cute in the way a fierce puppy is cute, don’t you think? Or, maybe not, fierce puppies take themselves very seriously. The landscapes around you look kind of harsh, more so than usual. And I guess they are. I would be feeling very sorry for myself right about now. But not you, right Mani? Not with biscuits on couches.
Things are pretty bleak here right now, but that’s how our winters look. The grass doesn’t stay green because it’s too dry in the winter. Snow doesn’t count. (Though there are some places where the grass is still green; we see it on our walks in the field and don’t know why the grass is still green.)
Cute as a fierce puppy; I would agree.
The dog just accidentally got out of the house. I do see loose dogs in the field, and if they come toward me, which they do sometimes, the guy I live with picks me up, to protect me. But now he has a walking stick, or a cane, because of his knees, so picking me up isn’t all that easy.
Many a time we’ve had to turn around and go a different way because of loose dogs.
I’m so glad to hear you and the guy you live with are okay. Sounds scary. I hope the owner of the dog was nearby and helped him up, full of apologies and offers to pay for any injuries! My neighbor has three nasty dogs that growl when they get out, and they get out a lot. Yesterday I saw one and though, “Come near me and I’ll kick your teeth out,” but really, I expect it would bite my leg and the other two would come running.
What adorable cactus babies!
If you get biscuits delivered upstairs, and the guy you live with is not going up already, you are indeed spoiled!
I can be pretty aggressive when I see other dogs on my walk. Protecting the guy I live with.
But we have had very fierce dogs in the neighborhood. I guess dogs are like people; some are nice, and some are not.
The guy I live with said that Flurry, the first purebred border collie who lived here, really enjoyed biscuits in bed, so it’s like a tradition.
Our dog weighs about 15 pounds and dog attacks are scary – it happens occasionally; she has never been injured but I did have to climb on top of a car once to get the 2 of us away from a group of 4 dogs who also got out accidentally. I was not very nice to the owner, who kept saying they weren’t REALLY mean. They looked pretty sincere to me! Always enjoy your cactus updates, thank you!
ceci
You’re welcome. The little cactuses are still growing. They take a long time from now until they flower, though.
The field we walk in is pretty safe; not much chance of anyone sneaking up on me. Though we stay on “our” side of the field, because the other side has some very aggressive dogs.
It’s the area to the north of us, by the apartment complex, where we need to be cautious; there are often unleashed dogs running around. With their owners, but still…
Oh no, Mani! Dog violence is the worst. I got attacked by a big white pit bull that leapt a fence while we were walking by. The guy I live with got a bite on the thigh trying to keep us from killing each other. I was holding my own, just so you know. The lady I live with dragged me down the block and hid me behind a car. There were a lot of sympathetic neighbors jumping in to help, since everyone seems to work at home, now. We don’t go that way anymore. Oh, and I guess we carry this stuff called”mace”.
On a brighter note, we had a whole weekend where the sun came out and it didn’t rain. The lady I live with managed to clear and mulch about half of the flower beds. She seemed happy. I got to hang out outside all day, so I was also happy. – Sampson the Doberman
That sounds pretty scary. The guy I live with and his friend started out on a walk, a few years ago, and they were attacked by two very vicious dogs right out in the middle of the street. He has a voice which he uses to challenge mean dogs; he learned that when he worked outside and would go into back yards that he thought were empty… The dogs backed down.
They were owned by people who were staying at the house across the street. Guests of the homeowner. The dogs also jumped the fence and attacked the dog next door.
The people who were staying across the street finally left, much to the relief of everyone in the neighborhood.
The weather here is endlessly gloomy. Not warm, not terribly cold. You should hear the complaining.
Mani, tell the guy you live with I’m reading “High and Dry” and loving it! Though kind of disappointed your guy sniffs about Scrophularia macrantha, which I got acquainted with through a friend’s garden last year and have collected a bunch of seed. Anyway I’m loving the style of this book and thinking about starting seeds soon – while praying, somewhat reluctantly, for snow.
He says thanks. There was one of those scrophularias down the street, for a while, in a watered garden next to a lawn.
The guy I live with has spent so much money on plants that really needed more water than people say, that he could have purchased a villa on the Italian Riviera instead. Or so he says.
Hi Mani! We also have gloomy weather. It’s the soggy variety. I get a lot of towel rubdowns, which is nice. I’m glad to hear you’ve done alright with stranger danger. The dog that jumped me had gotten out before and was dog-violent. I’m glad I’m not small. That could have been much worse. I do know the guy that he lives with got a $300 ticket, so there’s that. – Sampson the Doberman
Whew. The fine here, though, for having an unleashed dog, in the field anyway (which is technically a park), is a thousand dollars.
I don’t know what we would do if it rained here. It never has, in winter, so it would be really weird.