Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about the weather, the nature of which you might be able to guess from the title of today’s post. You may remember me from such damp posts as “The Night Rain”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can’t tell how chilly it was outside today, but it was chilly. There was even a little snow, around noon. It snowed last night east of here, like in Denver, and it snowed south of here, like in Colorado Springs and elsewhere.
It’s supposed to get down to freezing tonight. The guy I live with said it might not actually freeze, though.
Whatever, huh. It’s been raining and raining. Not constantly; on and off.
One time, it rained so much that the creek almost flooded; it goes into a culvert under the canal, and then the water pours down into a little valley or something. There was a huge pile of foam there, the day it rained a lot.
Like there was soap in the water. The guy I live with said it was just from the air bubbles in the water.
I get dried off with a special towel, a really old towel that’s mostly just for drying off purebred border collies, after my walks in the rain. I didn’t like that when I was little, but now I do. It feels really pleasant.
The guy I live with said that when I get dried off, I also get checked for ticks. That’s nice, too.
In between the spells of rain, there were flowers.
This is a seedling of the tulip ‘Queen of the Night’. The large-flowered tulips are perennial here, and sometimes they cross, and produce seedlings like this one.
The guy I live with showed pictures of Fritillaria pallidiflora on Facebook, but this is a different picture.
The guy I live with said it’s native to Xinjiang Province in China, and Kazakhstan, but is farmed in northeastern China, for medicine, to be used for coughs and things like that. I guess they use the bulbs.
The guy I live with had one experience with Traditional Chinese Medicine; cold pills. They worked very well, but I think they had ephedrine in them, which wasn’t great.
Oh, there was one other experience, which if you’ve been following the blog for some time, you would know. Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, took some, to help with internal bleeding, just before he passed away. We don’t know if it gave him a couple of extra weeks or not.
The juno irises have had a spectacular year, and here’s a picture of the last ones to flower; two forms of Iris bucharica.
Bukhara is an ancient city, now in Uzbekistan. A lot of plants native to the “stans” do very well here. But they’re mostly very difficult to get, which is frustrating.
Those aren’t weeds in the picture (for once); they’re bulb seedlings.
This is Fritillaria obliqua, native to Greece:
And Cyclamen repandum. This is native to Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, and parts of Croatia along the Adriatic Sea.
The trick here, if you want to call it that, is to plant the tubers deeply, which you don’t need to do with most other cyclamen. Hard winters can kill the leaves (if the soil freezes, the leaves lose all their water and can’t replenish because of the frozen soil), but they grow new leaves in spring.
If you think that May, here, looks gloomy, that’s because it pretty much is. Rain, sometimes snow, and hail.
And it’s not the guy I live with’s favorite month. He met his wife in May, but she died in May, and I can tell that that weighs heavily on him, at this time of year. I try to cheer him up with my general overall excellence.
It’s extremely pleasant lying in bed with him, late at night, watching Q.I., too. The guy I live with is addicted to that show; I can hear him laughing, sometimes, while I’m drifting off to sleep, surrounded by my toys.
Because it’s been so cold here, for so long, a lot of the bulbs aren’t going to flower this year. I’ll leave you with a picture of me looking at Allium nevskianum; these don’t look like they’ll flower. That’s my diagnosis, anyway.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I think everywhere is having strange weather this year, though not as strange as yours
Here in the UK we had the coldest April for 60 years with only 10% of the normal rainfall. We have a saying here: “April showers bring forth May flowers.” Will the lack of showers mean no flowers now – we will see
The guy I live with hasn’t minded the rain, but the cold weather earlier meant that some bulbs won’t flower. The eremurus, for instance. I guess things like that happen.
It has been extremely dry here in California. I wish it would rain. Not looking forward to the fires this year. I hope that May goes smoothly for you and your guy and you can get out and take many walks in the sunshine!
Thanks; it’s sunny now.
We worry about fire, too. Especially in the mountains.
For some reason people here think that rain in May means it won’t be dry in August. Or even in June. All it takes it a few days with very low humidity and everything dries out.
” Denver’s 2021 precipitation has leaped to over eight inches, nearly double its average year-to-date total.” https://www.chron.com/news/article/Snow-has-fallen-in-the-Mile-High-City-in-9-16168729.php
It’s pretty wet here, but the guy I live with says that they include snow falling in January and February for the precipitation totals, as though snow in January benefited the garden in some way.
Your bad weather continues!
That was yesterday. It’s 15C today; 24 tomorrow. Then more rain, I guess.
It does give the guy I live with an excuse to just sit here. He’s very good at that.
What is so great about getting dried off with a towel? Rhody digs it too, but does not tell me why. He also likes snuggling, not in bed, but on laps during morning staff meetings. That is when he does laps. He goes from one lap to the next, so that he gets to all of them (except mine) before the meeting ends. He somehow seems to know how much time he has to get it all done, and finishes right on time.
I didn’t like the towel until I realized how nice it felt. Being checked for ticks is okay, too. I wear a flea and tick collar, but the guy I live with checks, just in case.
He probably checks because you enjoy it.
I think so.
Maybe you should check him for ticks also.
He checks himself. I should get him a flea and tick collar.
It’s sure a good thing you hung onto that heavy winter coat of yours, right? I love how seriously you check out the plants. Oh, dogs and their towels. When I was little my grandmother gave my older brothers a dachshund (I know, it should have been a pure bred border collie), Coco. When my father used Coco’s towel, Coco bit him! I could use some rain, I have to water today. It’s going to be near 90 today, but over 90 Sunday.
My personal towel is pretty important. It’s probably thirty years old. It gets washed all the time, of course.
It’s going to be 74 here today, and then there’s rain in the forecast every day after that. The guy I live with says that temperatures like that can mean violent thunderstorms and golfball-sized hail, but maybe this year will be different.
Oh Mani, those Iris buccharica are gorgeous. I have the yellow and white one in my small rock garden and it gives me no end of pleasure. Weather in the Chinook zones is always changing. We just had a day where it rained, snowed, hailed and was sunny in a couple of hours. Saying here is “if you don’t like the weather wait an hour”.
The guy I live with says we used to have that saying here, but now things stay the same for weeks on end. He complains a lot.
It’s supposed to be nice here today, and then more rain. That’s not unusual for here; maybe it will help some of the woody plants that suffered so much this last winter.
**huffin puffin** Mee-yow Mani an Guy mee iss so sorry mee not bin here sooner…LadyMew was unwell all week (still reecovurrin) butt abell to assist mee with leevin commintss!
Wee too had 10 dayss here with clouds, rain, more rain, wet snow, North wind…rain…did mee mention THE rain?
This week wee have had lotss of Susnhine an warmer tempss…’bout time!
Yore flowerss are amazin! Queen if THE Nite Tulip iss gorgeeus! An yore Irisess are beeuteefull….Wee understand yore Guy beein sad. LadyMew’ss 2nd former Huzband had a heart attack a week ago which led to her gettin sick….too much wurry….
Plus May 1st was THE 25th anniversary of 4th hubby Paul’ss passin. LadyMew was purrty mopey fore a few dayss…
If only wee cuud all live fur ever rite Mani???
**purrss** BellaDharma an reegardss from LadyMew two
Sorry LadyMew was ill. The guy I live with has been dizzy, on and off, from all the very strong perfume coming from next door, but I know that’s not the same as actually being sick.
It rained here today, just a little. The forecast calls for rain, rain, rain, rain, again, with scary thunderstorms every single day. The guy I live with said it could be like this for four straight months, but he hopes it won’t be, because he doesn’t like me being frightened.
UGH those notty peepell with their stinky purrfume…iss so sad sum peepell are so thottless Mani! An yore Guy feelin dizzy an unwell iss not nice 😦
Mee hopess you due NOT get Funderstormss an too much rain…guud greef yore weather has bin furry inn-tense this yeer!!! Mee not like stormss eether Mani…mee crawlss innto LadyMew’ss Cervical pillow an hidess 😉
We could use some of your rain and gloom up here in Oregon. Scarily dry for this time of year. Even though everything looks lush right now, my clay soil is already hard and cracking apart. We are worried about wildfires again too. This looks like it will be a good year to test how drought tolerant my garden actually is. I’ve been gradually trying more and more plant species that can take our dry summers. Your blog was a real inspiration for me this last winter in that regard. Read the whole thing from the beginning. I can’t see the sense of putting in irrigation and watering like crazy given the potential for a drier climate in my region. It has been very helpful to see what does well in your garden, though I expect a lot of it would rot during our wet winters, but it is still fun to try. You just never know what will work. I am tempted to give juno irises a try myself. Hang in there. June is around the corner.
Thanks; the guy I live with says that June can be an even worse month for storms. If it’s dry, then there’s the worry of fire.
So many plants died after this long, but not terribly cold, winter that there will be lots of open spaces. For more weeds, of course.
We’ve heard how dry it is in the northwest. It was the same in parts of England, this past April. Maybe it still is.
It’s not terrifically wet here, just gloomy. No rain for a couple of days.