Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you something a little different. You may remember me from such similarly-themed posts as “Our Modern Lifestyle”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Rather pensive, and a bit wistful, don’t you think? We purebred border collies can often be lost in thought.
Well. I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t repeated myself an awful lot in the last year or so. That’s quite possible, considering the large number of posts made on this blog.
So this post, as I said, will be a little different.
There’s so much snow on the ground that there’s no gardening, and all you would hear on that front is a bunch of complaining, so I’ll just skip that part.
Maybe you can see how much snow we got, with this picture of me standing on the canal road looking south down the field.
It’s not very cold out, even though it looks like it might be. It was cold last night, and really cold the night before, but the guy I live with just said, “Whatever”.
Sometimes things around here can be puzzling, to say the least.
Like just the other day, out of nowhere, and I do mean absolutely out of nowhere, the guy I live with said to me, “It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but rather that it exists.”
I had to look that up. It’s Wittgenstein. Again. This is at least the third time the blog has mentioned Wittgenstein, so maybe that’s overdoing it.
I thought about it for a minute, since that’s the amount of time I’d devote to wondering why the world exists, then took a nap.
In truth, I’m more interested in breakfast and dinner.
Sometimes, strange things happen that make me wonder if the guy I live with is all there, if you know what I mean. Besides quoting Wittgenstein. He was vacuuming behind the door of our bedroom, and looked at this like he’d never seen it before.
He said, “Huh”. It was pretty dusty, so he washed it off. He said it had something called “potpourri” in it, and that at one time, years ago, it must have had a scent.
The bedroom door is always propped open with this doorstop. The doorstop is heavy so maybe that’s why the door is rarely shut.
I guess he didn’t finish vacuuming entirely.
But still, how can you spend twenty years sleeping in a room and never notice something? We purebred border collies notice almost everything.
The mail came today. The guy I live with was irked that he still hasn’t received some tax documents, because he hates having to put things off, though, on the other hand, he got a box filled with bags of coffee in it, the day before he was going to run out.
He keeps saying he’s going to “transition to tea”, and I know there’s tea in the cabinet, near where my biscuits are. It seemed strange to me that he keeps talking about taking up tea-drinking when there are at least four teapots in the house.
I don’t understand this at all. Maybe there’s something in Wittgenstein about it.
And he hasn’t heard from the ear doctor yet. He said he was going to be very patient, which I thought was a bit heavy-handed when talking about waiting for a doctor.
The ear is much better, by the way, though it still needs to be checked out. He can hear perfectly well now. He said it was something to do with his inner ear, which I didn’t get at all, because my ears are on the outside.
This has happened to him before. But he’d lost quite a bit of hearing in his ear, which completely freaked him out.
This is why.
Music is the guy I live with’s main interest, and has been since he was eight.
It wasn’t listening to headphones that caused this; more like a cold, though he said it was because he was allergic to snow and cold weather, and that if I wasn’t such a total wimp about hot weather we’d move to Tucson. (I know that’s not going to happen, for like ten thousand reasons.)
Something really interesting happened yesterday. This was utterly astonishing to me.
I was on my morning walk, and noticed a whole bunch of water running down the gutter, into the storm drain kitty-corner from our house. The sidewalk in front of our neighbors’ house was a sheet of ice.
There were a couple of guys down the street looking at something, so I dragged the guy I live with down there to see what was going on.
This is what we saw:
It was a broken water main. There was water just bubbling up from the street.
Our water wasn’t affected; the water guys said they didn’t know how this happened, because the water pipe is buried pretty deeply, so it couldn’t have frozen.
When we came back home, the guy I live with went back out and talked to the water guys, because he used to do work sort of like that. Things involving backhoes and going into holes in the ground, and sometimes staying out all night, working.
The water main break got fixed by evening. I didn’t like all the big machinery, the noise, and the flashing lights.
This morning, we walked by again, and the guy I live with took a picture of some frozen mud. He said maybe this is the only blog that shows pictures of frozen mud.
I wanted to walk through it but the guy I live with said not to. You can also see what the color of our soil is, deep down in the ground.
The guy I live with, who’s not a geologist, by the way, says it gets its color from the Fountain Formation, which is what Red Rocks Amphitheater, about five miles away, is made of.
Now, I realize this has been kind of a different post. It seemed like a good idea. At least I didn’t have to hear about not seeing snowdrops until July, or tell you about it, either.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me doing something I’m not supposed to do, but I do it anyway. Head cool, hindquarters all toasty. Slipper, a purebred border collie who lived here before me, liked to do this, too, until the guy I live with’s wife made him close the back door because the heat was on.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Kitty corner?! That sounds scary. Is there just one kitty on the corner, or several, . . . or many?! Could they have been involved with the broken water pipe?
Doesn’t have anything to do with cats; from the word “cater”, meaning diagonal.
That would be funny if kitties always landed on their feet diagonally!
Making sense of the world is a challenging pastime – better stay with the coffee.
But the teapots …
The guy I live with says we have a really good purveyor of coffee, and so there’s that problem. Giving it up.
Mee-yow wow Mani what an innterestin bloggie post! That broken water pipe at Kitty Corner cuud have caused alot more trouble. THE aftur foto iss furry cool; wee were goin to ask why yore mud iss so RED!? Iss a geeologee an hisstory lesson all inn one!
Now this Wittgenstein…wee MUST look him up!!!! An wee just bookymarked him so wee can reed ’bout him!
Mistur Guy that quote iss furry deep. BellaSita Mum iss wunderin ’bout all thiss two. Shee iss a “Kantian”…Her Fillyos-ofurr iss Immanuel Kant…shee quotess him alot! (Another trait you both share!)
Wee hope yore ear iss bettur an yore hearin iss guud again Guy….
Iss NO fun not hearin!
BellaSita Mum gotted guud mewss this week: NO Cirrhosis of Liver an NO Kidney damage. Shee DOES have Fatty Liver issue an Bladder issue butt thingss alot bettur than wee were told 3 yeerss ago. Hope you come vissit our log fore hole story!
An Mani yore half in-half out pose iss heelareeus!!! 😉
***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks. We did look at your blog. The guy I live with had that liver issue but I guess it resolved itself. “Too many carbs”, he said.
The guy I live with quotes Wittgenstein because, well, because he does. Usually in German, too. There’s a copy of Logische-Philosophische Abhandlung right here in the kitchen (which is weird). He’s not much into Western philosophy but there are some good quotes.
His ear is okay but there’s still some issues which need to be checked out. Everything is taking so much longer, these days.
Mee-yow Mani an Guy you DID vissit our bloggie? Thanx so much….
BellaSita Mum has been watchin salt an fat an carbss fore 5 yeerss butt her Liver iss not gettin bettur from it! Shee iss not a happy bunny ’bout that. An Guy wee sorry there are sum more issuess! CATFISH! You an BellaSita Mum sure are busy!
An you has THE book n German??? Far out! Did you know BellaSita’ss PawPaw was German?? Born inn Hamburg back inn 1917….he was a Holocaust Sirvivor!
**purrss** BellaDharma
The guy I live with’s father’s ancestors came from Germany back in the 18th century. There was a neighbor here who was born in a concentration camp.
But anyway, yeah, he took a class in philosophy in college, logical positivism (whew), and that’s where the Wittgenstein business came from. (Incidentally, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s brother Paul was a pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War; commissioned piano concertos from Ravel and Prokofiev, among others. The Wittgenstein family, before that, was friendly with Brahms. That’s where the interest in Ludwig Wittgenstein came from. Music.)
Oh now wee understand how Buy got innterested inn Wittgenstein….
An Guy you have German ancestorss!?! Furry kewl…….
May mee ask from what area? BellaSita’ss PawPaw was born inn Hamburg. Hiss ancesorss were from sumwhere inn Austria back inn 1400’aa, There was disagreementss amongst THE furamillee an sum of THE THALHEIMER clan moved to Germany an tooked last name THEILHEIMER fore THE area they settled inn….purrty kewl rite????
The guy I live with isn’t sure where any of his relatives came from. His paternal grandfather’s ancestor came from Germany, or Alsace-Lorraine, in 1754.
His maternal great-grandfather was Canadian, orginally from Scotland. There was one relative who was a gardener in Ireland, but was forced to leave the Emerald Isle under what the family always claimed were “unknown circumstances”.
Since, Mani, your topic of the day is Odds and Ends, I continue the theme: What is with that first comma in the Wittgenstein quote, “It is not how the world is, that is mystical, but rather that it exists.”? Either it is olden days punctuation or that comma is deliberately placed to create ambiguity. As the quote references the universe, I’m guessing the comma is deliberately placed. Any thoughts?
On to the second topic: Please let the guy you live with know that, over on Garden Rant, Anne Wareham has a post (archived two back, I’m behind in my reading), dealing with Snowdrops. I believe she comes around in the end, thanks to an artist, and there are lovely photographs; however, none so lovely as the one which heads this blog.
Petey and Sachi are intrigued by one of your toys. No, not Ms. Lambchop, rather the sturdy chenille-looking brown one you protect with your paw. Among the three of us we have never seen one quite like it, and we hope you can tell us the name.
You and the guy be careful on the ice. We have heard it’s best not walked on, being slippery and all.
I think the guy I live with has seen that snowdrop article. He’s pretty put out about all the snow covering ours, and says they’re all going to rot. (Cue an eye-roll from me.)
The guy I live with wears YakTrax. The continued presence of ice here is extremely annoying to both of us. Especially for me, since I have to hear about “the old days”.
The Wittgenstein. Thanks for pointing this out; the quote has been corrected. Someone wasn’t paying attention; at times it’s hard to type things correctly with all the excitement going on here. (The quote was originally in German, but I thought that was a bit pretentious.)
The chenille toy is my effelant. The guy I live with’s friend got it for me, Christmas of 2017. He called her to see where she got it, but she was busy. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a tag.
HI Mani,
I envy your snow as ours has all disappeared with a very warm and extended Chinook. Provides moisture for all those lovely Spring blooms.
Our snow is mostly still here. On our evening walk, the guy I live with checked out the snow in the field, and it’s eight inches deep in some places. Shaded during the day, I guess.