Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you a gloomy post. You maybe remember me from such gloom-related posts as “Sunless Spring”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
If the garden looks a little different, that’s because it is. We spent most of the day before yesterday cutting down all the dead grasses and stuff. Well not all of them, but most of them. (I say “we” because I supervised.)
The garden really smelled bad, with all the rotting grasses trapped under the snow, and suddenly exposed to air.
There are still snowdrops. The guy I live with thinks he didn’t plant this one.
There are a lot more than just this one, but it looked kind of sad, all by itself.
The weather forecast calling for “freezing drizzle” or a “wintry mix” (the guy I live with said “The kind of weather they have in Toronto”) but of course nothing like that happened. It didn’t even snow. It was just cold, dry, and overcast.
If that sounds icky, it’s because it is.
This patch of snow has been here since before Christmas.
The guy I live with said “Maybe it’s always been there, and we never noticed.”
Here’s a view from the upstairs bedroom window.
Total gloom.
In case you’re wondering, this constant cold and gloom isn’t normal at all, for us.
https://red.msudenver.edu/2018/the-truth-about-winter-in-denver/
Reading this now makes the guy I live with pretty disgusted.
So we had Opera Day again today, because of the gloom, and the guy I live with was feeling lonely, the way he does, but today it was worse.
Some work was done, despite this. He fiddled with the flats upstairs, some. You can see one empty flat on the right of the middle flat.
There’s a dishpan full of pots, with his homemade soil-less mix.
These are for more seeds to be nicked and soaked. In this case, Ipomoea leptophylla. The pots will go into the empty flat after the seeds have germinated.
He sowed seeds of another “ip” plant, Ipomopsis longiflora, into the sandpile today, even despite all the gloom.
That’s basically it for today. I’ll leave with with a series of totally gloomy pictures from my evening walk. The guy I live with said it should have been misty or drizzling (regular drizzle, not freezing drizzle) for the complete effect, but no, it was just chilly, and super gloomy, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Those tree pictures would do for Halloween. They are very atmospheric and look black and white. Mani, you look cheerful and bright with your blue halo. People seeing just your glow from a distance must stop and wonder.
Are those lights in the plant room LED or fluorescent? I still use plain old shop lights, but I’m not growing anything tricky.
Those are Feit LED grow lights. The shop lights kept failing, flickering, making loud buzzing noises, and so forth, so the guy I live with tried these. They seem to work. Most of the seedlings are going to be given away. The greenery on the baker’s rack is the holy basil, which the guy I live with is going to eat. The propagator with a towel over it has some buffalo gourd seeds which he hopes will germinate in the dark.
All the dogs are jealous of my collar, and now there’s at least one other dog with a blue collar walking around.
It was pretty atmospheric last night.
That glowing collar certainly cuts through the gloom.
It’s kind of cheery, isn’t it?
Yes! but also, . . . sort of alien.
Equally gloomy here in southeast Ireland and cold – this is comparatively, of course, for we don’t experience cold such as yours.
It was just a little below freezing on our evening walk. Nice and quiet, though.
Yore allmost nite time fotoss are SpOOky Mani an Guy….sorta Mistur Stephen King SpOOky!!
An youss’ sure DID have a gl00my day there! Wee have sunshine an snow.
Butt iss still chilley cold. Mee went out inn Condo this mornin an it iss -2 C (28.4 Fairenhite)…BellaSita thott it was warmer ’cause of THE Sun!
Mee was out for 20 minutss snackin an watchin peepss go bye….
Yore blue collar iss so purrty; a Beecon inn THE Darkness 😉
An youss’ werked hard to cleer backyard; it lookss grate!
An Guy yore makin progress with yore seedss an wee are amazed what a green thumm you have!!!
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an {{{hugss}}} BellaSita Mum
Thanks. Well, the seeds aren’t hard to do; all the seed coat needs is an opening for water.
Our forecasts are all over the place, for sure, but the guy I live with hopes the forecast for this weekend is true: rain.
It was kind of eerie on our walk; almost like there was fog.
Wee hope youss’ get rain two! Wee herd snow tomorrow an BellaSita has to go out….shee likess THE snow an iss only a 2 block walk to Clinick an 2 blockss back….wee see what happenss!
IT DOES look foggy inn yore fotoss’ Mani!!! 😉
You’re so right, Mani…it has been dreary and gloomy for the past few days. Reminds me of the days when I lived in the Seattle area and is certainly uncharacteristic. Worse than the gloom however IMHO is the doggone wind. Just give me cold temps, but leave the wind out of it, Mother Nature! Hopefully things will improve by the weekend. 🤞🏼
The forecast for this weekend is rain. The guy I live with said they’re usually wrong about rain, when they forecast it, but it would be nice. Nicer than snow.
The guy I live with said this has got to be in the “all time top five” most tiresome winters he’s experienced since he moved here in 1961.