Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you a post for no particular reason. You may remember me from such posts as “Into The Wilderness”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can probably see that it was a nice, warm, sunny day today, though in the morning there was a little wind which was kind of chilly.
No one sits in those chairs any more, except for the guy I live with, who occasionally sits in the one that doesn’t have the birdhouse. The birdhouse needs to be hung somewhere in the garden. It fell down some years ago and needs to be put back up. There’s at least another one, on the arbor which you can’t see. Wrens like to nest in the birdhouses.
The buffalo grass is still brown, but we’ve seen other lawns turning green lately.
The grass in the field is turning green, too.
The guy I live with spotted the first crocus in flower. This is Crocus reticulatus, from areas on the north side of the Black Sea.
This is a snowdrop from the same region. Galanthus plicatus.
Maybe you can see how the outer edges of the leaves are slightly folded inward. This is called explicative vernation, which gives the species its name.
There were bees all over the flowers today.
This is something different; a small spring-flowering colchicum called Colchicum munzurense.
So things besides snowdrops are starting to appear, though there’s still a lot of snow in the garden, in places anyway.
Today, the guy I live with sowed some mandrake seeds he got from J.L. Hudson. (He also got some other seeds, too; he’s been ordering from Hudson for decades.)
He kind of grumbled about the “wildly conflicting” information online about how to germinate the seeds, and so eventually he decided to sow them in pots and then he set the pots outdoors on the patio shelves.
He tried mandrakes before–his wife wanted to grow them–but the seeds didn’t germinate. The plants are poisonous so they’ll go in the shade garden, where I never go.
It is that time of year, rough for people who have lost loved ones, with spring coming, and he thought of getting the mandrake seeds because his wife wanted to have mandrakes in the garden.
I hear that about the last five years have been rough for a lot of people (though it’s been pretty good for me, since the guy I live with has been home with me a lot), with constant weirdness. I’ve experienced some of that, with not seeing owls as much as we used to, strangers digging a big hole in the Employees Only section of our garden, the sinkhole, strangers in our house when the new furnace was installed, the mysterious piles of trash north of the canal, foxes, the landmine, and now there’s something else.
Just the other day, when we went to walk along the canal road, a block from our house, I noticed a big truck blocking the road. I wanted to turn around, but the guy I live with said to keep going, and eventually we saw a guy working in the canal.
The guy I live with talked to the canal guy, introduced me as the Discoverer of the Sinkhole, and talked about that and all the other related weird stuff.
He was a very nice guy, who said he was a “ditch rider”, and gave the guy I live with his card, in case we saw anything else weird going on, canal-wise.
His job was to clear out obstacles from the canal, and all the willows on the north side of the canal were cut down. The willows had been a real mess for a year or two; some of them had fallen into the canal, and so forth.
You can also see how muddy it is. There’s a lot of mud everywhere. Especially on my paws, as the guy I live with has pointed out more than once.
I kind of like mud, though not having willows on this side of the canal feels super weird. The guy I live with said they’ll grow back. But I did have to thoroughly check all this out.
So that’s all I have for today. I guess I’ll get used to having no willows on that side of the road when I go on my walks. The weirdness is exhausting, though.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
“Ditch Rider” is an interesting job title!
It is. I guess the job means making sure the water flows properly. The guy I live with has said many times that he prefers the word “canal” because “it sounds more romantic”.
The ditch was dug in the 1880s, back when this was all farm land.
Yes, it is a very important job! Canals and ditches do not accommodate overgrown vegetation as readily as creeks and rivers do naturally.
There was one time when someone threw two mattresses into the canal. The guy I live with called the canal company to let them know.
I hope the mandrake seeds germinate. Keep us posted on those as well as the willows, Mani.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
The mandrake seeds were just for fun, but maybe something will happen. You never know.
Tis the season of mud in NW Denver too though yesterday’s windy conditions made a big difference. We’re hoping we’ll get some more moisture to help the flowering trees over the next month.
The guy I live with told me he was going out tomorrow, but now he says he isn’t going to, because he looked at the weather forecast. Fire weather watch, right before it’s supposed to rain or snow.
I’m not a fan of change and upheaval myself. Mani! I kind of startled when I glanced at the last picture. It looked like there was a white kitty nestled at your feet. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? The girls have never been fans, quite the opposite, but an abandoned cat has moved in and after an adjustment period, they accept.
That’s one of my Lamb Chop toys. I’m not sure I’d like living with a cat. For one thing, the back door would have to be closed all the time. Right now it’s open all day, except when it gets very cold.
I like having the back door open, just to have that option to be able to run out and check on things.
Hi, Mani. We hardly ever have owls, but we heard hooting the past 2 nights. The first night it was really close and really loud. The second night not so much. I think there’s only one and it just moved on down the road a bit. We must have been too boring.
The guy I live with says owls do tend to move around. We haven’t heard any for quite a while, but a “birder” friend said the owls are nesting “on the west side of town”. Farther west than us, I guess.
Mee-yow wee wundered where THE Willowss went Mani. Wee think beein a “Ditch Rider” soundss sorta kewl. Mistur Guy yore flowerss are lookin guud……wee have snow an chilley cold heer…..still Winter!
Mani you DUE look xhausted! Have a ‘happy nappy’ mee frend! ***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an 🙂 BellaSita Mum
Thanks. It’s pretty nice here, though I guess it’s going to be scarily windy the next couple of days.
The “ditch rider” was working really hard to clear out all the stuff.
Wee are glad there ISS a “Ditch Rider’ Mani!!!
We are, too.