Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here today to bring you up to date on all sorts of things. You may remember me from such posts as “Fencing Lessons”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Most of the green you see in this picture is “undesirable green”: the “horribly weedy” Melica ciliata and Allium caeruleum. The guy I live with has a lot of digging up to do.
It was a pretty nice day today, though far too dry for spring. Yesterday a really chilly wind blew through the garden and it was yet another “fire weather” day, despite the fact that we got a tenth of an inch of rain a few days before that.
This does not help the guy I live with’s anxiety one little bit. It all seems so wrong.
He went to the doctor to talk about the anxiety last week, but the title of today’s post isn’t all about him. (The guy I live with said nothing is all about him.)
Not even mentioning the news, it’s been extremely dry here since the beginning of the water year, which starts on the first of October, with very high temperatures, endless wind, and endless “fire weather” warnings.
The guy I live with said that the state of “the snowpack” is something to think about. There’s this thing called SNOTEL. The Snowpack Telemetry Network. These are stations all throughout the western United States which monitor snow level and water equivalents.
Abnormally high temperatures caused a lot of the snowpack, already at low levels, to melt in the last few weeks.
To give some examples, the Glen Cove monitor at 11.410 feet, west of Colorado Springs, measured zero percent of the median snowpack yesterday.
The Echo Lake monitor, near Mount Blue Sky, at 10,660 feet, measured 1 percent of the median.
The Buckskin Joe monitor, at 11, 160 feet, south of Breckenridge, measured 22 percent.
The Lone Cone monitor, at 9,730 Feet, south of Norwood, measured 9 percent.
There are some monitors which measure a higher percent.
(This information comes from interactive maps on the US Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service website.)
The guy I live with said it isn’t easy to say what this may mean for the summer, but he said he’s wary of buying too many plants this year, because we’re already on watering restrictions.
Okay, so that’s that. Now let’s talk about some other things.
I went for my annual physical and my doctor said I was fine. The guy I live with was of course pleased with that.
There are plants in flower here.
Here is Mertensia lanceolata, a harbinger of spring all along the foothills of the Rockies and elsewhere. They’re not having the greatest year, what with the lack of snow and rain.
The redbud is in flower. This came as a “passenger” in the rootball of a pine the guy I live with was given. He dug up the pine, which was unhappily lying flat on the ground, and left the redbud. He said the pine had some chance of surviving.
This is Iris magnifica Agalik. The Agalik part must refer to a place where it was originally found.
Here are a couple of fritillarias. The guy I live with, who has a perfect memory, is unsure of the names of these, which he says is a sign that his mind is going.
This is Fritillaria olivieri.
It often pays to look inside the flowers.
In other news, we had a visitor last night. The guy I live with said he was sure someone was walking on the garage roof the night before, and last night I was absolutely certain there was someone, because there was.
We haven’t seen raccoons here in several years. The guy I live with posted this picture on Facebook and people said a lot of negative things about raccoons, but they don’t bother us much. Well, they don’t bother the guy I live with, but they certainly bother me. Imagine having a masked intruder on top of your house. I didn’t even have to imagine it.
That almost winds things up for today, but I also wanted to mention that the ducks have returned to the canal.
That rope had a piece of wood attached to the bottom of it, and is used as a swing. Not by the guy I live with, who would probably break the whole tree, and himself, if he tried to swing on it, but used by kids.
There’s also a crawdad (or crayfish or crawfish) trap in the creek below it. The guy I live with says some people eat them, and the water in the canal is pretty clean, since it comes from the mountains.
There may or may not be less water in the canal this summer. I went in the canal a wek or so ago. The water was cold.
Well, that’s all I have for today. I’ll leave with you a picture of me posing by the wild plums (Prunus americana) flowering along the canal road. The guy I live with says the plums make excellent jam. The flowers are fragrant.
Coyotes like to eat them plums and I find that very interesting indeed. I can tell when they’ve been by the plums.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mani, glad to hear your physical went well, and the plants are, as always, beautiful. I am familiar with SNOTEL and am anxious myself. And I am still buying new plants, which could be denial. (There is a rock garden plant sale this coming weekend and I will no doubt buy things there as well. How nurseries are coping with all this is beyond me.)
Your mention of “Perfect Days” last time was appreciated. Watched it yesterday and found it astonishing.
The guy I live with said he’s glad you enjoyed “Perfect Days”. He watches some of it, or all of it, every night.
He’s going to the chapter plant sale, too, even though it’s a very long way away.
Maybe if he buys plants it will rain on them.
Furabuluss post Mani!!! Guy those flowerss are so lovely. Our Snowdropss still hangin on….still not opeened eether. Heer wee thott THE green was a guud thing. CATFISH!
Hope THE Raccoon found a nice place to call home.
Duckie lookss happy. An Mani you look speck-taculur. Happy Hoppy Easter to you an Guy ❤ ❤ ***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an (((hugss))) BellaSita Mum
Pee S: It rained ‘catss an dogss’ all day yesterday an wee thott of YOUSS’!
Thanks, same to you. We would certainly like some rain. It’s 68F right now.
It’s nice to see ducks back in the canal, though the raccoon was kind of scary. I hadn’t seen one in quite a while.
Wee had SNOW fore Easter today Mani an Guy!!! This weather iss cray-cray!!!! Wee hope Mr an Mrs Dee duck reetern this yeer…they go from patio to patio lookin fore seedss! Furry cute!
The guy I live with said we’ve had snow at Easter. It’s not uncommon at all. Except this year.
I like seeing the ducks, and then, later, the ducklings. Our late neighbors had a pond and used to feed the ducks.
Congrats on getting a good vet report. We are so exhausted by the seemingly non-stop winds as well as the alarming state of a general lack of moisture in Jefferson County and continue to pray for moisture.
Thanks. The guy I live with says this has been an awful spring, following an awful winter. The weather is nice though.
He says the nearest station to us has measured 3.68 inches since the beginning of the water year. That’s probably more than a couple of inches below normal.
Love that Mertensia lanceolata
It’s a really nice little mertensia, very common in the foothills west of here. It dies down in the summer.
The guy I live with tried to grow it from seeds, with no luck, and then he found plants at the Mother’s Day sale at DBG. Now there are hundreds of plants in our garden.
The snowpack is behind here in the PNW as well. Not a good feeling going forward. I am in love with that white iris!
The guy I live with says it’s just another in the long list of alarming news. He does a search for “Colorado SNOTEL” and then to the interactive maps and all the stations in the west are there. It’s kind of interesting but, again, alarming, to look at the reports.
The iris came from Odyssey Bulbs, which is no longer in business.
This wasn’t a very good year for the Juno irises, of which this is one, but some did okay.It was just too hot and dry.
I see that meteorologists are forecasting a super El Niño event for this year and that could help with next winter’s Colorado snowpack.
The guy I live with saw those predictions. They’ve been predicting stuff that never happens, over and over again.
Denver Water Board’s reservoirs are at 80 percent capacity when they’re usually at 85 percent at this time of year, so that’s not totally terrible, but the impact on farmers who rely on the Platte, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and Colorado Rivers will not be positive.
Something like 53 percent of the snowpack was gone after a 12-pay period of very high temperatures.
We have had relatively very few days below 60F since last October.
Interesting charts here: https://lakepowell.water-data.com/
More info here: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45546
Yes, this is all pretty worrisome, especially for the Colorado River drainage.
The guy I live with says Denver gets some water from the western slope, from Dillon Reservoir via the Harold D. Roberts Tunnel.
This is interesting, from Wikipedia.”Construction began by sinking a 900-foot shaft near the town of Montezuma, which allowed crews to dig in four directions simultaneously, accelerating the construction timeline despite the challenging geological conditions.”
The guy I live with said he would have looked for a different job.
Thank you for the Mertensia lanceolata feature and for sharing how you came by it. Lovely! And I am always drawn to plants that are emblematic of the Front Range. I will be looking for some at the NARGS-RMC plant sale this Fri & Sat (and volunteering too.)
I have been searching my books and notes to try to remember which plants need a wet spring in order to survive a hot/dry summer, since we seem to be about to have an intense one this year. Crocuses? Anything that evolved in Turkey and that part of the world?
The guy I live with says that most plants adapted to dry summers need a wet spring in order to see them through periods of dryness.Rabbitbrush being a glaring exception.
He’s going to the plant sale on Friday, even though it’s a very long drive. (He liked it better when it was at the fairgrounds, closer to where people live. I guess you can tell how irked he is by having the sale so far, far away.)
Well, as the organizing committee probably thought to themselves: ‘you can’t please all of the people all of the time . . .”
By bizarre coincidence, my life takes me to that Parker-ish area for another month or two, so the trek to Tagawa Gardens won’t be that challenging for me this time around. My favorite location has been Kendrick Lake Park in Lakewood because of the beautiful adjacent garden. Probably too small for the spring plant sale, though…
The guy I live with said they had the rock garden chapter plant sale at Kendrick Lake, last September.
It’s not far from us at all. In fact, the guy I live with and his wife went there to take pictures of the garden one misty November, and then they told everyone in regional horticulture about it.
He says it’s way too close to Taste of Denmark for comfort, though. He tends to lose control over pastries.
Guud Greef Mani an Guy!!! It snowed like crazy last nite!! Wee got 2 inchess. Today Sun ISS shinin an snow iss meltin….cray-cray weather rite??
We would certainly have liked that snow.
We’d have liked to send it to youss’ Mani an Guy 😉
We wouldn’t mind any kind of precipitation.
Mee get BellaSita to due a *rain dance* fore youss’!
Well we got a few drops of rain today.
BellaSita will try again….get you sum more rain Mani!
We had a spring like that last season where there was absolutely no snow pack or run off. It is scary and does get you thinking ahead. I have a fond spot for raccoons. They were all over my grandparents garden in Victoria, BC. One year orphaned babies were being raised by a wildlife group. There paws felt just like those of a baby. They are maligned because they are smart and adaptable. Sounds like the human species. Hmm. Glad you are feeling fit and fiddle Mani.
The guy I live with said we had a worse drought in 2002, with one inch of precipitation in eleven months, but a bunch of rain in September.
He also said that when there was a grape vine on the patio cover, and a big crop of grapes, that raccoons would like on the slats of the patio cover and gorge themselves on grapes. He said you could see their tummies poking through the spaces in the slats.
There were even little raccoons.
He also said our neighbors grew corn in their back yard, which turned out to be totally purposeless. Raccoons would steal the ears of corn. Naturally.