the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here to bring you up to date on the news from our garden and its environs. You may remember me from such posts as “Another Cold Front”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. Rather pensive, don’t you think?

There hasn’t been much to do around here lately, because it’s just been snowing, and snowing, and snowing. It’s snowing right now. The guy I live with wonders out loud if it’s ever going to stop. Next month is the snowiest month of the year here, and April has been a pretty cold and snowy month, this century, so he says, with these constant below-normal temperatures, we’ll have a short window in maybe July when it isn’t snowing.
The guy I live with said it did no good to reminisce about “the old days”, when we had snow and then very warm temperatures to melt the snow, because we’ve only had about four or five days of warmth since, well, whenever. Since a long time. This is the way it is, now.

Anyway, this happened last week.And now we have less garden:It was pretty fun to bark at everyone while they were working. The guy I live with is pretending to be nonchalant about this, but I know he’s much more chalant than he lets on. Some of the plants that had to be dug up might live. You never know.

So, that’s pretty much it, except for what went on a few days ago. The guy I live with went over to watch his neighbor work on cars, and he was actually able to help, with some of the stuff.
A socket got dropped down into the engine, the way it always happens, according to the guy I live with, and when they looked down into the engine, there was a rabbit sleeping there. They tried all sorts of ways to get the rabbit to leave, but it wouldn’t leave.
The guy I live with even asked the guy who came to inspect the new asphalt patch in front of his house if he knew how to remove “an engine rabbit”.  He didn’t.
Eventually when the car was put up on blocks, the rabbit decided to leave its warm and cozy spot, and raced away, so there was a happy end to this story.

And despite the seeming hopelessness of the weather situation, the guy I live with placed an order with Odyssey Bulbs. If nothing else, he said, the bulbs could go into the frames, where, even now, there are snowdrops and crocuses in flower.

And I do get to hunt for voles, in the snow. 

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about the peculiar and stressful things that have been going on here. You may remember me from such posts as “The Endless Winter”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.As maybe you can tell by the title of my post, it’s been snowing. Every other day now. Snow, then more snow, then more snow. Below normal temperatures almost every day.
The guy I live with is pretty depressed about this; he would rather be gardening than slipping around on the ice and stuff.

But whatever, right? In the next picture you can see one of the frames; this has snowdrops in it, and we looked at them today.

I think this one is ‘Little Ben’. 

This is Galanthus fosteri. It’s been flowering for a while, now.

So at least we have these to look at.

Despite the fact that the guy I live with would really prefer to avoid major things, something extra major is going on here.
The sewer drain needs to be replaced. It’s going to be done next Tuesday. The guy I live with said it would cost a lot of money, but he’s been worrying about it for several years now. In fact, every time he goes down into the laundry room he looks at the drain grate there, to see if there’s water overflowing.
That did happen last week, and so a couple of guys came out and “snaked” the line. I watched. Then the next day someone came out and ran a camera through the line. That was pretty interesting.

So a thing called a backhoe is going to drive into the front yard and dig a hole. Of course there are plants in the way.
The guy I live with worked out in the cold and snow and dug up a few of them. They’re in pots in the garage. He also asked an oak expert if the little oaks could be dug up. Yes, they could, so he dug up the one that would have been flattened, for sure.
He dug up a bunch of big cactus, too. They can sit outside in pots.The manzanita (Arctostaphylos patula) in the lower left can’t be dug up and will be lost. The guy I live with said that that was the way things go.

The “snake” did remove enough roots in the pipe that our plumbing is still usable. The guy I live with did a small load of laundry today and nothing untoward happened.
He said he never took being able to run a washing machine for granted. Well, maybe just a little.
He told me a story of a time in March, back when days in March were nice (they’re predicting below normal temperatures for this March), out in the garden, and he told his wife that maybe he was taking her for granted. She looked at him and he realized right then and there that he never took her for granted. She died two months later.
He said he learned a lesson.

It would be nice if it stopped snowing, for a while, but it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday. Highly unusual for this time of year, but the guy I live with said that things were unusual, these days.

Anyway, I get to look for mice and voles, out in the snow, on my walks. I never find any.

Until next time, then.