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 to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Most Improved”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Pretending not to look at the cabinet that holds the biscuits. 
Here I am actually looking at the cabinet. I know the floor in front of the stove is a bit dirty, but I don’t do floors or windows.
I did eventually get a biscuit, if you were starting to worry.
Things have been happening. I know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. The guy I live with decided to start painting again, and so he got some paint samples, painted the walls to see what the samples looked like, then got more paint samples, and then more. Eventually he said that he was going to spend as much on paint samples as on actual paint, and so it might be more rational just to pick a color, and go with that.
The first room to be painted was the studio, downstairs. We hardly ever go in there. And the guy I live with said that was a problem; the room seemed more like a tomb, or something, and it should look happier. It was a happy room years ago, and should still be one. He used Benjamin Moore “Cotton Tail” for the walls, a very pale yellow.
There was a lot of vacuuming, to begin with. I heard him say something about eight years’ worth of dust down there, as well as other stuff. It looks a lot better now.
These are some dried arrangements, sitting by the window temporarily. 
The milkweed one is pretty interesting. I guess it was sprayed with something called “fixative”, years ago. There’s a lot of art supplies and things like that, in this room.
One of the art supply things was gnawed. Mice got in here some years ago and tried to eat this eraser. It does sort of look like cheese. 
There’s a collection of tarot card decks. I guess the artwork was thought to be cool, and so decks were collected, and put in these shelves. Boxes, really. They had to go back just like they were before the wall was painted, of course. 
Then there was a whole bunch of fretting about “the orchid case”. It used to have orchids in it, long ago, which is why there are still lights and a thermometer, before it was brought downstairs and filled up with all sorts of things. 
It was top-heavy. The guy I live with was certain it would fall over, and he would be very distressed about that. So he attached it to the wall, and decided not to try to paint behind it. That seemed sensible to me.
I hear the work is almost done, except for reattaching the posters and mounting the drawings back on the wall.
Meanwhile, these came in the mail. 
The guy I live with wasn’t going to order any seeds except vegetables this year, but decided to get a few other seeds anyway. The green-and-yellow labels for importing seeds never came, despite a couple of emails sent, so he just gave up. Maybe he’ll try again later.
So the abronia seeds, and some penstemon seeds, were sown in the usual manner. The seeds are sprinkled on top of this mix, which is stuff in one of the trash cans you sometimes see here, in pictures of the patio.There’s water in this dishpan, so the soil-less mix can soak up water. 
The seeds were covered with fine gravel, called “squeegee” around here, and then they were put into the new bulb frame. Since the bulb frame doesn’t have any bulbs in it yet, it’s a seed frame. 
Pretty fascinating, huh.
I guess that’s it for today. You can see the result of all the wind we had a couple of days ago; the snow is mostly gone. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 