Snail Spirals

My orchid finally opened a flower! This is the stripey purple Phalaenopsis whose bloom spike I discovered on November 10. When I got the plant last March, it was in bloom, and it continued to bloom until mid September!

This new flower spike developed very slowly, and is pretty small, probably due to the conditions in my house over the winter being pretty much the exact opposite of a nice warm greenhouse (...as Shaun is constantly telling me.... I tell him that if he's cold, to go put on something over his T-shirt.) But the window gets good light, and so the spike continued to develop, if slowly. There are four large buds, and the tip of the spike is still green and growing, so I may get more. On Wednesday, I noticed that one of the buds had finally cracked open!



This picture was taken Wednesday, and it's not quite open yet, but you can see the beautiful deep raspberry color. It's interesting to note that this flower seems to have more contrasty stripes than the flowers from the last blooming, seen midway down this page, on the right hand side of the third picture. I wonder if the color will even out as the flower matures?

In closing, is this not the cutest thing ever?!



Emma is "reading" Cobalt a story! Cobalt jumped up on the bed and settled in for her mid-morning nap while Emma and I were getting ready to head to work. When Emma saw her, she said "Oh! Cobalt's tired. Time for nap!" Then Emma ran to her bedroom, got a book, came back and proceeded to tell Cobalt a story. She even showed Cobalt the pictures on every page.