Amaryllis update

I've been eagerly watching the rest of my amaryllis ever since the Minerva finished blooming a couple weeks ago.  Minerva ended up with four flowers on one scape (stalk).  It doesn't look like there will be a second scape, and it's started growing leaves now.  Still, it was a nice show and has a healthy bulb.

On to the bulbs in bud! This is a Red Lion that I got last year when I tried to buy a Minerva .  This one has TWO scapes this year!  I put my amaryllis outside during the summer, and this one evidently was very happy.  Usually it takes a couple years before I get double scapes after I get a new bulb.



The next four are new bulbs to me this year.  This is Christmas Gift, which will have large single white flowers.  This was the biggest amaryllis bulb I've ever gotten- it's fully 6 inches in diameter.  I'm hopeful that this may produce three scapes, but only one is showing at the moment.



This is Aphrodite, which will have ruffly double flowers, white with a medium pink wash on the ends of the petals.



This is Elvas, which will have very ruffly double flowers, white with dark pink centers.  After I took this picture, I noticed something suspicious on the side of the bulb and unpotted it to have a look.  I found a largish spot of rot extending a couple layers into the side of the bulb.  I had to do surgery to cut out the rot so it's looking a bit ragged now, and we'll see how that affects the flowering.  But I'd rather have a live bulb and no flowers this year, than a dead bulb and no flowers ever.



This is Apple Blossom, and though new this year, it sadly seems like it's not going to flower this time around.  It has six very healthy leaves, but no sign of a scape.  So I may be in suspense for another year as to whether this bulb-in-a-box is actually Apple Blossom, or something else (which is what happened last year).



These three are Red Lions.  Left to right, they are from 2011, 2014, and 2008.  The 2011 one was supposed to be Minerva, and 2014 was supposed to be Apple Blossom.  But that's OK, because Red Lion is pretty too.



The 2008 bulb was a Christmas present from my dad, and has bloomed faithfully every year.  I'm not sure if it going to bloom this year, since there's no sign of a scape yet, but I haven't given up hope. It seems like it usually blooms around March.

I didn't repot 2008 into fresh soil last year or the year before, so it may be that it didn't store up enough energy last summer to produce blooms.  Ah well.  I repotted all three of these into fresh soil after I took this picture.

And here's an overview of my plant window.  It gets pretty crowded during the winter, and especially so this winter.  In addition to the orchids that are there year-round, there are all the plants that go outside during the summer: the amaryllis (amaryllises? amarylli?), a ponytail palm (the big spiky one on the far left, which I've had since 1998 when it fit in a 1.5" pot), two jasmines, two fuchsias, a kaffir lime, a turmeric, and Emma's front-porch begonia (which didn't fit on the plant counter, but is on the dining table to the right of the picture and getting very leggy).

I really need to keep winter space availability in mind when I go plant-crazy in the summer.

My contribution to the 11th Annual Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading for St. Bridget's Day.



Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Big giant update of tiny little orchids

Hello hello! It's time for another orchid update! My sister gave me a gift certificate from one of my favorite orchid vendors for Christmas, and I had such fun spending it!

Between the gift certificate and a bit of my own funds (to make the shipping charge per orchid work out better, you understand...) I ended up getting six new plants.  I received them two weeks ago.

First up is Pleurothallis niveoglobula, a South American species from Ecuador and Columbia.  This is a bit bigger plant than I was expecting.  The flowers aren't showy, but the overall plant is very pretty.  I like the heart-shaped leaves.



It has miniscule white flowers that are carried above the leaves.  They remain globe-shaped and never open fully.  This plant was in bloom when it arrived, and hasn't stopped in the two weeks that I've had it.



Next up is Gastrochilus somai.  This originates from Taiwan, and I was thrilled that it also arrived in bud, with two spikes.  The flowers opened on January 12, and are still going strong.



So pretty!  This species is also fragrant, with a very pleasing lemony-citrus sweet floral scent.



The rest don't have flowers yet, but are nice healthy plants and are all showing new growth since I've had them.

This one is Amesiella philippensis, originally from the island of Luzon, in the Philippines (bet you never could have guess that, right?).  It will have relatively large, fragrant, white flowers with yellow throats.



This is Masdevallia nicaraguae, native to Nicaragua (another obvious one!), and it will have triangular, tubular, white and pink fragrant flowers.



This is Cirrhopetalum curtisii (also known as Bulbophyllum pulchellum and Bulbophyllum corolliferum), native to southeast Asia. If I can get it to bloom, it will have daisy-esque umbels of pink flowers.



And last but not least, this one.  This is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.  This is Bulbophyllum moniliforme, native to southeast Asia.



It looks like a string of peas; the "peas" are the pseudobulbs.  Apparently they each have a leaf when immature, but when each pseudobulb is done growing, the leaf falls off.  The triangular flowers will be bigger than the pseudobulbs, and striped with cream and burgundy.

I do so love small orchids.



The last orchid is Pleurothallis grobyi, native to Central and South America from Mexico to Brazil.  This particular one is a division of a plant from Mexico and will have sprays of tiny yellowish flowers.

This plant wasn't part of my Christmas order, I got it in early December with my second Lepanthes telipogoniflora.  It didn't do much for a several weeks, but right after we got back from Kansas I noticed that it had started two new leaves, the reddish ones visible toward the bottom.  New leaves are always good.



And to help me keep these beauties alive and happy, I got this today!  Emma and I went to Kennewick, Washington, for our annual ~~Girl's Weekend Out~~, and I saw this small terrarium on sale at PetSmart for 25% off.  I couldn't resist.



It's an ExoTerra 12x12x18 glass tank, and for now I just have a layer of Hydroton (expanded clay pellets) in there for drainage and humidity, and two pieces of wood.  The orchids will eventually be mounted to the wood and background, with moss and other cool plants added, but for now they're just in there hanging out and enjoying the humidity and brighter light.

I'm not a fan of opera....

...however, I defy anyone to not appreciate this.



This is what happens when YouTube leads you in all sorts of random tangents. This little girl has the most amazing voice.  Listening to her gives me chills. Here, go watch her in the semi-finals.  And in the finals.  And she was nine when she did this.

I bought both her albums from iTunes.  Despite not liking opera.  I mean, just wow.

Minerva amaryllis

Today the first of my amaryllis blooms for the season opened.  This is the variety 'Minerva'.



I tried to get one of these last year from BiMart, but the bulb I got was mislabled and turned out to be yet another 'Red Lion'.  Seems like these cheap mass marketed bulbs are often jumbled up, because three times I've gotten a 'Red Lion' instead of the variety I was trying to buy ('Minerva' twice, 'Apple Blossom' once).  So now I have four 'Red Lion' bulbs.  Ah well, they're pretty too.

But I'm stubborn, and this time I was successful!  I have a 'Minerva'! We'll see how the 'Apple Blossom' I bought this year turns out...

I love the way amaryllis flowers look like they are covered in diamond dust.  They sparkle in the sun.

New old roasting pan

One of the things I brought back from Kansas was my mom's large covered oval roasting pan.  I don't think it's super old, and it's certainly not some fancy expensive one, but it was Mom's.  I've wanted one of these for ages, but could never justify it since I got a large rectangular roasting pan as a wedding present oh so long ago.  I don't need a cover every time I roast something, but when I do it's a pain to try and piece together foil to make one. Plus, I hate the handles on the rectangular one and end up burning myself every time I use it.

But now I have a roasting pan with a cover and handles that don't burn me!  I think it's time for the rectangular pan that I never liked to go away.

This afternoon I put Mom's pan to good use, with two smallish chickens and a pile of carrots and potatoes roasted into deliciousness.  I started it off covered for 30 minutes, to steam the veggies and cook the meat faster, then uncovered it for the last hour to brown everything.



That right there is dinner for tonight, plus five lunches for me and possibly a dinner or two during the week, plus a pot of chicken stock from the bones next weekend .  I love being efficient.

Happy 2016!

Happy New Year!   Emma's and my new year got off to a fantastic start with a trip out to Kansas to see my dad, met there by my sister, brother-in-law, and niece.  It was so great to see everyone, and wonderful to watch the cousins playing.

I couldn't find reasonably-priced plane tickets for me and Emma, so we drove.  It was two 11+ hour days of driving each way, but we had plenty of Harry Potter books on CD and it was actually really enjoyable.  We had good weather, which helped immensely, and the traffic wasn't bad except around Denver on the way home.

We stayed overnight in Rawlins, Wyoming on the way out, and man was it cold!  Temps when we left the motel on Dec. 27 were -14 degrees Farenheit!  I haven't been in weather that cold since I was in college in Maine. The hoarfrost was beautiful, but it was awfully shivery pumping gas!



We were treated to a beautiful sunset on the Great Plains on the evening of the second day, somewhere near Goodland, Kansas, documented by Emma out of the back window of the car.  This was the tail end of our outbound journey, only a little over three hours left to my dad's house at this point.  We were very glad to get there and not have to drive for five days!



We had a great visit.  There were Christmas presents and walking in the brisk Kansas wind and reading old family cookbooks and running Dad's model trains and happy shrieks from the basement as the cousins played.  Cooking and going to the movies (Star Wars again!) and sorting through Mom's old kitchen stuff with my sister to divvy up some of the bits and pieces Dad doesn't use anymore.

Emma was delighted that we had snacking-for-dinner on New Year's Eve, which has become a tradition with her and me these past five or six years.  Sis knows all the good cheeses, and introduced me to the wonderment that is cracker plus fig jam plus goat cheese. I am going to have to source some figs next year so I can make a batch of fig jam.

We may have gone a little overboard on the snack spread, but it was all really good!



All too soon it was time to head out for the trek back home.  We were treated to another beautiful sunset, this time with the Rocky Mountains in silhouette as we headed north from Denver.



All in all it was a very uneventful drive, which is a good thing, and I so, so, so enjoyed the extended time with Emma.

I planned ahead and took the day after we got back off from work as well.  This was a good call, because it was wonderful to have a day to decompress after driving all weekend.  I did laundry and said hi to all my plants, and just relaxed.

Oh, and I made jelly!  Here's my first canning project of 2016, some grape jelly.  The batch made seven half pints, but two of the jars went as thank-you gifts to the friends that kept an eye on the cat while we were gone.



As for Coco, I think she was convinced that she had been abandoned forever.  I think this is the longest she's ever been left alone since we adopted her, and she apparently did not like it one bit. According to the kitty sitters, she was yowly and clingy when they came to feed her, and this continued after we got home as well.  She didn't leave me and Emma alone from the moment we walked in the door, and stuck to me all the next day while I was home and Emma was in school.  Tuesday, after I was back at work, she was frantic again when we got home in the afternoon. She seemed very relieved that we hadn't left for a week and a half again.

Even tonight, after almost a week of being home and back to our normal routine, she is still being unusually clingy.  Poor kitty.