Here is a closeup of my jewel orchid’s bloom.
It is not as showy as other orchids, but I’m still excited that I found a setup in which it will bloom. It is in a small mason jar full of live moss, and capped with a large clear acrylic upside-down vase, in a southern facing frosted bathroom window. I add water maybe once a month.
We had a large tree fall in the back woods sometime during the last storms. We didn’t hear it fall, but it must have made a great tearing sound as it cracked and then dragged down a considerable amount of vegetative canopy.
This was a favorite hiding spot for the outside cats, and once the tree was down I could see why: there was a lovely little cavern in the trunk.
The hollow trunk led all the way to the top of the tree, giving an escape route to any critter resting there.
The top branches fell across one of my paths, so I’ll gave to trim that back, but I’ll wait until fall when it is cooler and the chiggers aren’t active. Other than freeing my path, I’ll leave the rest to nature, which is the beauty of the back woods.
Speaking of, this is the remains of the woodpile that the builders left some 10 years ago when they cleared land for the house.
Last Thursday I posted a picture of the pile from 8 years ago when it was well above cat height. There is not much left to hide in now.
I was gifted a sprouting mother leaf of an African violet from a dear friend. Turns out that the mother leaf sprouted six new plants. When they had grown for awhile, I separated them out into individual temporary pots, but was unsure where to go next. When cleaning up the back porch I found six little pots that I loved, but didn’t have a use for, so they were sitting outside. Huzzah! I cleaned them up and bought liners so I could bottom water the violets.
The liners didn’t go all the way to the bottom of the pots, so I found some watering wicking rope to help keep the water from pooling on the bottom.
Then I repotted all the plants into their new homes.
When it comes time to water, I’ll lift out the liner and put water in the bottom of the pot. The technique has been working well for my snake plant!
When our halogen light from the nineties finally gave up after 30 years of use, I deconstructed it and couldn’t bring myself to throw out the nice heavy base just yet. When rearranging my plants on the kitchen counter, and moving the grow lamps on stakes, I decided to combine the grow lamps with the old lamp base.
I had to get longer screws to secure the posts of the grow lamps into the stand, but I had some that worked in the garage. The result was quite acceptable.
When I was trimming paths in the woods I accidentally knocked a pad off a prickly pear. I stuck the broken pad, which had another pad growing off it, in a pot near a grow lamp inside. The secondary pad shriveled up, but a new bud started.
We’ll see how it does. If it grows and prospers I will look for a sunny place to replant it outdoors (which is the tricky bit on our yard.)
Critters and Craft 