And Now For Something Completely Different

(The Autumn Leaves Cardi is finished but it's still drying from the blocking/washing. It's been raining here for over a week now, but I plan to blog it tomorrow.)

In addition to Barclay, Cinnamon, and Shibori, my parents also left Daddy's orchids here while they went back to Colorado to finish things up there*. Daddy has been growing orchids since before I was born and he takes orchids very seriously. He goes to orchid club meetings and enters them in orchid shows and things (orchid shows are very different from dog shows because orchids don't have to run around the ring to show the judges their gates). Before they left, he showed me what I needed to do to keep them alive, but he also told me little stories about the different orchids - this one is practically extinct; I've never had much luck with this one, but now it's growing pretty well; oh look, this one has new growth; I've had this one since the mid 1970's and so on. By the time he was done with them, I was really worried about keeping them alive because clearly, these were more than just plants - they each had little stories.

Yesterday morning, one of the two orchids in bud opened, so I thought I'd show you what it looks like. If there are any orchid people out there reading this, it's Phalaenopsis Harriettae 'Georgina Bow.' Yes, this orchid is named after my Mom. (Can you imagine if I kill this one?) It's also an awarded plant I believe. (Or it could be a doctor or a Realtor, there are a bunch of letters after it's name.)

Here's a close up of it. There is one other plant in bud, but it's a Lady Slipper and apparently they take forever to open their buds. Daddy said it takes them two months just grow the bud spike and it could take another two months or so to open. On the bright side (for these poor orchids who have been putting up with me), Mom and Dad will be back next week so Daddy can take over their care again then.

*Before they left, I explained that I was not guaranteeing the safety of the orchids and also made sure that Daddy understood that their survivability odds were not really in their favor. He said he was OK with that. I've killed one orchid already (hey, I work fast), but apparently it wasn't one of the really important ones.