Cactus Update

Happy summer, everybody!

I came today to post a silly story I'd written, but my comment moderator was FULL of cactus questions! FULL, I say! 

I find this excellent for two reasons:

1. People are still reading my old posts
2. I just bought new cacti!

See my coral cactus? It's the large one in the pot on the right.

The others are some little friends I bought for it to hang out with.

My paternal grandmother always had a window full of cactus, and I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out which ones I could safely poke. :) I loved how she had so many different kinds, and Lowe's had little bitty cacti on sale for pretty cheap, sooo.... 

Cactus Day!  Huzzah!

Let me introduce you:

1. You all remember the coral cactus, right?

Well, it's grown quite a bit, and I moved it out of the polka dot pot and in with some little bitty flowering cacti.

2. Pink Crown cacti are the whiter appearing two around the coral's base.

 They're actually a dark green, but there are so many bristles that you can barely see it. They put out very pretty little pink flowers all over the top of the cactus bulb. If you look very closely, you can see that there are two types of bristles: the straight white ones and slightly curved reddish ones. The curved ones are just like velcro. They stick to everything, even skin, at the slightest touch. (Guess how I know.)

3. The next little guy is a Rebutia Miniscula. It buds out from the base as seen below.

 BUT -- It also flowers, and also in a dark pink. So pretty!

4. This next one might be my new favorite. It's nicknamed the Devil's Tongue barrel cactus.

Lookit those spines!  You don't want to mess with this guy. It was quite challenging to get this one out of his store pot and into the coral's old pot.

 Take a close look at the spines: they're ridged, curved, and very hard. You can actually drag your finger down one and hear the spines - that's how tough they are.

 That brings us to the last pot.

On a side note: I was very fortunate to find these shallow pots for the cacti. I didn't want them in deep pots or plastic pots, and I was just about to give up on getting more cacti when I found these shallow ones.

 There are four different cacti in the pot. I'll keep them here for as long as they're healthy, butI'm not sure how long they can stay together. And that's because....

5. The Pilosocereus Gounellii shown below grows to a mature size of TEN FEET. 

I couldn't say no to it, though. It was too awesome.

 6. This is the appropriately named Christmas Tree cactus. I luv Christmas!

7. This fluffy guy is a golden ball cactus.

It's the other one in the running for new favorite. The description reads "harmless bristles" (It lies - I'm still picking them out of my hands). The golden ball cactus is definitely golden, but it's not a barrel cactus, exactly. If you look at the base, you'll see that it looks a bit squished. The golden ball cacti are more like squished pillars than balls. As this one grows, the ripples at the bottom will become more pronounced.

 8. Finally, the last cactus!  This is a Clothed Opuntia.

It really IS harmless to the touch, unless you grab on to it very firmly. The white fuzz is very soft, almost felt-like. It is blooming right now - the shiny green "spikes" are the blossoms. There's two pictures of it here, so you can see its interesting growth patterns.

I'll always be grateful that Grandma got me interested in cacti when I was a kid. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to get some of my own. I hope you like the cactus as much as I do, and for those of you who are still reading - Thanks for hanging out and being so patient with me!

I hope to write more often for you now that summer's here again.

Spring

A poem I've been thinking on since last spring....

Spring arrives shyly
          blushing
embarrassed to be caught dressing
uncertain of the fancy gown
          prepared for her party
thinking perhaps that people may laugh
         if she does something wrong
         takes a wrong step in the dance
         allows a petticoat to show
                  a jewel to drop to the ground
                  her corsage to droop.

She's not done this before.
          Older sisters have; they've given instruction

The blush fades
         she takes a deep breath
She shakes out her locks
         golden and green
Dons slippers of purple and white
         a waistcoat of white and yellow-green
         a gown of innumerable blossoms, delicately embroidered
         a blazon of pinks to be-ribbon her hair

Stunning
Beautiful
the belle of the ball

She retires
         the blossoms fall to the ground.
She rests
         and begins to prepare her younger sister.

Scars

(Based on a true story ... loosely)

Let's start somewhere easy: I don't remember my childhood. Nothing particularly traumatic happened to me: I asked my parents. But others can recall their preschool years, their second grade plays where they dressed like bunnies and ate cake while sitting on plastic seesaws. I look at my elementary pictures and wonder what fourth grade was like.

Ok, so I lied.

I remember a few things, but one thing I can't remember is how I got this scar on my leg. I sit and stare at it as it shines in the moonlight, the lamplight, the sunlight. And I wonder, where did you come from, little scar? Was I bit by a cat? Did I fall out of a tree? Is this the aftermath of trying to pull a 180 turn in a pile of gravel on the asphalt? I don't know. But as I wonder, my thoughts turn to Shayla.

I discovered Shayla quite by accident. She just sort of appears in my memory, riding a bike on a sunny afternoon. The details of our friendship are fuzzy and my mom didn't want me going to her house and my dad didn't want me near her at all and I gave her my favorite doll before she disappeared from my memory. We were friends - fast friends. Our friendship blossomed quickly, and we were bound together forever the day she showed me her scars.

Why did she show me? Maybe I told her about the time I burned my hand on the stove. According to my folks, when I was, oh, three or so, I reached up and placed my tiny hand on a hot burner. Screaming and wailing on both sides ensued, and the next days were spent with my hand bundled and iced and propped on Dad's or Mom's shoulder as I fitfully dozed on their laps.

I bear no memories of this incident, and no scars.

But maybe I told Shayla this story one lazy summer afternoon while we hid from our folks in the lilac grove and dreamed of lives lived in far-off, exotic locations. Maybe that's why, unexpectedly, she took me into her confidence. Maybe that's why.

She said, "You wanna see something?" and then she took off her shirt to show me her frail little eight-year-old chest.

I had no words.

The swirled, twisted, striped texture of her melted skin stretched from her waist to her neck, over her right shoulder. It drizzled down past her right shoulder blade and disappeared into her shorts.

She held out her right arm. "You can touch it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

It felt smooth and wondrous. It felt foreign. Her shoulder was a silken, alien substance.

"Wow," I breathed. I looked back at her eyes. "What happened?"

Sunlight flickered on our faces as the wind rustled through the lilacs and Shayla pulled her shirt back on.

"Well, when I was four, I pulled a pot of hot water off the stove. My mom turned her back for just a sec. I was sick a real long time."

And that was it. No dramatic re-enactment, no emotion, no inflection of any kind.

We never spoke of it again. I never asked any more questions, and so I received no more answers. But they are always here, those scars. Under her shirt and under the lilacs as the sun flickers softly in the shadow.

The Meadow

On Tuesday, I came home from work and announced to the kids that we were going for a walk.


They were excited until I told them that they could not bring scooters and we were not headed to the playground.


I also refused to tell them where we were headed, and so regretfully leaving their wheels behind, they followed me out the door...








When we arrived at the meadow, they were, shall we say, hesitant to be excited or interested.


In spite of that, I armed them each with a cell phone camera and told them to explore: take pictures of anything you like, watch out for thorns and thistles, and see what you can see.


I also encouraged them to take photos from unexpected angles.




Within minutes, they were enthralled and I could barely keep up with them.


Annie went from flower to flower, photographing as many different kinds as she could, along with their various bugs.


Jimmy remarked on how easy it would be to get lost in the grass, some of which stood as high as his head (almost to my shoulder).


We talked about types of plants and bugs and what it would be like crossing the plains in grasses that went on for miles and how to find field mice and snakes and the kinds of birds that circled the meadow above us.








On the way home, we gathered flowers to put in a vase and the kids made me promise to take them back soon. It was so great just wandering about in a spot where we could see no cars, no houses, and no other people.















Jimmy writes:

My most favorite part was wishing I could jump in the pond. The pond was huge, but Mom said no because it was all dirty and muddy. It felt great and we kept picking flowers for a bouquet. I saw flowers like dandilions and Annie saw flowers that look like Einstien. And I saw a giant pinecone!

Annie writes:

If I may say so myself, the trip to the meadow was awesome! Wildflowers and wild, unkempt grasses as far as the eye can see! As long as you can't see far. There are bugs everywhere! A beetle on this flower, a butterfly on that bush, a dragonfly near the pond! It was so full of nature, it was overwhelming!

The flowers we saw included brown-eyed Susans, Queen Anne's Lace, and daisies.

Plus, some little spiky balls on stems with grassy things sticking up out of them, and I named them Einstein flowers.


I also saw a butterfly that was orange and brown. Mom hadn't seen it before, so I don't know what it was.

Plus there was a dragonfly with see-through wings hanging out in the grass. These are key points in our trip to the meadow.

Sunrise at Virginia Beach

During Spring Break week, we decided that we simply MUST get away for a few days, so we drove a few hours to the ocean and crashed at the Holiday Inn. One morning, the kids and I woke up for the sunrise.

There is a heavy mist over the water, and a naval vessel is crossing through. You can see it, beginning in photo five, crossing from left to center. As the sun rises and clears the mist, its color changes, and then suddenly its rays are reflected across the water: brilliant and beautiful.

Sunrise over the ocean:
(Enjoy.)