Month: October 2025
Double Bows in the Backyard
The wonder of rainbows never ceases to bring a feeling of magic and awe. These arches of dazzling color bands are one of the few remaining experiences that can cause every person to pause a moment to take them in amidst the screens and speed of the day.
Even though the photo is from September, I’ve revisited it a few times in recent weeks still appreciating what a sight it was off our back deck.
“It takes sunshine and rain to make a rainbow. There would be no rainbows without sunshine and rain.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
If your days of late have been without any color or magic, feel free to visit this picture or take a copy until you happen upon your own local bows to bring back some of the wonder we need in this life.
Wordless Wednesday
The Orchid and the Snail
Being a lover of orchids it is not unusual at all for me to bring home a beautiful specimen from a nursery or garden center. On occasion I will come home with four or five of them at a time. More often, I will go for months without buying any. Wyoming climate is hard on any humidity-loving plant and thus the survival rate in our drafty home is not 100%.
A few months ago, I ran across a gorgeous Beallara Hawaiian Nights orchid that was nearing full bloom, I was powerless to pass it up. I have not been successful in keeping any oncidium type orchid alive to-date, but I’ve also learned a lot with prior purchases that I did not know before – so I was motivated to try again.
Truly, I was captivated by the dazzling blooms and their lovely fragrance. She was impossible to pass up. I was utterly powerless as she hopped into my garden cart.
Fast forwarding here in this story through its blooming stages and to the point where I will remove an orchids post-bloom spike to help it re-direct energy and growth back into the leaves and roots.
It is at this point that I typically re-pot plants when they are in a better stage of growth for it. As I neared this point, I decided one day to take tweezers and remove some clover and moss that was starting to grow around the bulbs to see if I could get the moss to grow in another container dish. With the small bit of moss I pulled up came the tiniest gray snail I had ever seen. It was so small, it was a wonder I even noticed it.
Never having ever had a snail before, I placed it in a critter terrarium I have and quickly searched online for how to keep a snail. Images of similar containers with soils, rocks, and mosses appeared so I went about using what I had at my disposal that day to care for it.
After a fashion, I realized by further reading, it appeared that I had a quick gloss snail (zonitoides arboreus). I had never heard of such a thing. I noticed right away why it was named as such.
These little creatures have beautifully shiny shells and boy they can motor! If you look away from just a few seconds and then look back, they can be well on their way to gone. Well, for a snail.
With this new knowledge in mind, I came up with a name for this little critter: Scooter.
Since this day a few months ago, Scooter has provided curious fun and knowledge. I bought a few different types of moss and added some rocks to the little set up I had going, ensuring I was misting at least two or three times a day to keep things moist.
I admit, I am on the outer fringes of what to do for snails here, but we will see where this mini adventure ends up!
Fury the Wonder Cat
In December 2017, an early Christmas gift to me was the opportunity to adopt a cat from a local shelter. Being an animal lover, I’d missed having a furry companion and was looking forward to it.
The original agreement was to select a cat after family vacations at Christmas. About a week later after this announcement it seemed only prudent to go ahead to the local pet store to purchase some basic elements (food, food / water dispenser, litter, litter box). You know, just on the off-chance I found our new family member early one didn’t want to be caught unprepared.
I’m pretty sure my rationale was completely transparent. On arriving at the pet store that also just happened to showcase local shelter animals up for adoption, I zeroed in on a kitten. It was a cute-as-pie little mass of beautiful gray fluff, huge paws, and large ears. I could have disappeared into the fur tufts between his tow beans.
My pleas seemed to be getting me nowhere. After many walks through the aisles cajoling my spouse, I was told I could choose a cat early but only if I went to the local shelter to see all the possible cats, first.
Once there, we looked at every cat. I focused on the least adoptable choices: The elderly, the blind or those with less than four legs. I asked my husband, “See any that really speak to you or you like?”. I was met with, “Eh, maybe.”
We made a second circle of the circuit of the walls of crates. When I asked again, he nodded to a crate where a tiny black kitten with startling gold eyes was snuggled next to a sibling kitten who was creamy buff in color. When I prodded further if this was one he wanted to see, I got a shrug and a “We can.”
We were ushered to the meet and greet room. I was conflicted at considering what appeared to be an otherwise healthy and normal cat vs. other cats who would need tremendous care (that I being a home-based worker could provide). I got settled on the concrete floor to ensure it saw me first and felt comfortable approaching me.
As you might have guessed, when the volunteer arrived with the little dollop of fur, we waited quietly for her to get comfortable figuring it would take some warming up.
And totally ignoring me on the floor, my Christmas present eyed my other half who was sitting in a chair in the corner with arms crossed looking stoic. Smart little thing, she read the room and knew who had to be convinced.
This miniature panther made a beeline to him with all of her tail straight up in the air, and jumped directly into his lap where she turned 2 times, sat down and purred. I was in shock. This had never happened before with any animal in my presence. I was not even looked at. But I took it on the chin and went with it. We had been chosen, not the other way around.
And so, we drove home with a 4-month-old kitten.
The charade went on once we got home. She wouldn’t let me pick her up and was not interested in snuggles or cuddles. I was heartbroken thinking how could this be? And how would this cat-relationship work now? My husband assured me over and over it would all be fine.
We struggled for days as to what to name her. She reminded us of most was the DreamWorks movie, “How to Train Your Dragon” where one of the main characters is an animated black dragon named Toothless. This was a rare dragon called a Night Fury who came into his own special powers through overcoming obstacles. Fury the cat she became. There was something endearing that such a contrast in a ferocious name fitting such a lovable personality.
Within a few days, thankfully, roles had totally reversed. I’m not sure if my husband sat her down and had a special kitty conversation, but I finally became her person and we have remained a pair ever since.
Fury continues to be a furry force of love and fun and I’ll share those adventures with pictures as we go along.
The Magic of Books
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
The comfort of books has always been one of my favorite pleasures over the years. I have yet to find a better quote to express their value than Carl Sagan.
At the time of launching this blog, my Audible account has me clocking in at over one thousand titles and I must admit I have a large (and embarrassing) to-be-read pile on bookshelves. Books have taken me on countless adventures and allowed me to see the world through many different characters. They have also been my comfort when utterly alone in solitude.
My thoughts on some of these titles will have a presence in this blog. This is personal enjoyment, more so to challenge myself to reflect on the books I read and consider any takeaways that I find a value to revisit and consider via posts. This is a new practice for me and I look forward to whatever form it will take.
Wordless Wednesday
Lessons in Grace from a Terminal Spiker
This poor little orchid gal is not going to make it. I bought her at Lowe’s a few weeks ago, knowing that being a terminal spike orchid, she wouldn’t last long unfortunately. She had the most beautiful blooms; I could not help myself.
As I watched her leaves yellow and her roots crinkle, I knew no amount of orchid fertilizer treatment or care would change this course. It was her time.
Terminal spike orchids may only have 2-3 years in them, from what I have read. I also never quite know what other bugs or rots have formed in their lives from nurseries to sellers in arid environments that shorten their lives, either. It could have been one of a many reasons why just after coming home with me, she gave out. All of her blooms spent, it was all she had.
And so, I reached for the keiki paste for the first time. I’ve had a few terminal orchids before and never had any keiki paste to try to encourage keiki growths with. This one motivated me to buy some and give it a go. (And yes, it’s true that even with a growth hormone like the paste, it’s still not a given a new baby plant will materialize).
Once it arrived, she had lost her last big leaf and her roots showed she was out of life.
But I still fertilized.
And I still made a tiny gouge in the last node left and applied the paste.
Just in case life decided to give it a go.
Yet, I was perfect accepting if it didn’t.
As I held this tiny orchid in my hands with sympathy and care, it hit deeply that I felt a little bit like this gal. I’ve had more days than I care to count where I had no more energy to thrive in my roots or leaves.
I considered how I might hold space for myself more often when I was on empty too. And how to do so without judgement as to whether I delivered or not. This thought brought me some acceptance that there was indeed extra room in coming days for me to give myself the same grace, if I remember to do it. And similarly, I could do so without judgement.
And so, I gently set her in the indirect light and left her to take her time with whatever came next, giving gratitude for sharing her beauty while she could. It was more than enough.
Wordless Wednesday
Frilly Doris Finally Bloomed
Blooms started opening and things happened faster than expected! At the tail end of September, Frilly Doris’ buds started to crack open further, giving a tantalizing hint of the flowers to come.
This lovely plant is such a trooper with that slender spike holding such heavy blooms. I have been watching it bend further and further each day, wondering how it manages to not split at the base.
And then, voila! Just like that, on the first of October she burst open, her dazzling blooms on fully display. When this girl blooms, she goes all out!
And as icing on the cake, she has the most light and elegant citrus scent; absolutely divine.
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope – Lady Bird Johnson”
I am so happy with this orchid. It is going to be my mission to keep her going after she finishes with flowering. Interestingly different, uniquely herself, and when she blooms she lights up the room. She is my heart.