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my very own bromeliad i.e. air plant. No one could tell me if it will bloom. It is suspended over my Jacuzzi which should provide humidity. According to the instructions, I am not to use city or softened water on it leaving reverse osmosis water
I've had air plants in the past, one with beautiful pink and purple flowers. I had attached it to the wooden fence that surrounded my patio at the old house. A bird ran off with it.
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| At the Botanic Gardens yesterday, along with their X-mas displays, they had a local art show and a craft sale. This was my favorite art |
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| lots of orchids in bloom in the green house |
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| And bromeliads |
Our first snow hat stuck at least overnight and into a few hours of this morning. I could barely make out two pairs of tracks across our yard. Two deer or two coyote?
I stopped during my run yesterday morning to investigate a woodpecker tapping away. It was fairly large, about the size of my red bellied woodpecker though a different shape plus it didn't have the tiny checkered back. As it was the east side of the road, I had to squint to get a good look. A young woman stopped to see if I were OK. Just trying to id a bird. She said she could see a red Mohawk on its head. Could it be a pileated woodpecker? Probably not as they have all black backs. I narrowed it down to a hairy woodpecker or maybe a yellow bellied sapsucker, which would be more colorful. They have more red that a hairy woodpecker, who only has a red dot and only if it's a male. The woman was about Josh's age and very friendly. She had recently moved from an urban area to this wild road I run on. Why do people dump deer carcasses up and down the road? Um, they don't. They hit them accidently. Surprisingly she never has seen live deer cross the road. I had just seen one a few minutes before stopping.
The Botanical Gardens was a nice break in the bleakness that Michigan has become. Aside from my air plant, I bought a homemade tile for my living room. Later a visit from Josh and Allie. Less than a month now before the baby comes. Then a visit from a good friend.
I should be wrapping presents.
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| Spanish moss is also a bromeliad. This stuff hanging from the trees in coastal Mendocino county looks like it but I've been told it is a moss known as Old Man's beard. |
9 comments:
Love bromeliads. Ours live on the back veranda.
I should be BUYING presents. Sigh. Picked up a couple yesterday. More to do. Much more.
Love all of those, but I am completely blown away by the bromeliad!
“The Botanical Gardens was a nice break in the bleakness that Michigan has become.”
I don’t know if you mean weather-wise and politically, or just weather-wise. I just know that it would get me down to live in a state that voted for Trump.
Winter here in the Willamette Valley is rarely really cold, with most days being the upper forties and most nights above freezing, but it’s rare to see the sun. I lived in Minneapolis for two winters, and that was my only taste of cold and snow (I spent the rest of my life either here in Oregon or in south Mississippi). I hated it, but I had three consolations, one being a wonderful plant conservatory, another being a great art museum, and the third being the First Unitarian Society (to call it a church would was considered heresy). I miss all of these things because nothing here in Oregon comes close in size.
Air plants…I should get one. Last winter, I got up to more than forty potted plants, but taking them to the bathtub every two weeks for a bath (something I thought I needed to do for me if not for them), just got to be too much as they got bigger and bigger, so I’m probably down to thirty or less now. (Another problem with having so many was that two of the cats liked to mess with them, so had to keep them in my bedroom, and I had to keep the bedroom door shut.) Anyway, I’ve long flirted with the idea of getting an air plants because they’re so easy. One of the good things about the Deep South was the Spanish Moss (actually a bromeliad). Maybe you’ve seen it at least in movie, hanging regally and abundantly from tree limbs, sometimes getting to be several feet in length.
I wish you well with the coming winter. I don’t gather that you enjoy them, and I know I didn’t. For me the worst parts were how dirty all the cars looked, and how I couldn’t enjoy my walks because I had to look more at the ice than at my surroundings.
I also want you to know how much I appreciate your visits to my blog. It always brightens my day when I find that I have a comment from you.
Love,
Snow
P.S. SSnowbrush is a plant (Ceanothus Velutinus) that only grows in the mountains of the more northerly regions of the American West and needs fire to germinate (the little seeds can wait decades for a fire). I love it because its leaves are fragrant (they smell like cinnamon) and shiny, and its white flower clusters blossom in abundance.
P.P.S. Your photos are beautiful and very welcome indeed on this chilly, cloudy day.
I've seen plenty of Spanish moss from trips to Florida. I saw some stuff that looks very similar to it hanging in trees in Mendocino County California but I am not sure if that's the right climate (would be moist due to the coast and probably never freezes)
Ann Arbor is characterized as an island surrounded by reality. It was a blue spot as were the surrounding counties. However one doesn't need to go far to find oneself in the Red Zone. We are having a recount here in Michigan. The vote was very, very close. Yes things do look bleak. I am having trouble accepting Trump.
I love to be outside. Hard to do in the cold. Plus all my gardens now are dead zones so I am not a fan of winter.
I have always wondered about what a snowbrush is. Thanks for telling me. Do they have them in Oregon? Thank you for the kind comments about my photos.
I do wish I could write as well as you
Sue
"We are having a recount here in Michigan."
Oh, I know! If it turned out the Trump actually lost the election, can you imagine how all of those gun-toting Alt Righters would behave? I had no idea how many truly dangerous reactionaries the country contained before this election.
Yes, Snowbrush grows abundantly in Oregon, at least in certain elevations on the west side of the Cascades (the east side being a whole other, and much drier, world).
What you saw in California would have been a lichen (they're also abundant here in Oregon, with a common one being called Old Man's Beard), although in wet areas, some mosses hang down too, but no one would mistake them for Spanish Moss.
Hi Snow, I tried to post a photo to the comment but can't, I put the photo instead at he end of my blog of the ghost forests we went through in late January of this year in Northern California.
Trump got a lot of support in Western Michigan. He just finished a 'thank-you' tour there. He has appointed tentatively Betty deVos, whose fortunes arise from a glorified pyramid scheme, as Secretary of Education. She wants to bring 'Christianity' back into the schools.
Sue, here’s a blog that you might enjoy: https://www.blogger.com/profile/06737654325235566310
“Trump got a lot of support in Western Michigan.”
Peggy’s father lost a measure of respect in her eyes and mine when he voted for Trump, and the sad thing is that there’s no way to work through it with him. When I can’t sleep, I worry about what the coming years will bring under the leadership of a cadre of unethical billionaires, and I wonder how a man with such integrity as Peggy’s father could vote for a habitual liar, braggart, and sexist who looks upon the very people who elected him and who will believe whatever he says, no matter how fantastic, despite the fact that he rarely has any evidence whatsoever to back it up. Yet when it comes to things that they don’t want to believe—like evolution and global warming—no amount of evidence could ever be enough, and they hold the beliefs of Trump as superior to those of scientists.
Yep, Trump cares very little for those who elected him. I think that maybe they will eventually see that he will not do one damn thing for the uneducated white man but then again, they will blame something else for why Trump didn't do what he promised to do. I am afraid he and his cronies will rape public lands and parks.
Scary times.
Meanwhile, I did look at your friend's blog and learned that a flower I photographed on the side of a sunflower field was actually an okra flower. Nice photos.
I miss okra, both to look at and to eat. It's in the mallow family and is therefore related to the hibiscus. Although okra is an annual, in Mississippi it would reach seven or eight feet tall, so it was fun to go out everyday and try to see if I could tell that it had grown.
"they will blame something else"
Trump never regards anything as his fault, and his followers take his word for it. Their devotion is like a new religion in that it requires blind faith and enables his followers to hold mutually contradictory beliefs without batting an eye. It also leads to such rage against nonbelievers that I'm surprised that no one has been killed yet.
As for KL, I've only known her for a few days, but I hope that she and I will become friends.
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