Yes A Blooming Cactus..

... is an EVENT in my life!

I know this is redundant, but when a cactus blooms once a year, only at night and the bloom is wilted by dawn, I can't help but honor its efforts. We had two more blossoms last night. One of them was very unexpected. Darrell found it when he was taking out the trash.

When Marsha moved the big plant, it's in a pot, a piece of the cactus broke off. She stuck it in the ground and we sort of paid it no never mind. She figured it would either root or die. Last night the little thing bloomed. The flower was as big as the plant! I have to assume that it put down roots, but I'm not going to disturb it after its big night!

When I went outside to check on the big plant, I noticed there was a grasshopper sitting on the 'bud'. It's hard to refer to these buds as buds since they're about 6 inches long and as big around as my fist. I decided it was a good photo op, so I went and got my camera. The grasshopper hung around.

I snapped a few pictures and it was at that point that I decided I had to stay up for the bloomin' replay and settled in for a long evening.

Actually, it wasn't terribly long as Marsha gave me a Thai massage. That's the kind where you get 'walked on'. I bought some "learn how to do Thai massage" DVDs a while back and we've been practicing on each other. She walked on me for an hour. It was very good. I was relaxed enough that she was able to work deep muscles.

By 10:00 we settled in for

"The Event -

The Second Blooming".

We kept check on things and finally around 11:15 it was time for "Smelling the Flowers". As I said last night the scent is absolutely fantastic. We admired the little bloomer and marveled at it's ability to produce a flower "That Big". It opened first as it was in a darker spot in the yard. I took a few pictures of it.... do you want to see? Of course you do, because I want to show you!

The petals are chewed because every insect within a mile seems to be attracted to these flowers. This big blossom was close to the ground since it's on such a small plant. It was tucked behind the log when Darrell found it, so I pulled it out and propped it on the log.

After paying due homage to the little bloomer it was on to check the big bloomer. We danced around it getting the best angle for photos. Yes, it looks exactly like the other bloomers but with such a magnificent flower it just seems necessary to keep records of each flower.

Only.... this one turned out to be a little different. We have to keep the lights dim when we look at these flowers, otherwise they start to wilt. We do use flash on the cameras but otherwise it's dim lighting for this Event.

I downloaded the pictures to my computer to see what I got. I was very surprised to find that not only did I get a couple of good photos of the flower but the flower still had it's friend, The Grasshopper. It had stood guard as the flower opened.

There's still two buds left on the big plant. I think it will be a few more days before they are ready for their debut.

And, just because he's so cute.... Here's the Yo!Fred as I found him this morning. Yes, there's always bottles of paint on the sink, sometimes there's even more than that. You never know when you want to paint something... but first you have to get the cat's permission.

I know, I know....

I should have updated this long ago. I've been avoiding visiting here as I didn't want to see how long it's been since I last checked in.

OK... the very quick update.. I went to Durham, NC to the GBS/CIDP Foundation International Board meeting right after the previous post. Had a wonderful time. Talecris allowed us to tour their pharmacutical facility to see how IVIG is produced. Very impressive and I darn near froze! Many of the areas we toured are kept at 45 degrees. Fortunately, we only looked at the freezer building from the outside... as it is maintained at -25 degrees. Many of you know that I do not have hot flashes, I have cold flashes. Nothing like 45 degrees in the middle of a cold flash!

As I was returning home from the airport on the shuttle, I noticed I had a runny nose. I attributed it to atmospheric pressure changes and my return to Georgia pollen.

Not.

By that evening, I had a full blown head cold. I was certainly glad I wasn't sitting beside me on the plane. By the time I recovered from that, I didn't even want to see how long it had been since I posted here, so like I said, I didn't come look.

So, what's the flower picture all about you wonder? Could it be that she's been surfing and found a pretty picture to copy and paste as a means of distracting from how long it's been since the last post!?

No, Last night, we had a cactus bloomage... A friend gave us cuttings from her night blooming cereus a few years ago. It's always bloomed in early September before, but I noticed a few days ago that the buds were forming. Last night we had four blossoms open. Heavenly scent, even if we did have to wait until almost midnight for them to open. We had to keep all the lights off in that end of the house so as not to delay the grand opening even more. We're going to have another flower open tonight. I haven't decided yet if I will stay up to honor it or not.

Here's Marsha taking pictures of the bloomers.

I've also been playing in clay.

Hopefully pictures tomorrow. I'm making a large inro to donate to the Museum of Aviation Foundation Auction.

There Phyll, I've blogged.

Oh! Hi Clara!