Green Growing Things

Dear Blog-

I have lots of pictures for you today of green, growing things. Including progress on G's vest...


This is the Sakiori vest from Folk Vests. He gets too warm wearing knitted things, but thought he wanted a vest for winter at the farmer's market. Even here in the desert it gets quite cold on winter mornings. I love being all bundled up and seeing those who are obviously visiting relatives for the holidays and didn't pack properly. They are the ones at the farmer's market wearing shorts and t-shirts in 25 degree weather. I always say to G, I guess they know now that 25 degrees in the desert is just as cold as 25 degrees anywhere else... I even put felt insoles from Morehouse in my clogs for those cold mornings, and they make a huge difference when you are standing on cold cement for 4 hours.

These next pictures are of blooms last night on a large cereus we have on our front porch. Those of you who are familliar with these know that they bloom at night, for one night only, and then by morning the buds are completely closed again. My mother was a cactus fanatic in the wilds of up-state NY 40 years ago when no one understood why she thought these things were so lovely. I remember as a child what I called the spring and the fall plant migrations. In spring we would move all of Mom's 'outdoor' potted plants out to various spots in the yard from their over-winter hibernation in our basement. It was an all-day process with the four of us kids and my Mom carrying pots out of the basement door like a swarm of ants. Then in fall when the nights were getting too cool for the plants to remain outside the process was reversed, and we carried all those pots back in where they would spend the winter in a very sunny room in the basement in front of a large window. Whenever one of her cereus was in bud it would be checked on daily til we could tell that 'tonite is the night'. Then it would be ceremoniously carried upstairs to the dining room where we would turn out the lights and sit and watch it begin to open as dusk fell. The flowers open so quickly that you can actually see them move.

There are many varieties of cereus, and this particular one is very tall with a twisted body. Apparently this variety seldom blooms, but this is the second setting of buds we have had this year. I believe this is because it desperately needs repotting and that is going to require our friend Joe the cactus guy coming over to help G do the repotting. This puppy is about 6 foot tall with 4 arms, so quite heavy and gangly to maneuver.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I noticed that two of the buds were getting ready to open, and here they are. We still have another two buds that are very close to opening. Last budding we had about 6 or 7 buds on the cactus, four of which opened all in one night. To give you some perspective, the flowers are about 6 inches across when fully open, perhaps more with all the outer bits.


The next two pictures are of things growing in our dining room. This large sunny room used to be a porch years ago, and has two very large windows facing south. So it is my daytime knitting spot, this computer is in here, and I pretty much live in this room during the day. In the background of the second picture you can see the potting table cum sideboard that has been slowly taken over with knitting things... as is most of the house.

But the first of these two pictures show GRASS GROWING out of the wall between the dining room and the kitchen. Mind you, this is not an outside wall, this thing had to find it's way through 4 foot of house to get in here to start sprouting. I wanted to wait to see what it was before attempting to cut it back and get rid of it. That is a bit tricky since I'll never be able to find the roots in order to kill it, and most things grow back even stronger and healthier after being cut back. But it really needs to go.



And the second picture shows a coleus that we bought at the farmer's market last week. Our great misfortune is to have our table right next to the plant people, and last week I couldn't resist this. So after I sold one of my felted bowls, this puppy was mine! I love the fall colors in the leaves as well as the pot it is in and the ivy it is underplanted with.


Finally, here is a felted bowl I made yesterday with Kureyon - pre-felting, of course. We were meant to take part in a crafts fair last weekend, and I made several of these in different variations during the week. But the market thing didn't pan out, and instead I brought them to the regular farmer's market we do, where I sold two of them...


Okay, off to do useful things such as wash the dishes and fold laundry.