Sunday, June 22, 2008

Orchids in Bloom



Hello and welcome back. I've got a few minutes while waiting at Costa Maya for food to digest and a massage client to arrive so I'm setting up a theme to post another blog. I have lots of pictures to post that I took before I was blogging and I want to show you some shots of the Lobster Festival that I performed at with Tanya, our first official gig together. It was fun, but first some of my favorite pics of this country. Out on the ocean one evening with an incredible sunset (above and below), just minutes from my home. We live on a man made channel of the lagoon on the back side of Ambergris Caye. It is still the ocean but here we have the beach front where the waves crash on the reef and the other side of the Island is considered the lagoon where the rain water mixes with the ocean, but that happens on both sides so I don't quite get it, and its thirty five miles of ocean water all the way to the mainland with thousands of Islands along the way.

(above) My neighbor Bob, from the East Coast of Canada, he's the big guy in the white shirt, came home early from work and invited us to go fishing with him. That is Paul, from the UK and his partner Cindy showing him how big his fish was while Paul tries to convince Cindy's mom, Cheri, who was visiting them from England for four or five months, but that is a story for them to tell, ha ha!
It was such a lovely sunset we stayed out and kept fishing, we didn't catch a single fish, but we all caught crabs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I should have taken a picture of that, each of us had to shake off at least 2 or 6 crabs that tried to take our bait as we reeled in. They hand on and one even landed in the boat and had to be scooped up and thrown back into the sea, it was so funny catching nothing but crabs. What a line!It was a wonderful evening on the ocean and it was so dark after the sun dropped that we couldn't see our way back home and had to go super slow. The ocean floor inside the reef is from four to sixteen feet deep all the way to the mainland and it rises to form Islands and there are many places where its too shallow to take your boat so you have to know where its safe to go. We made it home but it was fun listening to Paul, Cindy and Bob trying to make out the landmarks in the dark. We all had a great time and now Bob knows what landmarks to watch and he can get home quickly even in the dark. Ha ha!

Here is a new series, my back yard gardening projects, this next shot was taken some time ago. The big tree whose branches are at the top of the photo is now lying on its side after a big storm pushed it over and we stood it up but couldn't get it to stand up straight so we cut the top off and let the side branches become the new leaders. I have two orchid bunches tied to the new main limbs and I'll show you the other plantings I'm nurturing here, starting with my aloe vera planting, which has already been a blessing through two serious sunburns. Never leave home without sunscreen, never! I also have a crown of thorns slip and on the right side of the pot you see that long slender succulent. In the middle is a candlelabra cactus, I may have posted some of these pictures already, I think. Oh well, let me elaborate more this time, bear with me as I get the hang of managing a blog.

Well, Bob's partner at Coral Beach Realty, Fred asked me a few months ago how I get my orchids to bloom, as if I know anything about orchids, but I told him that I water them daily, so he tried it and now his are blooming as well. I've since been told that I can also dissolve some grow fertilizers in a spray bottle and spray the roots with it once in a while as well. It takes a while after the first bloom stock appears before yous see flowers but mine opened a few weeks ago, see below.Absolutely lovely, but quite small... see my hand for a size reference below.

Below is a shot from the mother plant, I got it already rooted onto a skinny branch of wood which I fastened to the tree in my yard with fishing line. Here we are looking out from the plant, along the flowering stem to the blossom on the end.

Below, the same plant with two blossoms opened.



Next I have a photo of two other kinds of Orchids which I purchased already in bloom. I'm trying to root the one in front onto an interesting piece of driftwood and behind it are two more of the same variety that I set into an opened and halved coconut shell. Charlie, my local plant guy, said they would root right into the shell and I could hang the shells on strings. I sold those two to Sunny to hang at Brahma Blue and will have to deliver them to him soon.



At the left of the photo is another variety that I like a lot, it had nearly no roots so Charlie suggested I root it in soil for now and it already had a bloom stem which was damaged somehow and now it is sending another leader out of the same bloom stem (its hard to see in the photo but if you follow the stem from the bell shaped plant on the left growing out and behind the two orchids on the ground, its there.), amazing for a plant with little or no root. I'll have to ask Cindy to take pictures of the flowers if it blooms while I'm in Canada for the month of July.

Speaking of Cindy, below you see her back as she and I take pictures of the full moon rising from our back yard. The following is a sequence of that full moon over a few days.

This night there was some cloud cover and I love the effect so I'll show lots of shots.

I love the look of it with the clouds crossing in front, especially when the moon's surface formations show up in the picture as well. These next shots are with less zoom so the clouds are all lit up.
Well I guess that is enough for this posting, Namaste to all my good friends and many blessings to all special guests. My daughter and I have a special connection with the moon, as a todler she used to say, "that is my moon" and so it is. Now we both look at the full moon and ask it to deliver our love to each other across the many miles from Belize to Winnipeg, heres looking at the same moon.

Much Love Larissa, from Daddy! Good night my dearest, I'll be in your arms in nine sleeps.

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