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Skywatch - Thursday 2/24/11 6:30pm

Taken from my backyard this evening.  For just a few minutes, the sky looked like it was on fire... spectacularly beautiful and yet uncomfortably eerie at the same time!  Anyone else got a chance to see this?

 
 


 
 

Chanting Tchotchkes

I woke up from a much needed nap this afternoon to the sound of loud chanting.  Someone calling out to the gods in a foreign tongue is not exactly the greatest sound to wake up to.  It seems we will be having new neighbors across the street and they were doing some sort of creepy blessing over the house, which is their perfect right, I suppose... except for the fact that the yard looks like it needs the blessing even more than the house.

Maybe I'm just being my usual bitter, plant-hoarding self but sometime during the past week,  someone or something (baboons, maybe?) went in and pretty much destroyed every single plant on the property and all that's left now of the fragrant, blooming gardenia hedges,varigated dracaenas, ti-plants and red ginger is a sea of stumps and stems.  Like so:

 
I don't know about you but baboons sorta freak me out.  The beady eyes.  The screeching.  The wrinkly leather hands.   I am convinced that one of those purple-buttocked beasts would have no trouble tearing a garden (or a gardener- gulp!) to shreads.   I may be paranoid but trust me on this one folks...BABOONS ARE EVERYWHERE!

 
My violent baboon theory aside, it was probably the new owners.  I am guessing anyone who so thoroughly "cleans up" their property to this extent, probably are the same kind of clean, practical, no-nonsense people who have nothing on their kitchen countertops... no papers, no unopened mail, no coffee cups, no tchotchkes¹, and worse yet- no plants.  Well, hello!  Check out what I'll be crowding my countertops with...

 
Yes, being both impractical and full of nonsense (when it comes to plants anyway), here's the current state of affairs with my indoor saintpaulia leaf cuttings.  As you can see, the majority of them have sprouted plantlets. Hooray!  But wait!  Did you see that?

  
This new plantlet of Russian hybrid Nezhenka² has jumped the gun and has already sent out a flower which is bigger than the plant itself.   I'll have to remove it to avoid straining the plant, though but wow ain't it pretty?  

But as most of you already know, my indoor plant-trays and numerous shelves aren't the only place seeing growth recently.  For all you expats, there's also a ton of new construction going on right here in town.  For example, you probably remember the run-down Western Auto warehouse downtown:

  
The McDonald's above Sack-N-Save one block away is relocating to the corner where the warehouse used to stand.  I like the new design.

 
And across town, what was once this empty lot across the local Home Depot

 
is now the new site of a 60,169 sq ft. Safeway and a 154,242 sq ft Target store.   (go Lamar, go!)

It's kinda nice seeing some new buildings around town and I think the landscapers have done an awesome job with various palms and colorful croton.  I just hope they keep the chainsaws away from any baboons.

1- Wikipedia says: (Typically pronounced "CHACH-kee") are small toys, knickknacks, baubles, trinkets, or kitch

2- Nezhenka (Evgeniy Aripov)
    AVSA Registration: 9506  "Soft Cuddly" Single-semidouble pale pink pansy with lavendar fantasy. Medium green foliage.   Standard.

Sayonara Akira

Cupcake was NOT impressed with our late arrival this afternoon.  It's not that she missed me or anything- it just meant a longer than usual wait for num-nums. Yes, while poor kitty was no doubt slaving away watching birds, lounging in the sun and meowing quietly to herself at nothing in particular, I was busy stuffing my fat face all afternoon.  First a Curry Katsu plate during lunch with Suzy, Teru, Jodie, Keisha, Mom and the visiting speaker Alex and his family, and later, a potluck¹ going away gathering for Akira at Wainaku Gym.  But don't be fooled- amidst all the eating and fun, we actually did get a lot of things accomplished this weekend.

Friday was an excellent, full  day in service.  In the morning, our car group encountered some new Spanish speakers in the territory (Cesar and Francesca) and then mid-morning, suddenly, out of nowhere, this Tiger Aloe (A. variegata var haworthii) somehow jumped into my hand:

 
Plants managed to more or less stay out of my field of vision in the afternoon.  I worked on territories for half an hour, went to see Lambert and Bupe to do the week's Bible reading and then had a nice study and a late lunch with Dorien.  Then, toward the evening, Justin and I went off-roading into the jungles of Kapoho where we were successful in finding Eugenio and José.  Alas, no plants.

Saturday morning started off nice and early with Manuel's study at 7:30 am.  Took the group out at 8:30 and then our car group found 2 more new Spanish speakers named Teofilo and Juan in the territory around 10:30. And no, no plants.

Which brings us back to today.  It's hard to believe that Akira, who is now an MS and regular pioneer, is the very same person who arrived fresh off the boat a few years ago... the quiet Japanese college student who used to ride his bicycle 12 miles uphill to the Kingdom Hall in the rain.  How time flies.  So the gathering tonight was both enjoyable and sad. (Enjoyable thanks to the food and association and news of yet another Spanish-speaking Mexican woman in the territory, and sad cause Akira's flying back to the motherland).  He serenaded us with his guitar.²

AKIRA'S GATHERING: PHOTO SET HERE 

After the gathering, and after feeding the disgrunteled Cupcake, and while I was uploading the pictures above, I received a phone call regarding yet 4 MORE new Spanish speaking contacts: Pablo, Oscar, Gustavo and Margarito.  So the weekend in summary goes something like this: 15 service hours, 9 new people to add to the territory, a couple of nice meals with friends and a new Aloe variegata.  Not a bad weekend at all.

¹ or "pot-session" for those of you who do not like the word "pot luck".  Although to tell you the truth, "pot-session" kinda sounds like something you'd bring a bong to instead of a chocolate cake.  But you know, whatever.

² and I know you ALL know the song.

 

What I Did This Weekend: Play With Poisonous Plants and Electricity

Having to hang out at the house and wait for some electricians on Saturday morning meant field service for me was pretty much over even before it  began.   Thankfully, I'd already gone on a 7:30am study across town, grabbed breakfast and printed out new territories before James and Kevin the electricians got to the house.

The guys are doing some electrical work on a few things which we've simply been putting off. Actually, more than just a few things- the list of repairs was almost embarassing.  Happily, James is a kind-hearted long time family acquaintance and he and Kevin got everything done in only a few hours.   So now, my bathroom fan works (no more steamy mirrors!), Mom has light in her bath, four outlets are no longer loose, the stairwell is no longer without light, an outdoor spotlight is back in action AND... we have a newly installed  220 volt plug for our Gonzalez-inherited dryer. (More on that in a later post.)

Meanwhile, I tryed to stay out of their way by puttering around the casita.  I had been meaning to clean the walkways and re-organize the cacti and succulent area anyway and actually got quite a bit accomplished. I opened up an additional walk space between the 2 cactus tables and hung my Rhipsalis species along the east walkway.   Here's how the the tidied-up section of the casita looked by lunchtime:

 
Thankfully, I managed to do it all without ripping myself to shreds on all the cacti.  Some of the plants in my cactus/succulent collection have pretty evil back-curving spines which do a great job in transforming your hands into bloody stumps when you attempt to pull away from the pot.  If that weren't enough to scare anyone off,  there is one particular group of succulents in my collection that sorta gives me the creeps:

The Euphorbias.

   Euphorbia samburunensis surrounded by various Adenium species and cultivars.

Many Euphorbias have numerous, stiff spines (like E. samburunensis pictured above), but it's what's inside the plant that requires extra caution when handling them... a caustic, skin burning, mucous-membrane damaging, vapor releasing  latex that bleeds from the plant everytime its surface is disturbed.  And with all those spiny neighbors, surface disturbance is nearly always a guarantee when moving stuff around. Oh, and did I mention the latex compounds have irritants up to 100,000 times stronger than capsaisin, the "hot" substance found in chili peppers and are also possibly carcinogenic?   Such a happy, kid-safe, cuddly bunch of plants don't you think?

 Euphorbia anoplia, Euphorbia lactea (crested form and normal form), Euphorbia echinus, Euphorbia cylindifolia var. tubifera, and an unidentified Euphorbia species whose nametag I've lost. 

So if Euphorbias are so scary, then why do I insist on collecting them?   Simple.  You see, there are some 2,160 different species of Euphorbias, and as any collector of STUFF will tell you, the more varieties of said STUFF there are, the better.   This is in fact, the same reason why I started out nearly 2 decades ago collecting orchid species (26,000 of those) which should keep me busy for at least a few thousand years into the new world.   

My interest in collecting creepy Euphorbias began more recently and so I still have about 2,151 species left to go. Oops, make that 2,149- I just bought 2 more on the way to the Hall to take out the group last evening.

 
 Because yes, Paradise Plants is on the way to the Hall if you take the long way.