Dragon's Orchid Garden

Several weeks ago, I purchased 3 smallish pumpkins from a display at Bearss Groves that had a sign - “sugar pumpkins” - intending to make pumpkin purée from scratch. They were easy to carve open and roasted quite nicely, yielding about 7 pounds of purée. I froze some, made pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie. Great! I hadn’t done this for many decades, since I lived in New England and tried it. The purée I made then was pretty awful - not the taste, but the texture, which was stringy. I’m older and I hope, wiser. Yesterday, I went back to purchase a few more since they were on sale after Halloween. They’d moved them, I thought, so I asked and was pointed to the baking pumpkins. I bought 4 for 10 dollars. At home, I prepared to roast 2 of the 4. First step is cutting out the stem and splitting them in half. I thought, hmmm, these are kind of hard, as I tried to stab my paring knife into the top of the gourd. It was so hard, I tried the other pumpkin. It was the same as were the other 2. ...

The Star of Zanzibar water lily is doing so well that we've had to thin it.  Wayne removed a few pads as they were covering the whole pond.  We can see Moby again.  Littler Orenji is in the lower left and Ghost is hiding, as usual.

As is our habit, my husband and I were sitting on the back porch watching birds at the feeders earlier this evening.  He said, "what kind of bird is that?", causing me to look up from my ipad and squint at the faraway feeder.  "IT'S A ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK !", I fairly yelled.  "You're making that up", responded the spouse.  Into the house for the camera...an older Panasonic Lumix...I tried to take a picture of the rare bird sighting.  Here is the result: Okay, so I didn't hold the camera perfectly steady, and the 10x optical zoom didn't work magic by capturing a perfect image of this beautiful male specimen.  These birds are not seen in central Florida often, in fact, rarely south of Georgia.  They love oil sunflower, like cardinals, their kin.  They have several lovely songs .  Here is a picture that someone else took... Do I need a bigger, badder camera or RTFM for the one I've had for years?  At least, I know I have to h...

In 2009, we built a small koi pond.  Last year we made it bigger.  It's about 300 gallons and is home to our one koi, Moby.  We have a good filter system, but lacked a clarifier.  Thanks to my brother, Paul, who sent an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas, we were able to buy a TotalPond UV Clarifier for the pond.  Wayne installed it a week ago. What a difference!  Here's what the pond looked like before: (except without the carrots, and not as yummy). The filter was easy to install and will fit 1/2, 3/4, or 1 inch filter hose.  We chose to install it outside the pond just in back of the waterfall.  It can also be submerged.  It will be hidden by plants behind the pond.  It has an indicator light that glows blue to let you know it's working. In just one day the pond was a lot clearer, you could just see Moby. Today, just 5 days after installation, the water is almost completely clear. Moby can now see us and tries to hide...

  mystery orchid  

I collect bookmarks.  I knit bookmarks.  I design knitted bookmarks.  I use bookmarks.  My little metal dpns (double pointed needles, usually used for knitting socks) are constantly in my hands.  My latest bookmark design is called 'crocus pocus'.  The pattern for it is available on Ravelry .  It's just a buck. I've knitted 6 of these so far, given away a couple.  The third one in the picture has a big old mistake.  Can you spot it?  The one on the right was knitted on #3 dpns, instead of 2s, so it's a little bigger.  The finished size is about 2 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches without the tassel.  The pattern consists of two simple lace charts and is a wonderful way to learn lace knitting and reading charts, which is essential for knitters who would like to tackle more involved lace projects like shawls. Blocking lace is easy and necessary.  Just wet the bookmark and stake it out with blocking pins.  Use lots of them...

We built a small backyard pond four years ago, originally to hold our large Butterfly Peacock Bass, Jack.  After Jack's demise, we bought koi for the pond.  Moby is now almost four years old and 2 feet long. Last summer we enlarged the pond, replacing the rigid pond liner with flexible liner.  We also upgraded the filter system.  The one piece we haven't had in the budget is a UV filter .  We've had such a hot rainy summer, that the pond has had a perpetual algae problem.  Cleaning it is a big job. Wayne saved the rigid pond liner, which he set up and used to hold the fish while emptying the pond.  Lots of muck on the bottom was removed and the filter medium thoroughly cleaned.  After refilling the pond with water from our well, we let the filter work for a day.  In the meantime, Wayne set up a sun screen so the temporary pond wouldn't get too hot. Shaded temporary pond on the left a really big net Moby now has a nice clean clea...