Remembering Beauty

I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from the greenhouse before the freeze.

The Bacon and me, soaking up some heat and color.

 How it looked when I walked in on a sunny morning. I'd always chortle HELLO LADIES!! and spend the next forty minutes preening and puttering and checking and watering. Gardening. In midwinter. In the sun. Ahhhhhh.

Nighttime, with the twinkle lights. A ten-inch tall baby hibiscus, grown from a cutting of the big mother plant, which herself was grown from a cutting of a grocery-store plant that finally got too big and leggy to be an asset. Yes, with plants you can start over, I know it, but let me mourn these plants for awhile. 

This willing little baby: ten inches tall, with a five-inch-wide flower. That's reaching your full potential. Well, at least for a little while.

I had made three, two to give away. Now leafless sticks.

And perhaps my favorite of all, the morning trash from the greenhouse, November 22, the day before the freeze. The spent blossoms of tuberose and hibiscus, exquisite trash.

Ehhh, what frost? Did somebody mention frost?  asks Mammilaria. Because me and Fishhook, we didn't notice any problem here. Too bad everybody else croaked. Wussies.

You have to love a cactus with an attitude. That cactus sent a spine into my left index finger last year, and that spine went with me to Belize on a weeklong sailing trip. Awesome. Struggling with snorkel gear and tight swimsuits with only one hand... I remember asking Bill, "You know what you can do with an infected cactus spine in your index finger? "

"Nothing."

It finally worked its way out of my finger after a day's immersion in salt water. I had just seen three barracuda hanging silver, motionless, freakily still, came up gasping through my snorkel, and whoop! the spine popped out. Durn cactus. 

But right now, I could kiss it. Could, but won't.