Inside Weather

There’s not a lot of good to say about our weather right now.  It’s just good weather to be inside.  So, once again, I’m just sharing some of what we do in the house (besides staring at a computer).

Sky, Tiger, and Rocky sharing the new bed.

Of course, there’s lots of sleeping cats.

Herbie is such a little love bug.

Why not sleep on the cooler I set there to take back to the car?

I also am thrilled to have some flowers to look at.  My Thanksgiving cactus is putting on a pretty good show right now.

Thanksgiving cactus

And I always love my plants.  The prince of orange is gorgeous.  I love those new leaves.

prince of orange

The new monstera leaf is at the point it wants to start standing up, but that means it was dangling over the vent on my oven.  I had to move it so I didn’t bake it.

the leaf in the back is getting ready to stand up

That means, I had to move the ornamental pepper also.  And I honestly don’t know what to do with it.  I just can’t get rid of all the spider mites and I’m afraid they will spread.  I can’t just throw it out into the cold though.  Seriously.  I thought about taking it to the soap room and keeping it there to try and treat it, but we’re so cold it wouldn’t even survive that short walk.

poor ornamental pepper

Do you see the dirt on the floor?  Some naught cat decided to play in it since I moved it.  Of course, 99% of the time when I’m talking about a naughty cat, I mean Salem.  He’s lucky I adore black cats.

Salem on the plant stand

I am also facing a decision with the remaining baby pomegranates.  I think it’s a failed experiment.  I might try it again, but I would start them outside in the spring and hope they would grow a sturdy enough trunk to support them.  These are never going to do that.

gangly pomegranate trees

Finally, I accidentally knocked of a strand from my string of pearls.

trying to start a string of pearls.

I’m trying to start it (because I seriously need another plant), but I’ve never been successful doing that, so we’ll see.

Is It Spring?

I’m starting to think my houseplants are as confused as the outside ones.  Usually, winter is a less active time for the house plants also, but my lime tree that was blooming like crazy is making limes and growing leaves.

It even has more blossoms come on.

The Thai Constellation Monstera finally got it’s leaf open.  It’s still not standing up straight, but give it time.  I just love the markings on this one.

Thai Constellation Monstera

My amaryllis bloom continues to grow. I’m so impressed I forced it to bloom.  Now, I just need to get my timing down so that it actually blooms for Christmas.  But I’ll take it for MLK as well.

Amaryllis

By last Sunday night, two of the blooms were fully open.  They are such beautiful flowers!

After just sitting there and not changing much at all for about two years, my Raven ZZ is getting a new shoot!

Raven ZZ

How exciting is that!  I just love watching the new shoots go from bright green to black.

I also love my Prince of Orange Philodendron for the same reason, but it goes from bright orange to dark green.  For some reason, every leaf comes out with a crinkle at the base.  It really makes it hard for them to open.  I occasionally have to help uncurl it.

I had to help this newest leaf. The next one is already coming in.

This summer was weird because I struggled with some of my plants getting root rot.  I’m not sure why, but I about lost the pothos my sister gave me.  Actually, I did lose it, but I was smart enough to take a cutting and try rooting it before it was completely dead.  That worked.  So I potted it over the weekend.

baby pothos

I do enjoy my house plants during these winter months.  They bring a lot of cheer to the room.

A Rough Start to the Day

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning before my alarm went off, my dog came and woke me up because he wanted out.  I looked at the time, and it was around 5:30 am.  Okay. I can do that because it was close enough to when I get up and let him out that I assumed he just needed to go out and potty.  If he wakes me up in the middle of the night, I don’t let him out because that means he’s most likely wanting to go out and play with something.  The last time he played with something in the middle of the night, he killed a fairly small raccoon and ended up with nasty scratches/bites on his chin and ear.  So I don’t like to let him out to play with things.

Sky running around Saturday evening

Anyhow, I let him out and went back to sleep.  Until Tiger got wound up and wanted to play.

Tiger

Now my cats generally get along, but sometimes, when Tiger gets wound up, he wants to play with Rocky.  And Rocky does not want to play. Ever.  It ends up with Rocky cowering and screaming like a girl until I go rescue him.  So I got that taken care of and went back to bed.

Rocky

Then in my semi-asleep state, I smelled coffee.  Funny story.  I had a friend staying with me years ago and asked if she wanted coffee.  She didn’t drink coffee, but she also offered the observation that she thought it smelled like skunk. Interesting.

Anyhow, my pleasant thought of waking up to a nice cup of joe was rudely interrupted by my white knight philodendron hitting the floor.  Dang cats! At least it didn’t break.

The one in the pink pot, leaning horribly now.

As I jumped out of bed while simultaneously yelling, “Dang cats!” the reality of the smell started clarifying and I immediately put it all together.  The digging under my Morton building was the skunk.

Sky walking the perimeter of the herb garden

And my dog took a direct hit.  It was obviously so bad, he was foaming at the mouth and rubbing himself all over the wet grass to get rid of the smell.

Note the foam flecks on the deck

I finally gave up sleeping in on a Sunday morning and started googling how to get rid of the skunk smell on a dog.  I did not find a body, so I think she got away.

another photo of when I saw her last week

I don’t know what to do about her because if she has her babies already, I don’t want to fill her hole under the Morton building in.  I’d really like not to repeat this every night though.  I think she should just move back to the barn.