And the winners are...
This last weekend was the cactus club's show/sale.  Here's a link to the club's website... River City Cactus & Succulent Society  I entered 23 plants this year (about twice what I usually do) and I got ribbons on all of them!  So I'll start with the two honorable mentions...

This is a Gasteria (not sure of the species) I've had awhile, and it was in one of the community pots at work.  It had gotten very thick with pups, so I pulled it and potted it for the show.  It had a few long leaves that were a little beat up so I pulled thos out and, voila!, it looked great:

And the other that got an HM ribbon was one of my little Dischidia ovatas:

This one is growing in a little lay pot in a teacup and has been doing particularly well.  I was kind of surprised that it didn't get a higher award, but then I never can quite figure out the criteria, so there were other surprises, like two other Gasteria I showed.  This one, which is really nice, mind you, won a first place ribbon...

It's Gasteria gracilis and wow, is it packed in the pot!  But this one, Gasteria batesiana, is a knockout and it got a second place ribbon...

The photo really doesn't do it justice.  The darker parts are almost black - it's really a striking plant.  I was sure this would be a first place winner!

My little Hoya wayetti in the turtle pot won a third place ribbon...

It was in the "novelty pot" division.  Euphorbia milii was also a third place winner...

It's one lush, full plant!  This Pachypodium (I'm not sure of the species) won a 2nd place ribbon...

Crassula ovata minima (the small leaf Jade) also recieved 2nd place.  It's another one I've been growing in a community pot at work and it's gotten quite pretty, though I probably would have "shaped it up" a bit if I'd given forthought to showing it.  But it looked pretty good even in its somewhat of a "wild child"...

On the other hand, my old Jade that I whacked back last year is looking pretty damn good.  I didn't think it was really show-worthy, mostly because it needs one more season to have a thick enough head of foliage so you can't see the pruning cuts.  But I decided to show it under the "educational" category with an explanation of "how to get a thick-trunked Jade."  Well, it won a first place blue ribbon!...

I know the judges hate it when you grow something else in the same pot as a specimen plant, but I think Haworthias as a ground cover are prettier than rock.

More about my winners tomorrow!

After getting Lucy calmed down and to sleep Sat. morning, I went back to sleep and had a bad dream.  Well, not a nightmare exactly...

Mom, Wes & Sally, Merry, Mark & me all went into a department store.  Mom got a cart, Wes & Sally got a cart, Merry got a cart, I got a cart, and true to form, Mark took off to go look at magazines (you know, because he doesn't want to follow me around like a puppy dog!)  We all went our seperate ways to shop, and suddenly, I found myself stopped out in the middle of a department, feeling paralyzed, realizing I couldn't LOOK at anything because I couldn't afford to BUY anything.  That overwhelment made me start crying right there, so I walked over to a display to pretend like I was looking at it until I got my composure.  Of course, at this point I woke up, but that feeling was so real and so strong (of course it's real - it's my FUCKING LIFE right now!) that I sat there in bed and bawled for 5 minutes before I got hold of myself.  Which, naturally, stuffed me up so I couldn't go back to sleep.  Damn - dog keeps me up, then a stupid dream!  But what really sucks is that my dreams ar supposed to be my ESCAPE from this shit.  And now it's infiltrating my dreams...

Ah, more later on the grand subject of the C&S clubs show/sale.  I won lots of ribbons.  I'll get to that as soon as I get my photos downloaded & fixed up...

It's 4:30 a.m. and we've got a wicked thunderstorm (ligthening storm?) going on and Lucy won't let me sleep.  She's hiding under the desk at my feet right now.  Pretty pathetic for a 120 German Shepherd.  I always thought that kids & dogs took their cue from adults when responding to storms, but Lucy cetainly defies that logic.  Mark and I are both pretty ho-hum about storms - if anything, I get the good kind of excited, loving the tumultousness of a good thunderstorm.  But Lucy is just a BIG baby.  She will not leave me alone, pants and paws at me, whining.  I have no idea what she wants.  If Mark is up, I can usually get him to keep her downstairs, but he's sleeping and she won't stay down there.  I think it's probably because in the dark, she can still see the lightening and when the TV isn't blaring, she can hear the thunder and she worries about me being upstairs alone.  What a pain!

I somehow managed to hurt my right foot today.  Not sure how.  I took my show plants out to Mulhall's and then hung around out there for a couple hours.  By the time I was ready to come home, my foot was killing me AND I was dizzy!  I mean, pretty darn dizzy!  It think I got that part figure out though - I've been fighting this sinus infection (I've lost my voice again) and when it really got going a week ago, I could really feel it in my ears.  I think I've probably got a little inner ear thing going on.  I've got an appointment Monday with the doc to recheck my BP - I'll ask him to take a look in there...

So I put quite a few plants in the show this year, mostly because Kathy was really "calling out" to members to bring as many as possible since Karen wouldn't be showing this year, and neither is Roberta.  I took quite a few I probably wouldn't have normally, but it was a little easier to do that since we aren't selling plants this year.  I'll post photos of all the ones I have in the show and whether they won any ribbons when it's over.

Well, I think I'm going to try to go back to bed.  The storm seems to be getting a little quieter (who knows if that will last.) If she doesn't let me go back to sleep, I'll get up and water a few plants!

Oh my, I woke up this morning with a TERRIBLE sore throat!  It goes way up into my left ear.  I'm pretty sure it's probably from allergies.  But I decided I'd do a little blogging to distract myself from the misery - so that's ALL I plan to say about THAT!

First, I want to talk about the two little birds nesting on our porch.  I've thought about this a lot, and I think Dad sent those two little birds for me to enjoy.  They're barn swallows (I searched and searched a Nebraska bird database to find them...)  Consider this - I grew up on a farm and probably saw a bazillion barn swallows, but I never, ever saw one close enugh to see how beautiful they were, so apparently they're the kind of birds that don't land and hang out around humans much.  I mean, surely they're one of the most common birds, yet I couldn't even tell you much about what they look like except that they're "small."  Anyway, Dad was a nature lover, and when I see something in nature that is out of the ordinary, I always think "maybe Dad sent that for me to see and appreciate."  

So these little birds (I've posted a photo from the web, above) started making this messy nest a couple weeks ago, up on the ledge above a window that faces out onto our front porch.  When it was all done, I was really surprised - it seems to be more or less a mud nest.  I'm sure there's some other ingredients, like some small brush pieces, but it looks like mostly mud.  Seems like most of the time, one of them is on the nest and will fly out when we come out of the house.  Then if I hang out on the porch, like to water plants, one or the other (or both) will fly in under the porch, then back out, repeatedly until I'm done.  They don't really seem to be trying to bother me - no dive-bombing or anything.  If I'm very slow-moving and talk to them in a soft voice, the one on the nest will sometimes stay put while I'm out there. 

Then, when I come home at night (like on a Saturday, after a function), I've found them both perched on the opposite side of the ledge from the nest, facing each other, presumable sleeping.  I've told Mark to leave the light off on the porch now so it doesn't disturb them.  They are SUCH pretty little birds and I am really enjoying watching their little "life cycle."  I've seen no signs of babies yet, but I'm sure it won't be long...  I'll be sad to see my little birdies leave when it's all done...

On the Hoya front, I took a bunch of Hoyas to the last cactus club meeting.  A few of the members bug me all the time about bringing some to sell.  Well, those buggers hardly bought any!  And the woman who bugs me the most didn't buy one!  In fact, I think Liane and one other member are the only two that bought any.  I didn't price them cheap enough, I suppose, but I ain't givin' them away!  I'm going to put them on eBay - maybe that's how I'll distract myself tomorrow from this... shhhhh...

But I'm excited to report that I have a few that are budding up for the first time.  Merredithii x crassicaulis, the clone I got from Ted Green, has two peduncles.  This is one I nearly lost once.  I got it as a cutting from Ted in '08 and it rooted quickly but never really grew for the longest time.  But it took off in late '09, then last year put on a fair amount of growth and has been growing like gangbusters this year.  This is a photo from last summer...

The leaves are big and awsome, distinctly veined.  It seems to love its spot in the GH, which is why, I suppose, it's budding up!  Another first time budder is naumanii, one I got in my first Liddle order in '09.  I potted it into a bigger pot a month or 6 weeks ago and it seems to be VERY happy I did!  I hung it in a sunny spot and now it's got vines of new growth with peduncles. 

'Dee's Big One' has formed one long-honkin' peduncle - probably about 4" long!  And it's very thin!  It will be interesting to see how big the flower clusters are on that one.

My compacta, which I restarted last year, has some peduncles forming on it, too.  When I took cuttings from the mother plant (which I still have but really needs to be tossed...), I only took cuttings with leave that were more "open" than the typical twisted compacta - here's an example of what I mean...

See what I mean?  Most of them are not so much folded and twisted.  So far, it seems to be maintaining this less-than-typcial growth habit.  I also found a variegated compacta (I think they call the cultivar 'Regalis') at Lowe's after I saw someone speak of finding one on the Hoya forum.  It was very healthy, so I snatched it up.  It's the one and only Hoya I've bought this year...

I really like this clone for the way the leaves fold but don't twist so much.  But I hate that old EA dirt.  It started to get dehydrated about 2 or 3 weeks after I got it, so I repotted it (as best I could) in my soil.  I hope it makes it...

Another one I repotted recently was deykeae.  It had been in one of those pretty, tall, very narrow porcelain pots since I got it in a trade 2 years ago.  It's already got a new growth point, so it must have needed that repotting.  It's been such a SLOW grower, which is ironic since it could easily be on my top 10 list.  I mean, the ONLY thing keeping it off there is that it grows so damn slow!  Look at these great leaves...

A photo of the whole plant doesn't do the leaves justice, but this photo seems to show the appeal.  They're textured, have some silver splotching and the leaf tips are squared off.  Very cool!  I hardly ever see this Hoya mentioned anywhere, so I have a feeling it's not a common one to find in a collection.  But if it grows for everyone as it does for me, I can see why it's not commonly out there.  I won't be willing to share mine until it's about 4 times bigger than it is now!

Anyway, the last one I wanted to talk about today is a Dischidia.  An unknown one I've gotten from Tom.  I noticed it's doing particularly well in with my Hoya onychoides, even flowering.  Here's a shot of the leaves:

 I see plenty of imbricate Dischidias on Dischidia.com, but none that have this textured surface and the little black line.  I think it would be kind of nice to get it ID'd, now that I'm having more success growing it.  Maybe I'll have to see if I can track down Tanya...

And that's 'nuff for now!

I have to pop in and say...  R.I.P. James Arness!  It's SO bizarre!  Mark and I were watching TV, channel 45 (AMC) and Mark commented that coming up later are several episodes of The Rifleman.  We did a little bantering about the show, how long it ran.  He thought a LONG time.  I thought not so much, becuase my Dad was a real fan of westerns and I didn't really remember it.  So I went to the internet.  The Rifelman ran from 1958 to 1963.  (I would have been only 5 when it ended...)  I thought Gunsmoke was the one that was really, really long running, because I could remember watching that one a lot when I was a kid.  And sure enough, Gunsmoke ran from 1955 to 1975, 20 years.   So Mark asks, "When did James Arness die?"  I'm sure he was thinking some time ago.  NOT!!  He died.... TODAY!!!  How weird is that??

Well, I hope my Dad shook his hand as he passed into source.  And I bet Miss Kitty (who left us in 1989) was there to greet him!  Congrats, James, on your transition back to source!