My life just keeps getting more complicated... Mark keeps falling.  We got our first bill for the rescue squad coming to help him up when I couldn't... $436!  We've  called them 4 times so far.  I called Medicare today - they don't cover it unless he is transported to the hospital.  Hmmm... I guess this is the time it does NOT pay for him to be a "good" faller!  Mark has always been a bit clumsy and taken a lot of tumbles over the years.  He always laughs it off and says because he was so athletic in his youth, he "learned how to fall well" and he has never been hurt by any of his falls.  Oh, bumps, scrapes, bruises, but nothing serious.  A few days ago, he fell down the two steps going to the basement onto the TILE landing.  A scrape on one arm, a little bump to his head and cheek... The problem is that since his left arm doesn't work, he can't get UP from a fall by himself, so I have to help.  And when he had that fall, he was precariously teetering on the edge of the stairs, ready to tumble down the rest of them.  I managed to drag him away from the edge so he could get up enough to get down the rest, but not before he almost took another dive!!  Then tonight, he fell on the kitchen floor, along with a full glass of coke.  So I had to get him up then get a towel to sop up all the coke.  Tomorrow will be a "scrub the kitchen floor" day...

Thank God I have my plants to distract me!  And my kitties...  And friends like Marco - thank you Marco (he reads this!) for being my sounding board!  I don't want my mom to worry about my psyche, so I try not to burden her with too much of this, so having a friend to sound off to helps SOOO much!  And I hope I don't bother him too much with the details...

It's been a weird summer for work.  Working one or two days a week at most.  Which is fine, since I found out I can make so much money selling Hoyas!  But I do need the outside contact...  it gives me a sense of normalcy.  I guess that the problem is a microchip that goes in cars - one that, when the pandemic hit, was diverted to laptop manufacturers for the big demand from people who needed to work from home.  Now there's a shortage, and Enterprise is waiting to procure new inventory from manufacturers who are waiting to procure the chip for their cars.  What a crazy dilemma!  

Now I'm going to go to the stuff that makes me feel good!  My plants!  Let's see what's new...

Went to bed, so I'm up at the crack of dawn... 

Hoya sp. aff. vitellina seems to be a happy camper this year in spite of the fact that it desperately needs to be moved to a larger pot.  It's going to be one of those that is very difficult to repot because of its very stiff, heavy leaves.  I have a feeling some of the old ones won't survive the transplant, so I've put it off for some time.  I have to water it pretty often and I think sooner or later, my hand will be forced... Do I keep waiting?  It's a dilemma... But here's a good photo I took recently, and one of the flowers closeup since it's been blooming like crazy!

I just sold my second start off this plant this year (took several cuttings last year) - made $106 on the last one that I will be mailing out today.  So it's definitely a desirable plant!

I put H. pubicalyx 'Philippine Black' out in the tree this year.  I took several cuttings of it last fall because a section of it was looking dehydrated, dying back it seemed, and I was trying to salvage it.  The part that looked better only looked ok, not super-healthy, so I watched it closely and was ready to whack it up as well if necessary.  But that section of it seemed to slowly come back to a healthy state, maybe because the plant no longer had to "work" to try to maintain the part that was failing.  By spring, it looked pretty good and even started growing, so I thought a summer outside might give it a boost.  The cuttings I took mostly came back from the brink - one burst forth with new growth this year, and that one I reunited with the original pot, and I'm hoping it will fill in that spot where the dieback occurred.  So far, so good.  And the rest of the old plant has several new growth points.  It's looking good and seems to be loving all the rain we've had.  I just sold one of the cuttings off of it (for $46, which isn't bad for a pub), and here is one that has taken on some gorgeous coloring:

Look at that color!  Those are older leaves, no signs of new growth on this one yet but wow!  And this one...

 

...started out as the three worst-looking cuttings that I put in leca.  One of them dried up completely and I tossed it.  These other two LARGE cuttings looked just awful for the longest time. I kept thinking I should toss them too because they looked so depressing.  But I held onto hope and I'm sure glad I did!  The one on the left actually looks like two cuttings because it is a large, branched cutting, but both have fattened up into healthy plants and both have new growth!  This will probably turn into my propagation plant because it will eventually get too large to stay upright in that little glass jar.

 Also out in the tree is excavata, one I put out there last year.  It's got FOUR new growth points!!  You can see three of them here:

There's a long vine that grew last year that only formed one leaf, which I would normally whack off and propagate to sell, but it also formed it's first and only peduncle at the end of that vine.  So I felt obligated to keep that silly looking vine until it forms another peduncle elsewhere.  Well, there's also a new growing point on that vine!  It's doing pretty good for a cutting I got in a trade with Dee several years ago...

Also in the tree is the 'Pink Silver' from the spare bedroom, and it's looking awesome.  Of course, it was doing nicely anyway.  Dischidia acuminata fasciata is out there, too.  It hasn't done a lot of growing in a few years in spite of being a super-fast grower at one time.  It's getting all kinds of new growth, so maybe that's the kick in the pants that it needed!

I have both macgillivrayii and onychoides out on the shelf in the back yard and both are putting on all kinds of new growth.  Archboldiana remains in the GH in the south window and it's growing nicely as well, so I'm not sure I can give the credit to those two being outside.  I left meliflua in the GH this year - on the top shelf - and WOW it's growing like mad!!  And because it's up there out of the way, baby leaves grow out and don't drop...

And before I stop for this morning, I wanted to show off my new... drum roll, please... MANIPURENSIS!  This is one I've been hankering for, and Jennifer, the lady in TX who bought SO many of my Hoyas last year (and a few so far this year, too) - she found it and sent it to me!  How kind of her, right?!! I sent her some cuttings this spring because EVERYthing froze in her GH this last winter when TX had that weird frigid spell and lost electricity for days and days.  I was trying to help her get restarted, and I guess this was her way of reciprocating.  Plant folks are the best!  Anyway, I hope I can keep it alive and get it to grow!  I know it had to cost her a pretty penny!

 

Since they seem to love the outdoors so much, I have it sitting out on the deck against the reverse variegated kerrii, where it should be safely sheltered from too much sun...  And where I'll watch it carefully.  I can't wait for it to start to grow!

And with that, I need to get ready for the day.  I have a lot of angst - today is an appointment with Mark's doc for a "pre-surgery" checkup.  I don't really think he's up to surgery, but we'll see what his doc says.  It's not until next Friday (8 days), but unless he eats, he'll probably only be worse by then.  I talked to Medicare yesterday and they said I should get a power of attorney for him after they talked to him.  Even they could tell he's not all there... I may try to do that today as well...