Dear Ferret Folks-

Well, got back from Mexico yesterday evening and yes, it was STILL IN
BLOOM ten days after I had left it in bud. And no, Ping hadn't found a
way to shred it, although I imagine him standing on the kitchen floor,
looking up wistfully....He does enjoy the occasional bit of plant
murder but he simply hasn't been able to find a way up and onto the
counter where "The Jungle" is. He's been trying for the last year and
a half, ever since we moved in.

The blossoms are in no way, shape, or form pink. Nor are they large. As
in the "large pink blossoms" that I spent sixteen years waiting for.
Actually, they are a very bright yellow with delicate brown stippling.
I took a tape measure to them. They are two inches high and an inch and
a half wide. My husband tells me that a new one opens up about every
other day. The flowering "raceme" is so heavy that he finally elected
to wire it to the ceiling rather than risk having it collapse under
its own weight.

Here are pictures of the flowers and blossoming plant.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002751-1.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002741.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/IM0002761.jpg

We have some plant folks on the FML that tell me I'm not dealing with
a moth orchid because the foliage is all wrong for that. It is good
to know that there are other plant folks on the FML. Thank you, Donna
Rhodes and Vikki Mick. I accept that I may never know just what this
plant is. I understand that there are more species of orchid than there
are of any other group of flowering plants on earth. Even icy New
England has a showy specimen, the wild Lady Slipper, which although
considered endangered grows abundantly in my woods.
http://www.giorgiozanetti.ca/serendipity_ottawa/ladyslipper_orchid_2_5.jpg

Was it worth the sixteen year wait? These ruffled little sunny flowers
are beautiful, beautiful.. I look straight up when I am cooking at the
stove and there they are, right over my head like an orrery of bright
little planets. They remind me of how remarkably my world has changed
in the nearly twenty years that I waited for those flowers. Time brings
change, and healing. Not at our pace, but at the pace of the cosmos
itself. The Grand Plan. God's will. However you care to characterize
the measure of our years. I was 27 when I was given that little bundle
of leaves. I'm 43 now. My, how time flies.

Alexandra in MA

P.S. Yes Bobbi, I do love my Amana Radar Range.

[Posted in FML 5863]