A Story - "When Peace Like a River " and Caring for a Grocery Store Orchid

A Story

When Peace Like a River

"Days were staccato. When Julie planned to move one way, something would come up and stop the motion.  Nothing awful or even disagreeable, just an abrupt halt to the first idea before beginning the second. Several times a day, the pattern repeated.  It was so usual that she hardly noticed the disjointed rhythm of her days. 

Sometimes a shoe would drop and she would wait for the other one to drop, but it never did. Other times shoes would drop in a rat-ta-tat before stilling.

Julie didn't realize how much she had been missing church until she finally went again after several months away. Even that had been an unexpected turn to her day. But once in the church, she felt the legato rhythm of the service.  The melodic music, the age-old scripture readings, the truth preached by the minister all harmonized and reset her heart. It was precious not-to-be-taken-for-granted time.

Back home, the jarring staccato would repeat but peace like a river would flow again for a while."

Yesterday, I brought home a sweet little phalaenopsis orchid that was bought at the local grocery store.

Most orchids that you buy have an inner clear pot that is placed in a ceramic pot.  This system is great because it allows you to see the roots.  This plant has a couple of very nice healthy roots that are pale green-grey which is just the colour you want. One of the roots is curling around the bottom of the pot so it is somewhat pot bound but it will be all right until I repot it into a larger pot when it stops blooming.

The surface of some of the roots look stressed. They are a dark green and a bit dried out.  Perhaps it is a bit of fertilizer burn.  It won't matter long term as the plant is pushing out new roots that are healthy. 

I saw on Youtube that most phalaenopsis orchids sold at the grocery stores are started in a foam-like plug. It was suggested that this plug could hold too much water and cause the orchid to rot.  One solution was an immediate repotting, removing as much as possible of the foam.  However, when the plant is blooming this is an added stress that might shorten the blooming time.  I decided to try a half-way measure.  I took a knitting needle and gently poked between roots and was able to pick out a fair bit of the foam. In the top of the photo, you see the coarse growing medium that is good for orchids (this was in the outer part of the pot surrounding the foam plug) and below you can see the spongy finer texture of the foam.  Hopefully, removing most of the foam will help my little orchid to thrive. 

 I am melting some snow so that iI will have rainwater to moisten it with. Orchids are sensitive to water and do best when watered with distilled water or rainwater.

I will try giving the orchid a bit of diluted coffee as someone said it makes a decent mild fertilizer. If that doesn't work, I will be back to buying chemical orchid fertilizer.

A Story - "Comfort Food" and Lights like a Winter Garden

A Story

Comfort Food

Shelly packed her sports bag with her clothes and taped up her memory box. Her mother had already filled some boxes with their other possessions. They travelled light. It was too much work to deal with more than the essentials.

Later that afternoon, they stepped into their new apartment.  Hardly new, though.  The floor was cracked, scratched parquet. The kitchen cupboards were flimsy cheap wood with crooked hinges. In the bathroom, the bath was pink but the toilet was white, the sink cream coloured.  Shelly would be sharing the bedroom with her mom. Two single beds filled the space with barely room for the rack they hung their clothes on.

At school the next day, Shelly tried to blend into her desk, but at the first lunch hour one of the girls, who had a gaggle of friends around her, came up to her and laughed at her cheap clothes and well-worn lunch bag. It was going to be a miserable year just like the one before.

On her way home from school, she stopped at the corner store and bought a couple of chocolate bars and a bag of barbecue chips. That was all she could afford.

Curled up on her bed waiting for her mother to come home from work, Shelly slowly ate her chocolate bars, savouring the sweetness and the smoothness as they melted in her mouth. A feeling of warmth crept over her like a hug. She licked her fingers and popped open the bag of chips. Salty and spicy the chips crunched as she bit into them. She crushed them like she wanted to crush the bully girls at school.

After she finished the chips, she flattened out the chocolate bar wrappers and the chip bag and put them at the bottom of her memory box. Letters from her best friends.

The sparkling lights of the town across the bay are like flowers in a winter garden.  They are cheerful to see in the dark winter months.