02/11/2022 – Around Colehaus

Hey! It’s not spring yet! Get back into the ground, you wily daffodils!

While we did have a touch of snow last month and a week of frosty, icy mornings a couple of weeks ago, our local weatherpeople are predicting no snow for us for February, the month we’re most apt to get snow. Predicting anything if you’re a weatherperson is a risky, tricky business and we only wish we were paid their kind of salary to be wrong so often.

The winter-flowering heather isn’t having any of it. “We’ll flower when we darn well want to,” they say. “And keep your predictions to yourself, thank you.”

This little hanging birdhouse isn’t for raising birds; it’s for a temporary rest out of the elements should any small chickadee, pine siskin, or hummingbird wish to. We haven’t seen anyone go in or out but lots of little birds hang out in that tree (Star Magnolia) so we guess it’s possible.

Checking in with Mom’s Cyclamen, a gift from Dad way back in 2018, it looks like the hazelnuts shells are continuing to keep the slugs at bay. And there’s a flower bud coloring up!

Here’s some moss. Moss-nut Mom mentions that should there be any Moss Identifiers out there, they’re more than welcome to tell her what kind of moss this is. You’d think someone as nuts about moss like Mom is should know moss varieties. But, no. She says she has bigger fish to fry at the moment.

This happy succulent plant has a backstory. While Mom can grow practically anything, she never wanted this plant. She simply didn’t want to see it die.

Back in the summer of 2020, when office workers at Mom’s former place of employment were set home to work remotely due to Covid, no one thought they wouldn’t be back in short order. And so, their office plants were left behind until their owners’ return.

Most office workers didn’t return and by the time a few did in late 2020, most of the plants had already died. In November 2020, Mom took pity on this little dying succulent left by a sink in a very dark area. It was in a tiny gray ceramic milk creamer and it had two leaves left. The stem and the rest of the leaves had shriveled.

Mom took it home and gave it fresh soil. The original soil was hard as a rock and in fact, was mostly gravel. After a month and lots of new growth, she repotted it and had every intention of taking it back to work to give to its owner, new pot and all. And she really wanted to make sure the owner got their ceramic creamer back.

Well, most of the company’s workers left their jobs permanently or never returned to work in the office. The one manager left told her to keep it, keep it all. Which was not what Mom wanted to do.

Throughout 2021, Mom took care of it at home, pinching it back to promote growth and fertilizing it properly. At work, she tried to find its owner, to return it. On breaks, she wandered the empty office halls and finally, she was told that that employee didn’t work there anymore, but if Mom wanted to, she could just leave it on the unmanned front lobby desk and maybe, someone would take it.

Maybe, he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side. He didn’t think it’d find a home either. Mom wasn’t going to watch it almost die again from neglect and, you know, she would purposely pass the front lobby every day to see if it was still there, waiting for a home.

As luck would have it, near the end of January 2022, Mom decided to leave the potted succulent at home and take the empty gray ceramic creamer to work, to leave on the front desk in the lobby. If anyone wanted it or knew who it belonged to, it was in their hands now.

And the very next day, before Mom could rethink leaving the plant on the lobby desk later in the week as well, she and all her coworkers were laid off effective immediately. There would be no going back to check on the ceramic creamer and no finding a new home for what is now a thick, luscious succulent that Mom still doesn’t really want. *sigh*

Here’s another hard-luck case. A few months ago, Mom found this currently not-so-sad-looking thing at the local feed store (where Mom had an encounter with a self-important cashier [tale of woe posted on fb]). It was completely wilted with about thirty others, and had been knocked to the floor and out of its pot. The feed store was clearing out all their houseplants, and holiday-themed plants were marked down half-price.

Except Thanksgiving and Christmas cactus. Ditto for those on the floor, under the plant benches, and as close to death as one could get. No, those were full price, regardless of condition. Thank you very much. Don’t see anything you like, drive thru.

Have you ever tried to make a decision you knew you’d probably regret and you’d stood there, holding the item in your hand, looking up at the ceiling or out into space, thinking, thinking, thinking you really didn’t need this thing but darn it all, you weren’t going to leave it behind?

That lady you might have seen standing there in the store with a limp, pale green and crispy brown rag of an unpotted plant in her hand was Mom.

But hey! That Thanksgiving cactus is rewarding her kindness with all kinds of new leaves. Mom still doesn’t know what she’s going to do with the thing. Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cacti are a lifelong commitment. They live forty-to-sixty plus years! Just great.

That is, if cats named Tessa and Quint don’t get it first. What were you thinking, Mom??

Here’s some more moss. And we’re going to leave it at that.

Oops! Woke Rusty up from a mild morning nap. He still won’t come anywhere close to us, yet he calls our padded porch chair his.

New-ish neighborhood visitor Lloyd regularly visits our feeding station. He’s gorgeous, and like Rusty, won’t have a thing to do with us . . .

. . . as he clearly shows here. See you tomorrow, you handsome thing!

We have no idea who this is, but they are wearing a collar and kind of, from this angle, looks like a neighbor’s cat, who’s allowed to run around outside every now and then.

Lastly, here’s a pretty sunrise Mom caught. She’s not seen too many sunrises in the last three years. Usually, she’s already at work and misses them all.

Thanks for reading. And reading this far! You did read it all, right? Sure you did. *giggles*

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A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2021 – No post
2020 – No post
2019 – Cats Who Sing
2018 – No post
2017 – No post
2016 – No post
2015 – No post
2014 – No post
2013 – Hearing Things
2012 – No post