Baking and Gardening

Today was a late start.  Moose is having tummy troubles again and is gurgling next to me.  He’s finally stopped shaking from laundry.  The dryer ran through a cycle and as soon as he knew it was running he started shaking.  I will wait to run it a second time til after either I finish this or Chris gets up.  I also need to make puppy treats today or tomorrow.  I made bread yesterday.  Chris was able to get some before he left for work.  I discovered how much effort I got myself into with asking for the sour dough yeast.  I didn’t realize that I had to keep it fed with more water and flour.  I’ve had it a few weeks (I got it just before Chris got sick) so I’m not sure if I killed it or not.  I was going to pour some out in an attempt to make bread and replace what I took with more flour and water.  I don’t know if it is too late to save things or not.  I guess we’ll find out!

I need to check plants today to see who needs to be watered.  Thursday is my normal watering day but the house has been so dry lately that some of the plants seem to need water sooner.  I try to check the seedlings every day.  The ones in the egg shells in the cardboard cartons seem to need to be watered two to three times a week.  The ones in the pots and jars once or twice a week.  My orchid has shed all but three of his flowers.  The base plant is still green and happy looking.  The long stems are almost naked.  I’m not sure how often they bloom (not that it will make a difference here… my plants bloom when they want as my Christmas cactus will pop into full bloom or just a blossom here and there at random times) or if there is anything I need to do to the plant (food etc).  The next time he blooms I will see his actual colors as the colors he initially had were partially a dye that was injected into the stem to make it look like watercolors on the petals.  It was quite a beautiful effect.  I am quite excited to see what he original coloring is. I pressed two fallen blossoms in wax paper the other day.  The first one didn’t turn out as nice as I remember from childhood.  The whole thing kind of oozed green so I am assuming that a green dye was added to the stems.  One of my daffodils bloomed yesterday (despite the crap weather) and I have been thinking about trying to press that flower at one point.  I remember me coming back to the cabin with tons of cool flowers and Grams and I would press them in wax paper so I could keep them and bring them home.  I told Dad that I would do that when the lilac bushes bloom.  He doesn’t have any where he lives and the plants have special memories for him.  So maybe I will start a scrapbook of pressed plants.

Good grief I have rambled on!  My coffee is gone and I have gone quite a bit over in words from my average post.  Thank you for reading this long one!  If you have any ideas or questions in regards to gardening or plant pressing please feel free to post a message.  Stay safe!