What a Way to Start February?

Ugh.... this has not been a good week.  Definitely not a good way to start February. 

But I try to look at the good things.  And one good thing are these blossoms! 

In my last blog, I had posted about the blooms on this amazing amaryllis plant. I have never had a plant like this before. It was given to me during the fall and I never really knew how to care for it. I didn't even know it was 7 or 8 individual bulbs in the one pot! 

My friend Connie sent me this email with some really nice explicit instructions:

 This is how I treat mine.

Usually the single flower stalk will have four blooms.  It's good that
you have propped up the flower stalk.  Cut each blossom off as it droops
down and be careful of the sap as it can stain. After all are done cut
the stalk as close down into the leaves as you can do it without
damaging the leaves.  Set the pots outdoors when the weather gets warm
enough and water all summer.  I usually put them on one side of the
house for partial shade.  Stop watering about Labor Day and it'll take a
long time for the leaves to dry out.  Bring the pots in before a severe
frost and take off dry leaves as they get brittle.  Then I put them in
the basement. This year I brought the first one up in mid-December
watering it and putting it in a sunny window.,  I've brought one up
every two weeks since but the three are all at about the same stage of
development.  The first one took forever, it seemed, to put out a shoot
and the third one popped right out so maybe the sun intensity has
something to do with it.  Last summer as I put them outdoors I divided
the new shoots, which are little bulbs off of a big bulb, into separate
pots.  As gifts they came in pots without drain holes which I think is a
BAD idea.  I've repotted all of mine into pots that can drain."

I now have four tall stalks full of beautiful peachy orange blooms. There are five more stalks poking up their heads, ready to give me more as these die off.

It's hard to get a good pic against the open window---

I tried with the mini blind down.

I think all of the blooms will be the same color.

It sure is a cheery sight to walk around the corner and peek into the office each morning. Seeing the sun streaming in on these beautiful blossoms reaching 2 ft or more higher than the flower pot that they reside in.

~~~~~~~~~

I am finally starting to feel a little bit better after being sick for more than 7 days. About 3 days after I started feeling sick, Steve fell right into step after me. So he's about three days behind me on the increasing wellness factor. 

I did take a home covid test that said negative. But I am beginning to doubt that. I have heard a lot of these home kits give false negatives. I suppose short of actually going in and taking a PCR test at a clinic or at the doctor office is the only way to know for sure. 

But since I'm starting to feel better and Steve is slowly getting better behind me, I think we will leave it as it is. But I'm pretty sure we have covid again because this is no ordinary flu.  And yes, we both have had our flu shots, as well as our covid vaccines and boosters. Sigh.

~~~~~~~~

We put on hold our beadboard project of last week because neither of us had any energy to do anything. I did wake up yesterday morning feeling the urge to get the final coat of paint on the beadboard that Steve had added around underneath the windows and by the cuckoo clock. Honestly, it took all of the energy I could muster to get that much painted. But it's done!

The last step will be to add the rest of the little bit of trim where the bead board meets the baseboard. Plus the top cap of what ever of the two designs that I had previously talked about.  But we can't do that until we feel better and take a run to Green Bay to the Home Depot to pick them out.  

Sometime later this month, when we feel better, we will start the beadboard in the bathroom. 

~~~~~~~~

Last week the littlest granddaughter had helped me weave the caterpillar rug. I posted about it in my last blog. I had finished it up but never got around to unrolling it or cutting it off the loom yet. After a little bit of rest from my painting, I got up and decided to unroll the rug and see what we had created. 

The next step is to cut it free from the loom, fold-over the woven header ends three times, and hem each end securely on my grandmother's antique Singer sewing machine.

~~~~~~~~~~

Steve was finally feeling good enough today to get up and put on some clothes. We've been wandering around the house in jammies and slippers and sweats for the last 7 days. Today he got dressed because he needed to get down into the basement and change our whole house filter, as well as check the little filter on the new tankless water heater system. We are proud to say that both are operating perfectly and it was worth it to double-check everything and maintain it. Even if it took all of our energy to do so.

(the ceilings are very low in this half of the basment,

that is why he is down on his knees.)

While he was taking care of the water heater, I was watering my boxes of coleus that I am wintering over in the south-facing windows of the basement. I also have a pot of ivy growing down there as well. 

The basement windows are large enough that they can bring in the sunlight even though they are at ground level. If I kept these plants up on the main floor they get a little messy when the leaves fall off and new ones grow, as well as the stems get rangy and kind of awkward.

I'm glad that I can keep them down in the basement. I can water them liberally and let the excess trickle out and down the basement drain. It doesn't matter if they are messy, I sweep up the dead leaves every few weeks. By Spring, they'll be ready to be brought outside after the danger of frost has past. I distribute them in the flower beds around the yard for summer color.  I have kept the same ones going since Connie gave them to me in about 1990 or so. 

From time to time I snap off the longest rangiest pieces and stuff them into a vase of water, and place them upstairs in the window. There they have a chance to grow new roots. Then I can plant them alongside the other more mature plants or I can put them into a new pot.  See the tiny roots starting in the vase below?

I also take snips off this ivy plant from time to time and root them the same way.  This ivy is from way back when we first had our house in Chilton in 2012 and I had the pot growing inside the front porch. It's just plain old basic ivy that used to grow outside and  then moved inside to one of my flower pots, common garden-variety stuff from garden center for 99 cents.

I stick it in a vase of water until it grows roots 

and then I pop it into some potting soil to create a new house plant.

Amazingly, I have been putting some of these ivy plants out around the pergola each summer and they make it through the entire winter to grow again in the spring. I had no idea that ivy could winter over in Wisconsin. Especially this plain old regular potting ivy. I guess it's pretty hearty stuff.

Well I really don't have a lot to blog about today other than my beautiful flowers that are blooming. I might get a little quilting done but I haven't gotten an awful lot done this whole week. I do have a nice beef roast in the pressure cooker today and I'm just about ready to add potatoes and carrots to finish it off for dinner this evening. We don't have very huge appetites but a pot roast is always good to save for leftovers or to turn into a hearty beef stew. Good to stick to the ribs on these cold winter days.

In the meantime, we are inside, staying warm.  The dog is helping to pick out next week's specials at the grocery store. Our soninlaw offered to pick things up for us as needed. What a sweet guy.

I am relaxing and planning on just watching winter happen:

Stay in. 

Stay warm. 

Stay safe.