Last Christmas Project

Remember last year Christmas Project - orchid shade house.

It was how it look like a year ago. And here is more about my orchid growing background info; I have been trying to grow orchid for a decade with more failures than I can count. They would grow for a while but eventually get diseases or bugs and then die off. All the orchid experts will tell you, growing orchid is easy, as long as you give them what they want, and what they want is very simply. With hindsight, I understand now I wasn't providing the right environment until last Christmas. BTW, I'm not the kind of grower who can spell all the long names, and tell the the difference between all the different species.

In a year, I witnessed the difference between how to do something right with no effort, great result and how to do something wrong with a lot of efforts but no result. Now, they're so prolific , blooming left and right and multiplied two to three times. Not many investments get this kind of return these days.

If you live in zone 9-10 like me, here's the simple general rules for outdoor orchid;

1. 50% Sun - use the 50% shade cloth

2. Watering - every other day. I set my sprinkler timer on Mon, Wed, Fri for 15 mins each.

3. Fertilizing - growth food every other week, bloom food every month

4. Repotting - every year or when crowded

Here's the not so general tips if you want prolific growth in anything, after providing basic supportive environment;

First thing every morning (OK, first thing after you made your coffee/ tea)

- visit your plants/ kids/ significant others

- watch/ listen/ feel their subtle changes, and try to understand why

- make subtle change on your part to see if it will make any difference

- more subjects you get, more controlled experiments you can do, quicker you understand their subtle difference

Even the raspberry growing next to the shade house is very happy.

It reminds me of evolution and revolution. Under the suitable environment, small change at a time; makes the difference of life and death.

Checked!

It was something we hoped to do for years, but for whatever reasons, never get to it until yesterday. Riding all the way around the big Lake "Okeechobee" is about 120 miles, too much in one day for me. So, we did it in two days, with minimal load, perfect weather and no major incident. Started from the town Okeechobee, went clockwise, slept in Clewiston - Hoilday Inn Express, back on the dike, then mostly backed up on SR78 (since the dike on this part is not paved, and very bumpy for 3 wheels).

There are a number of locks, gates and pumping stations we need to get off the dike and go around. But, the major obstacle was the 27 mile re-inforcement constructions from Port Mayaca to Pahokee. They said it should be done in a few months. In the mean time, heavy traffic SR441 is the only alternative.

On the dike. You can go miles without seeing anyone. No motor vehicle or horse allowed.

Yes, "sunscreen" is important as the sun come up.

Some water management is required in long stretch of road.

Things to do before and after breakfast, on Christmas day

This is the "Wolfram|Alpha spikey," constructed with 12 pieces of cut out papers, with 60 faces, 62 vertices and 120 edges, also known as a rhombic hexecontahedron. I considered it as an accomplishment to have put it together before breakfast.

The starting point of our 30 miles ride - Port Mayaca in LOST.

15,000 mile Monkey Prize

I don't remember ever seeing this Nabisco's Pinwheel Cookies before, but Bill said it was his all time childhood favorite. He only got them from his mom, maybe a couple times a year, when he did something really well... So, it became the requested prize for this year's Monkey Prize.

I topped it with Fresh Market's Chocolate Whoopie Pies as bonus. They're amazingly soft.
In fact, if you ride 5000 mile a year, 3 years in a row, you can almost eat anything, anytime and as much as you want to. And still lose weight. This is the gift for last year, with a dozen ice-cream bar.

Mini Monster and Fish Bowl

They came out from Justin's newly rebuild kiln, the same day I attended the wonderful wedding of a good friend in Hong Kong. One pair will fly back to be special gift.

Shino fish bowls came out better than I expected, even they were over done with new glazes.
Firing a new kiln with other people's works - hundreds hours of works, take a lot of confidence.

Putting your own works on someone else hands, take a lot of trust.

It makes me think of the marriage I just witnessed. Strong faith on each other, make beautiful things happened.