Month: May 2021

As far as I can tell, the starter still lives.;

As do the plants. Well, and, for the last time, the schefflera is gone. Gone, but, obviously not forgotten.

It is a trauma, to be sure, however, not the first, nor the last. And, I will forget it, once the new cuttings get going.

Back to the starter; it is behaving just as a new starter should. It bubbles after being fed, inflates for a few hours, then deflates; waiting to be fed, once again.

It smells like paste, the kind one makes for homeschooled children. It smells like flour. Yuck. That is one of the things I miss about the mature starter; that lack of acidity to the smell. No difference when making a roux; if you do not cook it long enough, it, too, smells, and tastes like “just flour”. Yuck.

Time, and patience, is what this newest starter needs. I happen to have, as far as I can tell, a bit of both at present. I do believe the Lord is trying to teach me about patience; showing me that watering my plants too often, wanting them to grow before my eyes, is just a form of impatience.

I have listened, and have adjusted my practice; I no longer water all of the plants every morning. Duh!!! I have the philodendrons, the peace lily, and the airplane plants, all in the spare bedroom, as far away from me as they can be. Now that they are looking quite lovely, and healthy, and, now that I have stopped drowning them, I can take pride in knowing that they live. I have not killed them, and they are happy(ier).

The very small Sansevierias are all showing new offshoots, so they are all doing well, too. The palms are both upright, so, a good note there, as well. I have ordered six African violets, but will be receiving nine, as the order was delayed from Colima, six hours East of here. They asked if, by not cancelling my original order for six, would I accept having them send nine plants. Well, heck yes, I accept. I can find plenty of space for violets.

I wish you could have seen the violet I left up North. It was gorgeous. Once I learned to water it from the bottom, sitting in a saucer of water for fifteen minutes, weekly, it took off like wild fire. It was healthy, deep purple, with leaves that looked like velvet.

This company is sending a mix of colors; pink, purple, white, and yellow, I believe. I have never seen, personally, any other color than purple, so we shall see. I just hope they get here before we go to LA again. I would have for them to sit in a box for four days and nights.

When we get back, I will let you know how that all transpired. I am taking one of the Sansevierias for Jesús’ mom in exchange for the airplane plants she gave me. This way she will not have to worry about watering it very often. She is too busy a woman to have another mouth to feed.

That said, please, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

While over at our cousin’s house the other day, I asked if I could take a few cuttings from one of the plants in their garden.

Hah! It is a schefflera!! This one is all green, though, the one I drowned was variegated. I have put them, there are three, (making their chances of survival that much greater), in a couple of inches of water. Hopefully, they will take root, and let me make up for killing their cousin. We shall see.

I, also, cut the top of the rubber tree off, and am going to try to root it in water. If that does not work, I will buy another one, larger, and, take better care of it. As gentle as I was with the repotting, it was too traumatized to survive.

I will be right back; I have forgotten to feed my starter.

There. Job well done. Where was I? Oh, right; the true confessions of a serial plant killer. How could I forget?

The photo, just above, shows that, after about two weeks, it has successfully, established roots on the cut end of a Sansevieria trifasciata, or, more commonly known as, a mother in laws tongue. They grow prolifically, here; outside, they can even grow into a low growing fence. I, however, am only looking for symmetry.

The plant we have is/was quite tall, about four and a half feet tall. I have since cut off most of the “tongues”, and am rooting them, like the one in the photo. When they have all gotten roots, I will plant them, in plastic containers, and place them in the outer sections of the window box; several on each side. I think it will be fairly dramatic. I will show you when we get there.

As we wait, patiently, of course, please, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Whenever we go to Los Altos, one of the first things we notice is ….

Well, first there are all of the cerros; I would call them large hills, or, maybe, small mountains. I do not know what the most accurate translation is, sorry, but, they are just that, small mountains. And, they are everywhere one looks.

Another thing is the open expanse of land. There are miles from the highway to the cerros, that are dotted with cacti, shrubs, small buildings, and the like. Many times we see small hovels that once housed a family, or, maybe, an abandoned business; still standing, but unused, at present.

Along the road, families have set up lean to’s, selling pecans, sometimes prepared food, and, even, corn on the cob, or off the cob. The thing I notice, maybe more than our traveling companions, is that those people, selling their wares, all seem to be smiling; as if they do not have a care in the world.

Sometimes, the folks have masks on, though that is not the norm. The air, there, is fresh, and, breezey; clean of pollutants, and CoVid19. Taking in a deep breath of clean, sweet smelling air, there, is, well, memorable.

It is as if we take a small trip back in time, just a bit; it is more primitive, if you will, than here, in the city. Well worth the time getting there.

Noise; there is none. Well, perhaps, not none, as there are the sounds of people moving along the streets, cars tooting a friendly “hello/hola” to everyone. Because it is a small town of about five hundred inhabitants, most people know each other. How special! But, it really cannot be considered as noise.

There is not the constant droning of machinery, equipment, construction, the Metro, the loud mufflers of the buses, cars honking, dogs barking, like here, in the city. It is peaceful, tranquil, and, quiet.

We go back as often as we can, when Jesús gets a vacation day, that is. We stay at J’s parents home, and are thankful for it. They feed us, and put us up for however many days, and nights, we can stay. Coming up, soon, we will be staying four nights ,and three days; plenty of time to decompress. It is a wonderful, relaxing time, shared with our new family, and friends. It is also the quinceñera of one of J’s cousins. Should be fun.

Please, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

This is the first time we have been out of the apartment in three weeks.

Unfortunately, however, we are at the bank; Ivan is inside, taking out money from our account. It takes forever, as I have told you ad nauseum. (That is Latin, meaning it should be making you sick, all of the times I have mentioned it; though, I am not sure if that is a literal translation). He has been inside at least fifteen minutes; are they printing the money for him? Argh.

It is so nice, to be outside, though, in the fresh air; even with CDMX pollution. And to be in the sunshine; Heavenly.

That did not last long enough. We got done with our shopping quickly, though we did go to Copacabana, (not the song, people), and had lunch. We have not been out for lunch for an age, it seems.

The restaurant is situated on a corner looking onto a main street, and a side street which flows into the main. There is a lot of traffic, and a few pedestrians, but the activity is, actually, quite relaxing, truth told. As much as I do not like noise, this noise is, for whatever reason, comforting. Life moving on.

Unfortunately, before our lunch, I had the beginnings of another dizzy spell, in the grocery store; always in the grocery store. This one, however, I was unable to abort completely. Before I realized what was happening, it was getting close to full blown.

Being the diagnostican that I am, I have, I believe, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, BPPV. If I turn my head a certain way, or, too quickly, the world spins out of control, and trouble ensues. I become diaphoretic, (cold, clammy, sweaty), nauseous, and, feel as if I am going to lose control of my “bodily functions”, (read, have diarrhea), all at the same time. What is not to enjoy about all of that?

Frequently, it comes on almost gradually, though, not always. When it does, I can, sometimes, ward it off using a few techniques I have been taught. Yesterday, it came on so quickly, I was left defenseless. I mean, who wants to be sick in the middle of the grocery store? Oh, let me, let me. Please!

Not.

Where does one go when this happens? Wherever one can, to hide, and escape onlookers. Ivan leads me, me holding onto his arm, my eyes closed, like I am an invalid, or am drunk. I suppose, at those moments, I am an invalid. Anyway, it is/was horrible. It always is horrible, but, today is another day. If you know anyone with these symptoms, show a bit of sympathy for them. We would never wish this on anyone. Trust me on this.

It is springtime. Get outside, and enjoy whatever weather you are having. Please, though, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

The other day, before the day it rained, I got up, as I do every morning, went out to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of coffee, and noticed that the sourdough starter I had been using was flat; I mean dead flat.

I was aghast. Fortunately, for me, I had dehydrated a goodly amount of active starter, about six months ago, for just such an occasion. I have heard, and read, that most starters give their owners a fit of the vapors every now, and again. As I was thankful, every day, just to be able to have the beautiful, and robust starter that I had, I did not give this any thought, until then.

I cannot think of what I did to kill it, but, kill it I did. It had no bubbles, no nothing. I had not fed it for two days as I was busy baking with it. Normally, when I bake sourdough bread, I feed the starter, twice daily, for three days prior to the day I do the autolyse. This was no different. It was not due to be fed until that morning.

The only things I can think that might have upset it were as follows: 1) I have seen people on YT put their starters in shallow, sturdy, clear plastic containers, like ones you would get filled with gourmet olives, or pesto, from the store. I got a similar style container, (we ate the contents), cleaned it out, and replaced the original contents with the starter.

And, 2) we saw, on YT, a man say he could ripen an avocado over a twenty four hour period by covering it in flour. So, we bought a half dozen of the little buggers, and I put one in the container of bread flour, for the requisite twenty five hours.

Do not waste time with that notion. Nature has its own rules, and putting an avocado in flour to ripen it, is not one of them. I mention this because I am wondering, since I used the BF to feed the starter, (not thinking about contamination, duh), that maybe, even after washing the exterior of the fruit, if it still contaminated the flour, and therefore the starter.

I am not a scientist; just little old me. I am very careful about making sure my hands are clean before manipulating the starter, as well as any utensils being used. I do not have hot tap water with which to rinse dishes, and heating water in the kettle every time I did dishes would be ludicrous. I make do with what we have.

I have, since, fed it twice daily, these past few days, and put it back in the glass pint Mason jar, where it had dwelt, prior to its demise. I am hopeful that I can nurse it through to health again. (It appears to be happier in the small glass jar, as it is rising quite nicely after each feeding. Yay!)

Between the plants, and the starter, I am definitely learning humility.

Have I mentioned the kombucha?

Such is life. Please, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.