These are the greens in my life today...

 All kinds of succulents gathered into a failed casserole dish.

 The lavender is happy enough in it's sunny spot.

 Rosemary also has sunshine most days.

 Another succulent continues to grow bigger, next to the Oxalis. (Purple shamrock, also below, and yes, it's not green!)

A weekly shot of water and tuck the dying foliage into the pot which has no drainage...and this plant makes its own hummus as it has for over 10 years. (Fertilize when I think of it, maybe every 3 months.)

 Another long lived plant, which is pruned yearly, and brought inside until spring, when it often blooms again, the gardenia.

 And after 2 years keeping this plant barely alive, and finally repotting it, it has promise of blooms.

 Except the one at the bottom had broken off.  I'm carefully giving this a few drops of water every few days, and it has indirect sun (when it shines.)

 Another plant that continues with minimum attention is the philodendron.

 Half of the Thanksgiving orchid is still blooming...and it gets an ice cube worth of water a week.

 The Kalanchoe is beginning to have some buds too on the sunny side (not the silk yellow mum!) I rotate it weekly, hoping it will have more flowers. I need to stop watering it too. Duh, I know that.

 It's really nice the African Violets are about to bloom. Nice for January!

Thee are cuttings from the Kalanchoe...which probably have rooted, and I'm going to put them in dirt in old pots, bowls, mugs..the rejects can certainly become planters!

Happy Full Moon...late again

Since this actually happened, we had a line of strong thunderstorms come through the day after a total cloudy sky that didn't do anything. But it finally cleared up Sunday with sunshine and 60 degrees. In January? Poor old earth.

My grand-cats, Bandit and Alice, among others...

Funny, they don't know each other. But when I sat down to pet each of them, they felt perfectly at home, and Bandit even showed me his belly on first meeting him! Pretty radical acceptance!

They live in different households, yet they may be destined to meet someday...

Marty put up his artificial tree, even fluffed it so it was more natural looking, but then a few minutes later it had a "cat level complete with cat." He didn't do any more! And it stayed vertical throughout the holidays.

Since I did no decorating in my home this year, I wasn't disturbed at all.

Alice was happy to pose for me...making sure I caught her beautiful eyes! She has two other kitties that live with her, but they were more shy.

Going across the water

Tampa Florida. We used to call this malfunction junction, when I drove through here daily in rush hour. At least the last Saturday before 2020 was not stop and go, much.

And for once, nothing was under construction.

 The Tampa skyline, framed by overpasses. When you're not driving you can shoot interesting photos.

 Crossing Tampa Bay there's St. Petersburg to the south and west.

 Looking to the north, you can barely see the Courtney Campbell Causeway, and a pelican on the lower left in this shot.

I cropped both of these shots of the pelican. We were going 75 mph, and he was doing pretty well himself.

We passed Eckerd College on our left. It's where my youngest son graduated in 2001. But we were headed to visit the Bakers on Isla Key.  Marty has a Sun Pass so we didn't have to stop to pay the toll.

 Crossing over a bridge we could see other waterfront condos on the St. Petersburg side of the waterway.

And here we arrived!

I really like the architecture of these condos...not the big box design, but lots of levels and indentations.

Next I'll introduce you to Bandit...and Alice!

Cloning redwoods

I saw this photo of children (and adults at the top) sitting on a redwood stump...on another blog (here). And she mentioned the original article about cloning the redwood giants...HERE.

Quoting from the article...

At 18-inches tall, the delicate sapling looks almost vulnerable as Blue Ox Millworks and Historic Park co-founder Eric Hollenbeck and Freshwater resident Steve D'Agati hold it aloft on a recent morning in front of a massive cross-section of the ancient tree from which it was cloned. 

The moment was, in many ways, a homecoming for the small sprout derived from what is believed to be one of the largest coastal redwoods to ever exist. Known as the "Fieldbrook Giant," the tree stood sentry over the North Coast from east of McKinleyville for more than 1,000 years before being cut down in 1896 as the result of what was widely believed to have been a drunken bet.

Since I don't live in California, I don't know much about this, and was quite thrilled to learn that the redwoods are having a second chance.  Check out the article to learn more.

Thanks Robin Andrea for talking about this, along with your post about music!

Some old children's photos of my family

My Sepia Saturday post for this week should be easy enough.

While visiting my son, Marty, during the holidays, in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area...we had occasion to visit his ex-wife who is a dear friend of mine still. (Not that I'd say that to my son!) Two of his adult children (Will and Cayenne) live with her.

Anyway, she brought out the big box of old photos that she wanted Marty to go through and take some for his own collection. I took a few photos of the old photos. That way I don't have another box of photos around, but it's all in the cloud. Unfortunately there are lots of shiny places from the sleeves that they were stored in.  I found a few photos over on Facebook of some of the family also.

But for photos of young children, I've got these to add, which haven't been in my own collection probably at all! (Or I've forgotten about them.)

My son, Marty in the Dolphins' shirt number 39, and his little brother Russ in no shirt at all! Marty may be 9, and Russ around 5. I know their father, Doug, with the dark beard in the back row, and his sister Lynn right behind Marty. She's standing with her husband Norm on the far right.  My ex-hubby's brother Rick is also in the back row with a mustache. This was a gathering of the Heym family, and since I'd just divorced Doug, I wasn't part of this group. Sorry, I don't know who the rest of the women are.

Another Heym gathering (or perhaps the same one) with Rick looking over his bare shoulder in the foreground, and my son Russ in his father, Doug's lap. Doug is wearing shades and still has the dark beard.  Son Marty is the little boy in the back row (with longish dark hair.)

Unknown house...probably somewhere that Doug lived, or visited. Marty in that Miami Dolphin's shirt, Russ in his favorite cowboy outfit.

 Fast forward to high school years...Marty (far right) and his date, Cinnamon for the prom. They later got married, had two children, and eventually divorced.

Marty and Cinnamon dressed for High School Prom.

Marty joined the Navy...after doing various jobs after high school graduation. Cinnamon went to college, and Marty tried it for a while.

Here's Marty's son, William, when he was maybe 8.

Cayenne Heym, Marty and Cinnamon's daughter...around 5 years old.

School picture of Cayenne.

 Ex-hubby Doug and his sister, Lynn.

Some publication which included Doug, mis-labeled as Don Helm, rather than Doug Heym.  No idea who Frank was, or Bob Hite. But at least that is what Doug looked like in 2001, though he also was at our son Russ' wedding in April of that year.


Ah, a school photo with a date. Cayenne would have been around 9.

More recent photo of Doug's family (and mine but this was an event in 2017-18 I also didn't attend in FL.) This includes my son Russ and his family from Ohio. From left to right, Michelle Heym, (Russ' wife), Audrey Heym, Caroline Heym, my son Russ Heym, Kate Heym, Doug Heym, Millie Heym (Doug's wife now), William Heym (Marty's son) and Marty Heym. Cayenne Heym and Michael Thurston, Marty's other grown children, were also missing. Cayenne was away at college and Michael may have been at work. But who took the photo?

I am glad someone has this photo of Linda Arkwright, Cinnamon Arkwright Heym's mother...because this is a poor copied photo of a photo.

 And this is Gladys Good, Linda Arkwright's mother. She was quite a lady.

Another out of focus photo, this time of William, probably in his early teens for this school photo.

The Sepia shot that certainly is a mix of all ages of children.

Thanks for looking at all these family photos...they just all came together at this time, otherwise they'd still be in a box under the bed.

PS...
Oh my goodness.
Look at what Robin posted this morning! The original article about this photo is HERE.

Now that's a lot of people on a redwood stump! I enjoyed reading about the efforts to clone redwood trees.