Thread 5 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads (thread 4).

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

Mine do quite well but I don’t know how I manage it. I underwatered two of them (including this one) for ages thinking it had gone floppy from overwatering. When it stopped flowering I cut the stem down to just above the first node and put it in a north facing window as I think they like less sunlight while they’re resting. A new stem appeared a month or so ago and then these buds, so it’s now back on the east facing sill which they like apparently. I’m giving it a little trickle of water every few days which seems to be working well. I’ll see what happens with the other one I cut back. I love them.

I have many Phalaenopsis orchids, and like @CyanCrystalViolet I don't give them any special treatment. Water every couple of weeks (if I remember I add a couple of drops of orchid food in the summer months). When the flower stem fades, I cut it off. Then the whole plant goes to the bathroom window sill "plant hospital" until it decides to flower again, which is maybe once a year on average (?).

By having multiple orchids, I can usually manage to have at least one in flower, to be displayed in the living room, for most of the year.

I sometimes put a little tube of cardboard around the growing flower stem to encourage it to get taller and straighter.

I have killed the occasional one by either overwatering or by mysterious I-don't-know-why-it-died means.

Beechgrove☆ in lockdown had all the presenters just doing pieces about their own gardens. One lived in a flat, so only had houseplants, and she grew beautiful orchids in cylindrical vases taller than the plant - which would give them cat protection. She didn't use any soil, just the plant in a bare vase, and once a week she poured in some water with orchid food, let it sit for half an hour or so, and poured it out again.

☆Gardeners' World, but Scottish (and I think better).

I've been prompted to go and check my bathroom windowsill plants. I usually use the ensuite and the downstairs loo, so they don't get as much TLC as they should - the Aspidistra and the Crassulas are doing fine, but a few pots need emptying . . .

I tried orchids for a few years but couldn't really keep them warm enough in winter to thrive, so gave them away.

There's a True Story book about two orchid hunters, 'The Cloud Garden', who go to south America looking for new orchids and get kidnapped in the jungle. During their time in captivity, one of them (Tom Hart Dyke) collects orchids and attaches them to the roof of the little hut he sleeps in. It's a fascinating book and so interesting to read the thoughts of someone obsessed with orchids.

I will look into that sort of growing @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn. Kasper has an irritating obsession with glass though… he is incapable of walking past a glass object without knocking it over with his paw, or at the very least attempting to. I’ve seen some people hang them from windows which looks lovely, but wouldn’t work for me as I wouldn’t be able to shut the blinds.

But it’s a small price to pay for such plushness.

Belated happy birthdays to all who celebrated recently.

I would love a toilet with a built in bum washer. Spring is definitely on it's way though I haven't yet heard a great tit's squeaky wheel call but I also haven't been outside for over a week.

My lovely mum has been to stay but I've had a severe migraine since Wednesday and all I can do is lie still in bed in the dark and sleep, there is nothing anyone can do to make me feel better.

This week I pull my Big Girl Pants on and have to deal with the business stuff.

CyanCrystalViolet · Today 11:28

What's he plotting?

Is anyone having any weirdness with MN? I'm logged out on my phone, but fine on the PC, except that none of the threads go to the bookmark, just page 1.

I have no option to log in, on my phone, it just tells me to create an account.

What's he plotting?

@SinnerBoy he is uncharacteristically entertaining himself, no doubt plotting how to drive me crazy at a later time.

@BinkerTell I saw some great tits on the tree outside my window the other day. I wouldn’t recognise their call though.

Well, I'm back in on the mobile, the advice was to clear the cache, so I did, using CCleaner.

😃

CyanCrystalViolet · Today 12:26

he is uncharacteristically entertaining himself, no doubt plotting how to drive me crazy at a later time.

Cats. Never not plotting....

I’ve just got back from a lovely cat’n’dog walk. I have to go at cat’s pace, which is glacial speed with lots of stops for sitting on logs. Pocketful of Dreamies, although they still come along without Dreamies, it’s just to encourage them to move along now please.

The dogs of course run around the whole time, under no obligation to move at cat’s pace.

It really is the highlight of my day.

Hello all. I think I’ve missed a few whole threads (partly through being very busy in January with some actual paid work and partly through disappearing into the feminist threads and ending up with hours of reading matter and a lot of ranting to myself).

Belated happy birthday to moto.

Heh. My mum & I got a kitten from the RSPCA, who took one look at our dog and went 'Mummy', and used to curl up with the dog in his basket. He used to come for walks with us too. Then came the day when he realised he was a cat, and he ignored the dog - who was doggily devastated.

Definite signs of spring in my garden including some mini (and very much non-standard) daffodils. I’m going to plant up some big pots this year as a way of brightening things up quickly, giving a bit of structure and, probably most importantly, getting things raised up a bit so my mum stands more chance of seeing and smelling the flowers (she sees very little).

Plenty of nighttime foxy crying at the moment.

Cats. Never not plotting....

I was just going to say indignantly that Oscar never, and then remembered him being particularly affectionate this morning right up to the moment I stood up from my comfortable chair, at which stage he jumped onto the warm cushions and has been sitting there ever since. Looking smug, when he makes the effort to open his eyes.

Oh, and according to my ChirpOMatic app (chosen solely because of the name), in addition to the song thrush, there was a kestrel in the woods over the road this morning.

Such a brilliant app - like Shazam for birdsong.

The one and only time I tried to take one of my cats for a walk on a harness he (not a current cat since Skittles and Reese are both female but my lovely grey cat Flea) did acrobatics until he managed to get out of it and run off. Mine are indoor cats, which feels wrong to me but is what generally happens here. Our last house backed on to 7 acres of common land with a little river running through it and there were fishers and occasional coyotes and porcupines in there, so not very safe for them, to say nothing of bringing Lyme disease-laden ticks into the house because of the number of field mice and white-tail deer. Here, there is traffic, which doesn't work with cats unaccustomed to it.

I never want to move house, but mycurrent excuse is that it would be cruel to move the cats (and dogs for that matter) from this vast uninhabited expanse of fields and woodland that serves as their territory. Uninhabited by cats and humans anyway, plenty of other animals out there. Haven’t heard any screaming foxes at night yet, just loads and loads of owls, which would be great if only my dogs didn’t bark at them.

Before she got old and slow, Phoebe used to come for walks with us. At glacial pace, as @MavisMcMinty said. She would do little detours into neighbour's gardens and then pop back out and shout to make sure we weren't getting too far ahead. People would do a startled double-take and we would say, "Yes, we're taking our cat for a walk!"

Sometimes she'd want to come for a walk when we were in fact heading out to some destination - we'd have to send on of our party back to lead her home, shut her in the front door and run off at high speed before she got out of the cat flap at the rear.

This was Francis and Django last night, sleeping nose to nose. I put down my book to watch them and revel in the cuteness overload.

I love orchids and have zero success in keeping them alive. I'm great with houseplants. My roughly five year old peace lily only breathed its last due to moving stress and being knocked to the ground by Django. My Swiss cheese plant is about five feet tall, mine for nearly a decade and was less than a foot tall when I bought it. Blah, blah, blah, but orchids do not like me.