Memorial bricks comprise the walkways inside this park - and benches and flowering bushes create a welcoming atmosphere in the summer and this park is a fairyland in the Christmas season. My watercolor of this scene is an attempt to capture some of the winter magic. Small matted 8" x 10" prints are available in our gallery and on our web site http://www.painterandpoet.com
Ward and I have been slow in getting our Christmas organized - it seems like Thanksgiving was yesterday and Christmas is almost tomorrow. An almost spooky and freaky incident occurred on Thanksgiving day in my studio - Our huge Christmas cactus, pictured and discussed in an earlier blog on our website - flew off its perch on a sturdy table, landed in a heap upside down on the floor, with its shattered branches underneath and its unbroken large ceramic pot bottom-up atop the fractured plant. I had admired the emerging Christmas buds several days earlier! (Maybe there's a moral here - "enjoy today"?)
This plant - almost a century old was almost three feet across - thus trapped in our home and too large to go through any of our exterior doors !! My first reaction was shock and sadness. Then I started to giggle. "Well, I guess I won't have to worry about that cactus anymore!"
My older son and his family were here visiting when this unusual event happened, and after everybody else was in bed, I sat there mulling over what to do with the "remains". Decided the damage too drastic for repotting, I settled on hauling out three large empty plastic ice cream "buckets", and cut the intact branches apart, and placed them root side first and down into water. Ward put some bricks on top of the cactus table to stabilize the weight, and I'm keeping them watered and in a south window, and attempting to get some new starts going. If any of you would like to have a cutting off this plant, just stop in with your small water container, and we'll give you a piece of that wonderful old plant! But in this frigid season, you'll have to keep the fragile branch warm so we'll need to bundle it up for you!
Here's a copy of my painting of Mother's Christmas Cactus. Prints and cards of this also available in our little shop and on our web site.
Our pleasant memories of this plant live on, and we wish you a merry, merry Christmas with happiness that will extend throughout the coming new year!
We welcome your emails and comments. Winter hours: 10 till 5 on Fridays and Saturdays, and whenever the open sign is out. Or call for an appointment 574-842-8888.
email: info@painterandpoet.com
web site: http://www.painterandpoet.com
