Old Friends

About 36 years ago, I worked my last day for anyone besides myself. I helped Chris and Ginny Gartlein work on their handmade house for one day! I had been running my own business for a while by then, but that day was the last time anyone paid me. I especially remember the floor in their wonderful home. Chris had been a woodworker for a while, and that floor was hand crafted from scraps left over from special jobs, boards milled from trees he had removed after storm damage, gifts from friends, etc. Chris knew exactly where every piece of that floor had come from.

Chris and Ginny gave me a plant that day. It was truly a quite ugly plant, but shortly after I got it home, it blossomed with a wonderfully large and beautiful blossom that was all the more remarkable for coming from that very plain place. Somehow over the intervening years, I only got it to blossom 3 more times. Always the hope of another blossom or two kept me from tossing it on the compost heap! The picture above shows the 4th time this plant has blossomed for me in 36 years! I am hopeful that I can get it to blossom more often now. Last winter - on the advice of a friend - I put the plant in our cool basement near a window with very little watering! This spring - two blossoms! The following quote from the web seems to agree with my assesment of this plant.

"The orchid cactus might be called the Cinderella of the garden world. Most of the year the plant, with disheveled, arched, trailing branches, is easy to ignore. But from February through June, magnificent flowers, some as large as 13 inches across, pop from the notched branches in brilliant shades of red, orange, violet, yellow and gold."

And, back to Chris and Ginny Gartlein, the cutting board I use everyday was made by Chris. Made in 1975 from a wide variety of woods, it has held up wonderfully.
A tiny split along one side has remained exactly the same size for many years ..... a truly beautifully made piece that reminds me of Chris and Ginny pretty much every day!