Steve and I, along with Jacki, Mike and one of our salesmen, attended a foliage trade show in Ft Lauderdale last week. While this show is mainly intended for foliage growers to market their products to buyers, many of the allied trades attend also to market our products to the growers. The amount of plants showcased at these events is just overwhelming!This is a display by the Dept of Agriculture in Thailand, filled with every variety of orchid possible. They were giving away miniature orchid corsages to all the ladies.

Many vendors that sell fountains and outdoor sculptures exhibit there also. I thought this one was particularly pretty, although I could have done without the frog! The plants are a type of bromeliad

This is called a "bat plant". It is in the same family as a peace lily. This is a new variety and in high demand. At the end of the show, many vendors sell their plants to individuals, rather than spend the money to haul them home. This grower is one of our customers, and he let me take the plant early, rather than get caught up in the near riot at the end of the show. Everyone wanted a bat plant, and they were the only grower there that had them. I bought two of these, plus two small orchids, a bromeliad/air plant attached to a volcanic rock from Hawaii, and two ceramic orchid pots.

How to make Christmas dinner less stressful for the cook? Easy, get your son-in-law to cook the turkey in his new Big Green Egg. Then, you get your son to do a magnificent job of carving it.



My son David on the left, and son-in-law Mike on the right.




The finished product. 20 lbs of turkey + 16 people = very few leftovers!

Christmas lights

Last night was a full moon, and I had grand plans of taking a picture of the house all lit up with the moon in the sky. Well, the moon is there, behind the trees on the left. I spent quite a bit of time playing with the various setting on the camera, and swatting mosquitoes! The The tree won't look like this for long! I figured I'd better take a picture of it while I can.

Christmas Cactus

My Christmas Cactus are in full bloom, just in time for Christmas. Some of these plants came from Steve's Uncle Bill, who died about 12 years ago. He was a master gardener, and we were fortunate to inherit a few of his plants.

camara play

I have been spending some time playing with my new camara. Yesterday I went outside as the sun was starting to set, and took these pictures.

This is facing east, at sunset. Sometimes the lake just glows from the reflection of the setting sun.

This one is facing north, towards our neighbors.

Monday, I reported for jury duty in our county court, for what could have been a 1 week trial term. It turned out that one of my neighbors was there too, so we had a nice visit while we waited, and waited....Finally one of the judges came out, and swore everyone in, and said he would listen to hardship requests to be released from serving. Several people got up to speak with him, then he disappeared. Eventually the clerk came in and said that one of the cases had just been settled, and now we would only need two juries, instead of three, and that the judge would be back in with the attornys to start the selection process. About 1/2 hour later, the clerk came back again, and said "Well, tis the season!" Everything had been settled, and we were all free to go, and no one could be called for at least a year. You should have seen us all headed for the door! I felt like I had been given a gift of time!

Eye candy: Knockout Rose from my garden.

Employee Christmas party

Over the weekend, Steve and I hosted our annual Christmas party for our employees. It was a LOT of work, but a lot of fun too. We had a Mexican Fiesta theme, and I ordered tamales and a Tres Leches cake. Other than that, I made all the food, with some last minute help from my two teenage nieces.

This is Steve and I, just before the party started.