Long Overdue

Yes this post is long overdue but life has not been treating me very kindly the past number of weeks but I am back now feeling much better. For this post I wanted to post a couple more orchid pictures but one of these are different than my regular orchid pictures because one of the these is growing on the May Apple Tree that is growing in our front yard. Also there are pictures of what is growing all around the trunk of the tree. On the next next post I will post a picture of the front and surroundings of our home in Panama.

The orchids on the tree.

 This is where the orchids are on the tree.

Here is the whole side of the tree.

This is the other side

Orchids in Bloom and a Cute Little Guy

The nice thing about living in Boquete, Panama is that you can have as many orchids as you want and not have to worry about what you are going to do with them when the weather turns cold. Also we are living in the land of orchids. You see them growing on trees everywhere. The really nice thing is that they are cheap to buy, often less than $ 10.00. We are starting a collection and some of them are in bloom right now so I thought I would share a few pictures.

Oh and the cute little guy is this green cutie who was near one of the orchids.

The View From Here

Hi Everyone.

This week I thought I would share a couple of pictures to show you what is in bloom right now and the views we have from our back deck. Right now we are in dry season and have not had a drop of rain since the middle of December. During this season we also get very high winds which dries things out even more. As you can see the only green grass we have right now is around the palm trees which we have been watering.

On the one corner of our property is a very old huge tree and right now it is covered in small orange blooming orchids. It is amazing how nature plants things. 

In our garden the one Bromeliad is blooming and in different spots on the property these Amarilys have popped up and come into bloom.

The following are views from our porch of the mountains that surround us with all there lush growth.

This one shows our coffee plants which really need a good rain which will happen next month when we start to get our torrential rainfalls.

 Bye for now.
Clyde

The Crutches Story and a Beautiful Orchid Planted by Mother Nature

Thank you everyone for your comments and concern. Unfortunately I am on crutches permanently. I had a hip replacement surgery done in 2010 and for the first 6 months things were going okay except when I sat down I could feel the metal pushing against my muscle and then one day when I was walking our dogs and I was using 2 canes and it became so painful that I could not walk without crutches. At the same time I was also diagnosed with Severe Osteoporosis and they found two vertebrae with compression fractures that just added to the problem. So for now it is crutches.

On to a happier topic. We have a tree in our backyard that looks more dead than alive but it is covered in different types of Orchids, Bromeliads, and Ferns.

This week we noticed that one bunch of the orchids were going to bloom so this is how they looked the first day.

On the second day they opened and looked amazing, but the next day all the blooms had died. Oh well they were pretty while they lasted.

Plant life in El Valle and Our New Home.

Hi everyone.

 I was talking in the last post about how lush the plant life is here in El Valle and it has to be seen to be believed. Below is a picture of a dead and live tree both covered in orchids, ferns, mosses and bromeliads planted by mother nature.

If I had to describe our rented house in one word it would be HUGE. It is 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms a sunroom, large open kitchen and a living room, dining area of about 30 feet by 24  feet with 18 foot ceilings. It has a dining table that seats 12 people and a bar that would seat 5 people. Below are a few pictures.

There are 3 covered porches with the largest being about 20x30 feet. The breeze blows through the 56 windows that are opened each morning and closed each night. It feels strange to have all our windows open each day because living in Canada you were lucky to have your windows open 7 times a year because it was either too cold or too hot. Here the weather is great and we are loving every bit of it.

Monday's Message

Orchid display at the Montreal Royal Botanical Gardens.

"To set up what you like against what you dislike, this is the disease of the mind."
_____ Seng-T'san

Thursday's Inspiration

"Speak the truth, do not become angered, and give when asked, even be it a little. By these three conditions one goes to the presence of the Gods."
_____ Buddha

Two Latest Bloomers

These two orchids are our latest to bloom. What makes these two so special is that the plant is less than two inches tall and we only paid $5 each for these two at a going out of business sale. All the orchids that we bought at this sale are doing well and most have bloomed for us. This one has seven blooms coming.






The bloom is a blend of so many colours yellow, brown, purple, pink, white just to name a few.

This last one has a funny bloom that has never opened fully even though it has been in flower for two months.

Orchids, Orchids Everywhere

Well I must begin by saying that Gregg and I are big orchid fans among other things. Yesterday was the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada annual Orchid Show.

The funny thing about orchids is that the foliage is usually boring and in some cases down right ugly but they produce flowers whose beauty defies description.

There are two special parts to the show the sale of orchids of every description and displays of orchids whose beauty takes your breath away.

Imagine walking into a room with over 100,000 orchids in bloom ranging in size from 1/4 of an inch to 5 feet tall.

There where so many different types of orchids and they where in every colour

RED

YELLOW

ORANGE

PURPLE

GREEN

PINK

WHITE

I was so taken by the wonderful sights that I took about 100 photographs if you would like to see them the link is here. It made me think it was summer for a couple of hours which was very nice but when we left and the cold wind hit our faces the reality of winter came rushing back.

These two orchid blooms where just to pretty not to post a picture of. They are from a miniature cattleya orchid called Hawaiian Sunrise and the blooms are about 1 1/2 inches across. They come from our collection of over 30 orchids.