There have been a couple of threads along the strange, odd or gross tales category recently and I thought I would share a story of a different sort. Lets call this "Most Embarrassing Orchid Related Moments"

My wife who tolerates the transformation of the breakfast nook into the orchid nook with great humor (we never ate breakfast there anyway) as well as the other growing related issues is an instructor of Nursing at a local college. When she is in the hospital with students her days starts very early which also happens to be when I am up before work to water. This rarely leads to conflict, except when I move all the plants to the sink for a good drenching using the sprayer and she wants to fill the tea kettle. I am forced to reminder her that it is not a kitchen until after 6 am on watering days. Since she can be a bit fussy until she has her first bit of coffee I usually give in and fill the kettle for her, but not with the precious R/O!

Recently we had vehicle related issues and were car pooling together as my office is on her way. This was during her hospital days so she needed to leave the house by 5:50 am. I was up early to water but ended up making her run just a little late. It was the first day of the rotation so she was more bothered by this than she might have been otherwise, and she felt the need to explain the situation to her students. She was late because her nutty husband was too busy watering his orchids and lost track of the time. Now one of her students also happens to works with me for going on 5 years, and has seen the parade of plants arrive at my office for much of this time. In the past she has asked my wife how she puts up with me and my goofy interests. Needless to say she found the story particularly entertaining, and when she next worked with me could not wait to tell me how funny the other students found this to be as well. Since that time she has taken to advising my wife of the arrival of new shipments by asking "how are the new babies doing"? This of course makes it hard to just move the new plants into the existing population under the cover of secrecy, not that I would do that though I know of those that might.

One of these "new Babies" happened to be a Barkeria from EOoM (free shipping month) that was in rather damp medium that seemed to me to dry too slowly and I planned on re-potting it when I next had the chance. Several days later I was up early and was anxious to set this little lithophyte up in a more suitable living arrangement, but I did not have what I thought were suitably sized chunks of granite, and what I did have was in the garage. Mind you its 4:30 am, I am in my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers and its well below zero outside with a good 8 inches of fresh snow on the ground. I did brave the cold long enough to grab some rocks from our garage/orchid growing materials storage area but was not about to make the trek to my shop for a suitable hammer. I knew full well that there was a ridiculously small child sized hammer in one of the kitchen "odds and ends" drawers that I could use for my task.

I took my rocks and small hammer to a bit of exposed concrete floor and began making smaller rocks from larger ones. In the midst of my rock crushing operation, barely clothed in my robe and slippers on my hands and knees with an absurdly tiny hammer in one hand and gripping a smallish chunk of granite in the other, my wife came up the stairs to go to the kitchen to put her coffee on. She paused only long enough to take in the scene, shake her head in a sad sort of way before moving on to the kitchen. I called after her "I can explain", but she said kindly that I did not have to. I did of course explain while potting up the Barkeria how I came to be doing that odd thing at that time but I don't think she understood. I was hopeful that she did not feel the need to share this little anecdote with her students (particularly one of them) since we left in plenty of time for her to make it to the hospital. Nothing was said the next several times my wife's student worked with me at my office until one afternoon a largish masonry hammer clearly meant for beating on rocks appeared mysteriously on my desk. I made the mistake of asking how the story was told and it apparently started out with "you will never believe what he was doing this morning..."

I am happy to report the Barkeria went on to bloom magnificently (still blooming) and it seems quite happy in it's new digs.

Richard