Calvin, that is a wonderful website! Thanks very much, a lot of pleasurable looking and reading there. Can't help you with the species, but below is a link to Bedford Orchids. Bedford Orchids is half in Canada, half in US, and Howard Ginsburg, the proprietor is very much *into* breeding, and also, into re-making of old crosses using superior cultivars as parents. He might be interested in joining with you for some crosses. Worth asking, anyway. There's also instructions on the Bedford site about de-flasking. Another person who does a lot of hybrids on his own is Al or Al's Orchids. He is offering some primary hybrids right now in tiny sizes. Again, wouldn't hurt to ask him whether he would be interested in some kind of affiliation. Again, thanks for sharing that great site. Here is a link that might be useful: Bedford Orchids website

Great find, Ben, and very cool photo. The flower appears to be floating in the air - as I'm sure you were when you acquired the plant. :>) Marci

I want to thank everyone for their responses. I got a lot of information that I wasn't expecting. We made an offer on the house we were looking at and it got turned down- too big a difference between what we thought it was worth and what the seller thought it was worth. I'll still keep all of these suggestions in mind as we look at other properties. Of all the ideas we were given, I think the masonry stove is still very interesting- yes I know it takes more work than the other heaters take, but I just like the idea. I think we'd need to build a house to get something like that to fit in it in a way that makes sense. I also liked the other ideas- I never considered coal and will look into that more. I never heard of mini-split heat pumps, and they sound kind of intriguing. Also the wood furnace looked good (especially if retrofitting in an existing house). For reasons I can't explain, I'm not a big fan of the outdoor burners. I couldn't have pictured it in the neighborhood we were looking at anyway. If something happens that's worth reporting on, I'll put in more comments. For now, thanks again.

"he suggested putting in a dry sauna in the basement where I have my gym" There is no such thing as a 'dry sauna'. This is one of many common misunderstandings of sauna in America. Sauna by definition has considerable steam, either from throwing water on the stones to create bursts of steam in a Finnish sauna or via a constant drip in a bio-sauna. If you do put in a sauna then learn a bit more about it, especially if you want to gain any workout/recovery benefits. Trumpkins Sauna Notes and the book 'Secrets of Finnish Sauna Design' are the two better references in English.