As Richard said, new leaves will come from the center of the plant. One day a tiny speck will appear there and start growing. Phals put out maybe three leaves a year, with good light and good care, a new leaf might appear in a couple of months. Growth is much faster in spring-summer than in winter. When you water, make sure the center (called the crown) stays dry If water gets into the crown, roll up the corner of a paper napkin and wick the water out. I agree with the others that reading up on phal care is a good idea. For free tip sheets on care for phals, check out the Canadian Orchid Congress and the American Orchid Society websites. Look for cutlure sheets for phalaenopsis. Good culture notes for beginning indoor growers are also available at BigLeaf Orchids. Click "information" tab across the top.

Well thanks for the good ideas y'all! Right now I'm leaning towards trying to do some cat related craft things and selling them with all proceeds going towards the group. I have seen great plaques and stenciled pet food buckets. The group has a table where things are sold every weekend during adoptions. I am thinking of trying to work out a system where materials from say a JoAnne Fabrics are donated to the charity and I get them to a group of teen sewers I know to produce tote bags and pretty aprons in some of those adorable cat fabrics. The kids in our area need community service credits to graduate from HS and thru the group I can arrange for them to get those credits for their sewing. They can do this on their own time at home where most other volunteering jobs are scheduled hours. I also think I could get art students to make cute plaques with cat related quotes. I've seen these in upscale boutiques and they don't look hard to make at all. I'd like to get Joanne's or Michaels or ACMoore to donate materials, kids donate time and receive community service credits, and our group sells these things at the mall where the pet store is. We could also rent flea market tables. Oh, and I thought for next year maybe we could make christmas tree ornaments with a cat theme, again utilizing the talented high school students who need those community service credits. What do you guys think? I would like to take on silent auction/wine event type things in the future. I'm just wanting to "work up" to something like that. The pro bono vet services would be great but that's really hard. Right now we are having a very hard time getting any medicines for the cats. These are tough times for all businesses and Vets are feeling the same pinch as everyone else plus there are more needy animals than vets could possibly help plus people with money troubles aren't able to take sick animals to the vet. We collect a small fee for the adoptions, under a hundred dollars to defray vaccinations, neutering, and other costs. Because there's been a huge drop in adoptions this year (due to the economy, we believe) those funds aren't coming it like they have in the past. Tough times!

All large farms do not raise their animals inhumaely. many are responsible caretakers. The scale required to raise enuff animals to feed the country and to export to others is by necessity large, especially because we want our food at the lowest costs possible. What makes an animal happy and content is not the same as the human requirement. An animal with a full belly and adequate housing is a happy animal. There are many avenues of better food, if you are in a rural area there is a possibility of buying from a local producer where you can see the way the animals are kept. Even if you are in or near a city there is access to local food, you just need to do a bit of research on that. How bout this PETA stunt: they call the owner of a rabbitry inquiring about the animals as if they might be interested in purchasing. Once they get to the farm they begin with small talk about rabbits but before long the owner of the rabbitry realizes the real reason of the visit when the peta members begin to make disparaging remarks. The owner asks them to leave but they persist and a slight physical altercation ensues, the police are called, etc., etc. several days go by until the rabbitry owner sees the same car parked down the road, he goes to his barn and discovers the peta terrorists stuffing rabbits into boxes which they plan to release into the wood; surely a death sentence to them all. the rabbit owner is an expert at martial arts and subdues the attackers, police come and arrest the PETA creeps. There are more similar horror stories. Man evolved eating meat, animals evolved to serve mans needs. Nothing wrong with that but some responsibility is required on the part of man to give proper care to his charges. Most do so. Its not fair to judge an entire industry on a few bad examples.

I've found you can click on it numerous times and it will record each click. Each morning I get an e-mail with the link to it and I click it 10 times.