Shirley, your orchids are beautiful. I had Chiffon for years and loved it. The Blue Heaven is truly that. What a color. All of them are stunning. The photos are not too big for my computer. The size looks normal. You can past the photos right into your post. I use photobucket also and just paste the html code in the body of the message. Great growing! Jane

What are the conditions of your water? On a water system or a well? Do you have iron in your water? Ever had a complete water test? And the most important info you should provide when asking for help with your water softener... what brand is your water softener? How old is it and have you been doing any routine maintenance on it?

The 2-yr old ring on the sideboard is a lost cause then (unless I want to refinish it, which I don't). Using a hairdryer on the Hoosier can't hurt, though, we can hope it takes out the new dark ring as well as the white one. If I have to I can strip and refinish just the narrow counter on the front of the Hoosier, though I'd like to put something other than shellac on it to prevent this in the future. I hate to mess with OA, if the dark ring isn't gone in a couple of months (aided by hair dryer), could I try H2O2 or is the weak drugstore solution not worth trying? I'd pretty much have to (re)finish this in place, it's so heavy my mom doesn't want to have to move it again - it was in the DR, they just moved it back to FR where it was years ago to have more room around the table with siblings coming back for reunion this w/e. My brother and SIL are very careless, I'd hate to see what they've done with (to) the Hitchcock tables my mom gave them.

The one at the top (the orange-y red one) is Lithops hookeri and the gray ones are NOIDs -- I don't know enough about them to fish for an ID. Hookeri may yet die -- I've lost two of them since a chipmunk uprooted them late August...boy they do NOT like their roots to be messed with. I've had great success with potting them in straight pumice and watering pretty much whenever I feel like it. Mostly I just forget about them.