My penultimate bit of May memorializing

Today is the fifth anniversary of my mother's death. This one was the easiest to accept -- she was 84. My sister's birthday is next up, on the 29th, and then perhaps I can quit finding cause for reflection in the calendar for awhile.

In other, more cheerful news: yesterday I took the bus over to the bike store and picked up my bike. It's all cleaned and pressed for a season of hard riding, with new sturdy tires, new brake pads, a general tune-up and a repair of the electrical system so the headlamp will work. It felt quite responsive when I biked home.

Roy is going to buy fish on his rounds today and I will make a sort of fish stew with canned tomatoes plus potatoes, carrots, and onions. The fish will go in at the last minute and will not be bluefish for a change -- possibly cod or some such white fleshed fish.

Nopalxochia gamble

For the last week or so I've had the uneasy feeling that my scrap of Dodo Hamilton's Nopalxochia was pushed too deep into the vermiculite and that it was too low in the pot, meaning that the cutting was getting too little light (and, possibly, air).

Today I took a deep breath and excavated. The good news is that it has roots more than an inch long. The bad news is that it has a necrotic spot. So I pulled it from the vermiculite and put it in potting medium -- with the pot filled almost to the top with the potting medium and the cutting buried about 1/2" - 3/4" inch more shallowly. If the disruption doesn't set it back, the increased light and air just might do the trick.

I have leaned close to it and promised it lots of attention and a VERY handsome pot if it will only live.