The moving life story of a cactus
One December many, many years ago a little cactus and its brothers got purchased by a very thoughtless woman. In case of the little cacti thoughtless to the point of evil.
Like many thoughtless women she is mainly occupied with making cute gestures.
That year she gave all of her birthday guests a little reminder of the nice party they had attended - a cactus. And what with Christmas not being far away she sprayed all the cacti with snow spray. Awwwwwwwwwwwwww, lookey, how cute! Lookey how cute the suffocating cacti look! Awwwwwwww!
I presume the little cactus’ brothers all died a slow death, but let us not dwell on this.
One little cactus was given to us, and we - fuming with rage (and getting covered in thorns) - scrubbed the little cactus as gently as humanly possible clean under running warm water. Not all of the spray came off, and some thorns were lost, but after a long period of waiting and watching the little cactus it became clear that it had survived.
It started growing, further cracking up the spray remains and enlarging the clean surface areas. Brave little cactus!
All those years it slowly grew, but it never came to real health. It grew very crooked and with a “waist” that was way too slim for it.
One fatal day not too long ago the not so little anymore cactus fell off the window sill, breaking in two!
Not wanting to give up on the more healthy upper part of the cactus yet, our father tried planting it into a flowerpot. And it survived.
And now, after all these years, this upper part brought forth its first blooms ever.
the two halves
We never would have thought it from the bedraggled and crippled way the cactus used to look, but the blooms proved it to be our third (and fourth?) Königin der Nacht (Queen of the night).
And - lo and behold! - last night the little cactus opened its very first bloom. I suppose the others will follow suit tonight.
And it’s not even alone in this timid display of its beauty and fragrance, one of the older ones was keeping it company, opening three of its blooms that same night:
the ones who never knew snow spray
May 26th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
See? It did preserve.
May 27th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Wow, the next room of your gallery is really amazing!
Poor little cactus with snow paint. How lucky it was to find some kind humans to nurse it back to health!
The flowers are really beautiful! I have never seen flowers like these before. I really like the subtle difference in shading between the layers of petals. Do you have any bees in the garden to pollinate them? You might be able to do it by hand with your finger (they look big enough). Is there a flower show in your village in the next week or two? I think you would win a prize!
antbm…now that sounds just a tiny (really really petite) bit nasty!
May 28th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Beautiful pictures!
It just goes to show that everyone needs a friend to bloom!
May 30th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Great pics, Sis!
And what a moving story. Even I was sniffling while reading it, and I was there when we scrubbed the poor thing.
koopbdzs! (sniff. sorry. I do hope the stains come off.)
May 31st, 2006 at 8:51 pm
David: Just wait for the next pics! Momma cactus has put forth 18 buds (maybe told itself “I’ll show ya youngsters”) if I didn’t miscount. Wonder if they’ll all make it into bloom and how many will bloom together….
Lynnette: Or a fall from the window sill… :paranoid face:
Sis: If you don’t wipe this mess off this minute you’re in trouble. Seriously. Yikes.
Tere: Welcome here yet again.
June 1st, 2006 at 2:00 am
Oh, so beautiful! Lucky cactus to have come to your home, and have been so well fostered. A nice story in the virtue of not giving up hope.
June 1st, 2006 at 6:18 am
Wow, 18 buds, that’s going to be quite a show! Big Mama gonna show dem’ youngins up right, yeas saa!