Snow in Calgary
Winter weather arrived here yesterday; it snowed lightly all day, and now the view out of the window is stereotypical winter whiteness. White sky, white lawns, white rooftops and trees full of snow. It's not all that cold, and the streets are perfectly clear and dry today, but still: all white. Maybe a hundred minor accidents on the city streets, par for the course.
I put that down to people who've moved here from warmer climates over the course of the past year, out driving in mucky sleet for the first time. There must be at least a couple of hundred of those. Either that, or sheer carelessness, I suppose.
I have a week's holiday, so I don't have to drive if I don't want to.
Last week on my day off I went to an orchid greenhouse that happens to be on Signal Hill; I found out about it earlier this year. It's quite big and I never knew about it, and is in the process of closing its doors and moving to Vancouver Island. I'd been there a couple of times a few months ago and bought several orchids, because it turns out this house is a good one for orchids. They grow well here, and I can coax them into bloom. So I have some orchids, and they really look healthy and are growing nicely for me, and now I have even more because the orchid greenhouse is having a close-out sale. Wild impulse-buying time for me. It's great! These are smallish plants, and one is in bloom, and its name is Miltassia Dark Star "Darth Vader".
It's got big velvet-purple flowers, star-shaped, very pointy. I've been taking pictures of my orchids as they come into bloom, with my new phone. The next thing is to figure out how to download the photos into my PC. Eventually I can spam the world with flower jpgs.
I put that down to people who've moved here from warmer climates over the course of the past year, out driving in mucky sleet for the first time. There must be at least a couple of hundred of those. Either that, or sheer carelessness, I suppose.
I have a week's holiday, so I don't have to drive if I don't want to.
Last week on my day off I went to an orchid greenhouse that happens to be on Signal Hill; I found out about it earlier this year. It's quite big and I never knew about it, and is in the process of closing its doors and moving to Vancouver Island. I'd been there a couple of times a few months ago and bought several orchids, because it turns out this house is a good one for orchids. They grow well here, and I can coax them into bloom. So I have some orchids, and they really look healthy and are growing nicely for me, and now I have even more because the orchid greenhouse is having a close-out sale. Wild impulse-buying time for me. It's great! These are smallish plants, and one is in bloom, and its name is Miltassia Dark Star "Darth Vader".
It's got big velvet-purple flowers, star-shaped, very pointy. I've been taking pictures of my orchids as they come into bloom, with my new phone. The next thing is to figure out how to download the photos into my PC. Eventually I can spam the world with flower jpgs.