Well, You're Not Supposed to Put Them in Your Mouth

Yep, it's that time of year... cleaning up, trimming, and repotting those plants that need it... all these past couple weeks... depending on the weather.

Working in the backyard, taking my time, and enjoying the pleasant fall weather.

Deciding which plant could go in which pot is a wonderful creative challenge.

Jade tree blooms...

Pete takes longer to prepare his indoor space, so I work with the plants I enjoy first. The various philodendron, the pathos, the dumbcane, etc etc.

What we call my plants. They also tend to be a bit more sensitive to cooler weather. Most don't thrive below 60° so I am inclined to bring those into the house first.

Spider plant blooms...

Then I asked Pete if he wanted me to take care of the succulents and cactus and bring them in.

What we call his plants. He generally readily agrees because he doesn't enjoy the trim/clean/re-pot of plant ownership. We're almost done... only a few more to bring into the basement, under the lights for the winter. We do lots of creative thinking when plotting out where they all go.

I have put away all the repotting materials until spring... when all the plants go back outside.

Hoya blooms...

Have I ever mentioned I don't really like cacti? Pete likes them because they are hard to kill if he forgets to water them.

I put off working with them as long as possible. Even with gloves on and being as careful as possible, my fingers and hands still get full of glochids and spines and thorns. Pete is generally a nice fellow, so working with cactus is something I do for him.

Groot, happy in the cat grass...

Getting little owies in my fingers and arms is inevitable when working with cacti. When I do, it is fairly easy to take off a glove, and using my tongue, find the wee offending spike, then use my front teeth to pull it out. For me, it is the most efficient way to remove the tiniest spikes since my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

While it rarely happens, it really is irritating when the spike then sticks in my tongue. Grin, hard to find a tiny thorn in my tongue... it works its way out in seemingly moments ... so I don't spend much time fussing.

Itty bitty thorns.

You guessed it, I got a tongue sliver this week. When it happened, Pete laughed and chided me that "You're not supposed to put the cacti in your mouth."

Always ready with a bit of a quip.