Trees...

According to one legend, Buddha meditated under a bodhi tree and achieved enlightenment, attaining complete awakening by realizing that the cause of human suffering was ignorance, and also realizing the proper steps to eliminate it.

According to another legend, the Chinese princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a mulberry tree when the cocoon of a moth fell into her cup of hot tea, and began to unravel... hence silk was discovered.

Still another legend says Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when a fruit fell on his head, and inspired him to research the nature of gravity.

And the moral of all this is, that if people wish to attain great things, they should probably linger under a tree...

and it bloomed...

More cactus pics...

well, I'm having a bit of a fit posting nowdays aren't I?

Echinocereus reichenbachii v. baileyii, a.k.a. Baileys lace cactus. You can see him down the page... The bud on the right should be opening tomorrow... the great thing is that yesterday, these buds were both the same size. That's a lot of growth for one day !

Passiflora incarnata... the native Texas passionflower... just to prove I can grow something besides cactus, I can also grow rampaging vines...

The name passionflower refers to the passion of Christ. The three pistols are the three nails of the crucifixion, the five stamens are the five wounds suffered by Christ, the corrolla is the crown of thorns, and the 10 petals are the 10 disciples that were present at the crucifixion... or that's what the priests told the natives when they tried to convert them, right before they used them as near slave labor... but that's another story.
just an agave. Don't know exactly what kind, I bought it from one of those people by the side of the road. But I like it, and I'll figure it out eventually...

woke up in the wee hours of the morning. Not by choice, there's a small black demon cat responsible for all this...


Anyway, I decided to check in again.


Closed my ebay store last night... I know that a lot of the ebay stores are closing to protest the new fees and feedback policies. For me it's the fees. I just no longer find it viable to pay ebay a monthly charge when they're not giving me any help. It's almost impossible to get any traffic from their search engine, and they seem to be going out of their way to make the site very seller un-friendly. They keep carping on about keeping the customers happy, but they seem to be forgetting that the sellers are the ones paying them, so the sellers are their customers... the buyers are my customers.

Anyway, I'll still run a few auctions, but the store, "buy it now" listings are not paying for themselves, and I don't have the time to manage those listings while I'm trying to do anything else... so I'll be removing the link to the ebay store on here too...


A few pics that I've been meaning to add... here's a little abandoned farm I saw when I was delivering last week... I have a weekness for abandoned buildings. Don't ask me why, I don't know...

And here's the flower-pot tower I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. A great wat to grow hen & chicks (semperviviums) or encheverias. And easy to build, you stick a nice sturdy metal rod in the ground, string on the pots like giant beads, making sure to lean the rim against the pole, and fill with dirt.

and then, there's the regular pot tower... I've always liked these, because they remind me of pagodas for some reason...

and I'm adding the play blogger link... it's one of my new favorite toys. It's this thing that shows all the photos that bloggers post in a continuous slide show. It's very interesting how the images of everybodies plants, families, pets, kids just flow by and interact with each other.

So, I know that this blog is named after a flea market, and I do actually own a flea market booth... been awful today though. I'm changing from the front two booths in the window, to two other booths in the middle of the store, so I spent all day moving and rearranging and basically driving myself batty.



reasons to do this... (as I have to keep reminding myself)

• cheaper rent


• all those windows are wasted space


• This booth will look much better


• change creates positive energy


• cheaper rent


• I need to downsize


• I need to send a bunch of carp to goodwill


• cheaper rent

Notice that I keep going on and on about cheaper rent... I'm sorry, but in this economy, that's a major motivator.

Now, my real job, being a courier driver, is also starting to cost too much... Have you seen the price of gas out there? Yikes! But, since I took this week off to move the booth... (I'm an independant contractor, so I can take off any time I want.... despite silly dispatcher attempts to say otherwise...) I also went ahead and dropped 400 dollars on a new AC system. That's right, a rebuilt compressor, a dryer, freon and compressor oil, all for 425. That's a deal, as all the other mechanics I talked to estimated over 1000 and then gave me a list of a hundred other things that needed done. Now, my AC went out in the middle of a highway in Ft Worth TX last August, when I'd barely had this job for a month and there's no way in hell I could afford to get anything fixed. Then, whenever I saved enough money to consider it, I had to get tires, or I had to get a new clutch, or whatever... But now I found a good, honest mechanic who works at a very reasonable rate... (I had him do some other stuff first, so I know he's good... )

Anyway, I go back tomorrow, and I finish the booth move, come hell or high water.

Other attempts to save money:

• I take my lunch to work... Fast food is too expensive and it's bad for me.


• I have started hanging my washed clothes on the line outside. During the summer months in Texas, they actually dry quicker out there than in the dryer!


• I don't buy bottled water. Water is free from the tap, and all those blasted plastic bottles are filling the land-fill... I take water to work by refilling plastic bottles I already have.
• I don't buy coffee every morning. I now make coffee at home and take it with me.
• I buy the jeans for work at goodwill. Or I used to... Goodwill is getting a little pricey. Sometime a pair of jeans will be 9 or 10 bucks. Now, one of the other chain charity shops has opened an outlet... Any clothing items that are in their stores for over 6 weeks are sent to this place and sold on Wendesday for 1.75 a piece, then thursday for 1.50, then on Friday for 1.25, Saturday 1.00, Sunday .75 and Monday .50 After that, it gets shipped off somewhere, and Tuesday, they are closed to restock. For jeans that are going to get ruined in every factory and warehouse in DFW, it works just fine.
• I shop at the asian stores... The ones local aren't pretty, and there's some strange stuff in the deli, but the veggies are about half price. Some of my friends get snippy that they aren't clean... but you know what? I'm going to wash it before I eat it anyway...
• I don't run a dishwasher that isn't full.
• I don't buy silly products to clean with. Yes, they're convienent. Yes, they kill all the evil germs that are lurking to attack us... but so does Comet that I can get at the dollar store, 2 cans for a buck. Off brand bleach works just as good as the expensive stuff too...
• I have condensed my storage space from two store rooms to one, and I also put moms stuff in my store room. Since I haven't used any of that stuff for years, I'll be selling it at the flea market, as soon as I can get it in there...

That's just a few of my petty economies...

I am sure that I could make a list of more. But I won't bother you...

Purpose of this post... to clear my head. I just needed to vent a little. Thanks for listening... I don't know why you'd bother though...

Well, It looks like I kinda know what I'm growing now...

The unidentified Mammillaria has been identified as Mammillaria sonorensis v. craigii


The problem is that the darn thing isn't supposed to be winter hardy here... I'm in zone 7b and it's not supposed to be hardy above zone 9. Now it did survive outside last year, but it was an extremely mild winter... but, hopefully I'll get some seed and I'll be able to test the hardiness with seedlings... I'll be digging this guy up and taking it in over the winter...

The Opuntia gossliniana is doing good... these bright purple pads fade to blue gray after they grow up. When I bought this, I thought I was getting a Santa Rita... a plant that is purple, the new pads being green... I wasn't too happy with this, but it is growing on me. Unfortunately, it's a rather slow grower, only putting out new growth in the spring, unlike most Opuntias which will put up a new pad whenever the urge hits them...

Cactus Update...

Well folks, that Mammilaria is looking less like a meiacantha... it's definitely showing buds, and the buds are definitely purplish pink... strange since every pic on the web is white... but the references do say that the flowers can and often do have a pink or purple stripe down each petal... we'll see.

The Echinocereus reichenbachii v. baileyii has two huge blooms coming out, one on each 'head'... probably the end of the week before I see anything out of them. And the other big echinocereus, the unidentified one, is definitely setting a bud.

Should be interesting to see what happens when it does bloom, and we'll see if I'm able to pin down the species...

busy, busy, busy day...

Well, I went to the flea market today, and found skanky clothes on the floor where somebody had stolen clothes and changed them in the middle of my booth. Now I should probably explain, that my booth includes floor to cieling windows on the street. So somebody stripped in front of a window, and switched their clothes, and left these seriously skanky clothes, I'm talking sweat pants with skid marks... eyuk...

so anyway, I finally got home, mowed the lawn and worked with my plants. Managed to calm down a little... it's just that sometimes people disgust you...

put together a new planter with a variagated agave I found, and did a flowerpot tree for encheverias ... but by the time I was finished, the sun was setting and I couldn't get a picture. And just as I was picking up all my tools... somebody driving by stoped to ask me about all my plants... and consequently restore my faith in humanity.

Anyway, I'll post a few pics later this week...

Winter Hardy Cactus

well, spring has arrived in Dallas Ft.Worth and I have put out a new little rock garden with my winter hardy cactus in it...

We're in Zone 7b... actually, literally straddling the line of zone 7 and 8, and quite a few cactus species can survive outside here. Of course, we get more rain than the dessert, so good drainage is essential.

here's some pics...

The rocks I found in an empty lot, where some contractor had dumped them... they're really nice rocks. Mica inclusions, so they glitter when the sun hits them...

and here's the pics of the plants...

Echinocactus texensis... AKA Texas Horse Crippler or Texas lace cactus... native more or less to this area... this is a very small plant that will eventually get about 8 inches across and 3 inches tall... more or less a spiny pancake. Each cluster of spines has a center spine that is hard as a nail and is quite capable of crippling a horse, and there are stories about them flattening tires and going through the sole of a boot. They present a certain amount of danger to cattle, and for this reason ranchers habitually kill them on sight. Consequently, they're more or less endangered in the wild. If you start at Ft. Worth, draw a line straight south, and another line straight west, that southwestern wedge is the native territory of the plant. This is a seed grown plant from the wonderful people at High Country Gardens, and is several years from being big enough to bloom...

Echinocereus reichenbachii v. baileyii Baileys Lace Cactus... got this little guy off ebay, since I planted him outside, he's started to develop buds... I'll be sure to post pics of the blooms, as they're bright pink and bigger around than the plant. Native to Oklahoma, there are reports of the plant being hardy up to zone 5. Easy to handle, the spines are actually soft, and you don't notice it too much in the pic, but the center new spines have a definite pinkish look.

Echinocereus triglochidiatus Claret Cup Cactus, White Sands Strain. This Claret Cup is evidently going to become much bigger than the normal plants, The guys at High Country Gardens say that it can reach 2 or 3 feet tall, and have small offsets to about 2 feet wide. Right now, it's about 2 inches tall, and I don't really expect to see any of the bright red blooms for at least a year, possibly longer. Hardy to zone 5... so it should do fine here.

Escobaria vivipara Behive Cactus... I've had this plant for about 5 years, and it always reliably blooms at least three times every summer, even better when I leave it outside all winter. It really appears to like a winter chill... This one is larger than most I've seen, most probably just older than most... the blooms are fuzzy and pink... I bought this plant origionally at an estate sale. I was there to buy stuff for my flea market stall, and as I was checking out, I looked out the patio and saw this neglegted little plant. I asked how much they wanted, and they said 50 cents. got it home, it was in a six inch nursery pot, and it appeared that all but 1 inch of the soil had washed out, repotted it, it bloomed almost immediately, and it's more than trippled it's size... I planted it so one of the heads is deeper than the other, as I wanted to see if that would encourage it to off set or pup... and maybe I'll get a nice clump. I'll of course post a pic when it blooms.








Escobaria missouriensis... Missouri behive cactus.... a rather common northern species, native all the way into North Dakota, and some reports of it being hardy into Canada. This has bright yellow blooms. I also aquired this from the great people at High Country Gardens, and it's small yet, less than an inch tall and a little more than that wide. They're rather quick gowers, usually not getting more than 3 inches tall, but making many pups to form mats of blooming spines... don't know if I'll get blooms this year, but it may start the offset sometime this summer.



Mammilaria meiacantha Pincushion cactus. This came to me from Home Depot. Tag said it Mammilaria 'species' and guaranteed to be hardy to 20 degrees farenheigh. I'm 99% sure that it's a meiacantha, and it should be hardy up to zone 6, but I'm waiting for the blooms to make sure... I know that it survived outside in a pot this winter, and since it's 5 inches in diameter, it's more than large enough to bloom this summer.



This came from Home Depot also, Echinopsis 'species' supposedly hardy to 20 degrees... This is really why I don't like buying from those large chains... you never really know what you're gonna end up with... don't even have a tentative idea of what the species is, so I'm waiting for a bloom, but it might be a hybrid. Again, it's big enough to bloom, so we'll watch it this summer.

well, I forgot all about this blog...

I'm sad to say that I did...

I got sidetracked by my space... went over there and opened a site because some friends of mine had a site, and just got utterly distracted.

I still have the job from hell, and I still want a new job...

Won't be listing on ebay this week, possibly longer, as they've put in some new fees... It starts out good... listing will be reduced, gallery will be free, but we're raising the final value fee... so, after you crunch the numbers, it turns out that you're actually paying more. That, and now the sellers can't leave negative feedback on buyers. Now, the only negatives I ever left were for people who bid and then didn't pay... but no more, now I just get to take it... Really, this is the most ridiculous pile of crap... anyway, there's a boycott going on, and I'm taking part in it, not because it'll change anything, but as a gesture to my fellow sellers...

I may be looking at selling on my own site, or on one of ebays competitors, which by the way are growing leaps and bounds...