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Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Stormy weather: heavy snow for the Great Lakes area, with 30 or more centimetres possible..."
Got up this morning and everything was covered in snow. Later in the day it started to rain and it hasn't stopped raining. Now everything is covered in slush and crossing the street is like crossing a river. That's just not right. The weather is messed up. Another year of crazy weather.
 Beate came for a visit last weekend and she brought me what I thought was a stone plant (lithops). After looking it up in my cacti and succulents book I discovered it is actually a Nananthus, probably Nananthus schooneesii. This explains why it looks more like brains than a rock. It's so beautiful. It has little tiny dots covering each bulbous leaf (or stem). Now I have an opportunity to redeem myself for killing the stone plant. Alternatively I could potentially kill this one too and then I'll have added guilt.
Monday I went to our local mall, The Dufferin Mall, which we call the sufferin' mall. As far as malls go it's not too bad. Rather, it used to be not too bad. They used to have tables set up for old guys to hang out and play cards. There used to be a roti shop in the food court. Then they ditched the roti shop and brought in a bunch of standard mall crap, and got rid of the tables, chairs and old guys. Now it's basically just a regular old mall.
To continue my story, while at the Dufferin Mall, I visited a certain American department store that for the purposes of my story I'll call USA-Mart. I know how wrong it is as a Canadian to go and shop at American department stores that have singlehandedly kicked out Canadian department stores, but I went in there anyway. I immediately b-lined for the plant section. I never buy plants from Walmart, but I always look anyway. I just have a compulsion to know what's there. They had a display of seeds, seed starting kits, peat pots, jiffy pots and the like off to the side in one of the main aisles to lure people like me into making compulsive purchases. Which I did. I don't fall for the seed starting kits anymore. Even though those little pots look cute in that cheap plastic "greenhouse" contraption, I know I can put together my own set for less money so I resist. So I spent some time looking at seeds. I owed someone on the boards some seeds for a trade we did months ago so I checked to see if they had what I was looking for. I was shocked to discover that they had what I wanted and then some. They even had *gasp* organic seeds. Sure they were overpriced at more than double what was already an inflated rate, but still. Organic seeds have made it into the mainstream enough to be available at Walmart. That's interesting.
Holding back from over spending, I narrowed my seed purchases down to black pansies (Viola x wittrockiana), 'Super Chalon Giants' a frilly pansy variety, and banana plant seeds (musa ensete). The pansy seeds were expensive at nearly $5.00 CDN a pack. I reasoned that last year I paid $2.00 for one lousy black pansy plant. With a pack of seeds I'll have a limitless supply. The banana seeds were $3.99 for 5 large seeds. I'm really looking forward to get those started. I really don't need a banana tree but I just couldn't resist the opportunity to grow them from seed. Someone must have been curious to know what a banana seed looks like because a ripped open package was sitting on the rack. They're hard and black and slightly larger than a green pea.
$15.00 later I moved on to the plant section. As I stated earlier, I never purchase plants from USA-Mart. I just don't trust the condition of the plants. Plus they usually have a crappy selection.  I am certainly no expert on the inner workings of the plant department at said unnamed department store, but I figure someone just goes in there and hoses everything down every once and a while. However, Davin quickly pointed out that they had some nice looking succulents. I can't resist cacti or succulents. I ended up purchasing a pot that contained five succulents and one cactus, and a second pot that contained a cactus that was just starting to flower little tiny pink flowers. The succulents are a Pachyphytum oviferum, three unknown Pachyverias. One of the Pachyverias has a little flower bud on the end of a tall stalk that is just about to open. I replanted them all when I got home, and since I was already doing the work I repotted a few other succulents and topped up the soil on a few African violets.
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