For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Good afternoon everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful day. Here there is a mix of sunshine and clouds and a bit on the chilly side. The temperature is 7F (-13C) right now, so not too bad for a December day. There are two snowstorms coming in from the west this week, but both of them are going to miss us, including one today that seemed to head south. Normally these western storms move directly east and through our area, but not this week.
I think the second one is supposed to go north of us. So many places all around us are getting lots of snow, but we are not. On one hand that is nice, however, we do need the snow, so I wouldn’t mind a good snowstorm or two before Christmas. Speaking of plants, mine are doing well right now, everything is looking so nice and green.

The maroon tubes in the sunshine, on the lipstick plant.
A while back I took some cuttings from a couple of my hoya plants, plus my lipstick plant and had them sitting in water. Roots finally appeared and were now big enough that I could plant them. So, that is what I did this morning, well, not all morning, but it was done this morning. I still have 2 cuttings to plant. I also repotted my spider plant into a larger pot, which it definitely needed.
It certainly had a lot of roots. Speaking of my lipstick plant, it finally produced 4 flowers! I can see why they named it lipstick plant. First it grows these dark maroon colored tubes. Then the bright red flower buds come out of those tubes like bright red lipstick coming out of a tube.

This photo didn’t turn out too good, I tried to get too close. These are the flowers from the lipstick plant.
Hopefully it will begin to produce more of these flowers. It takes quite some time for these flowers to finally come out and bloom and they last about one week. I think it just needs more sunshine to produce more flowers and December is not really a sunny month.
I also cut off some “pups” (offshoots) from some of my aloe plants this morning. I got one from the Tiger aloe, one from the Black Gem aloe, two from the Krantz aloe and one from my Aloe Vera. Now I let them sit until tomorrow morning so the cut can callous before planting them. It is a great, and simple, way to get more aloe plants.

My photos on canvas, the picture in taken on an angle and the sun is shining on the White Pelicans photo.
Aloe plants are good for air purification, among other things. Aloe Vera especially is good for many things. That is one thing to remember, not all aloe varieties can be used like Aloe Vera.
Speaking of pictures, I recently got some of my photos printed on canvas. I love the way they came out! I have the larger one hanging and the two smaller ones on top of my TV cabinet with some plants. I think the arrangement looks rather nice that way. Well, I hope you all have a great Wednesday and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. Β©2025 Steve McLeod.
What a great idea to print some of your photos. They look fab.
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Thank you so much Sheree! I was quite happy with them!ππΊπ·ββ
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