Beautiful light

Sun came out today so beautifully. It has been so cold the last few days and I just stood in the heat of the light streaming in at the back door and windows. I love the warmth of the sun. My body temperature was 96.3 this morning so since running a temp for several days the lower body temp was really freezing me. That is what woke me up. The chills. I really felt the warmth of the sun to the core this morning. So, ADD that I am, I got distracted by the light and had to get my camera and play with some shots. I still have not been able to figure exactly how to capture that beautiful picture I see in my mind's eye. I think I have shaky hands or something.

The first cactus is a crow's foot cactus that my Grandma gave me. It is doing very well. I always liked the little cactus she had hanging in a container on the wall and several years before she died she planted a start for me in this container. It has grown a lot.

The cactus in the little pink shoe was my Nana's. Very strange story involved. It had been at their house for as long as I could remember and when my Papa died sometime after my Nana, the cactus was all brown and shriveled up. I really liked the little shoe and had always liked the cactus. I started just to throw it away (the cactus) and save the shoe but decided instead to pull some of the brown shriveled part off and water it to see what would happen. strangely enough, it started to grow little green new cacti! This was 15 plus years ago. It grew so fat and then it actually bloomed a glorious big orange bloom. I have a picture of it but that was pre-digital days so the shot is buried in a pile of pictures I need to organize one day. I will try to scan it if I find it. It never has bloomed again.

Then about five years ago at my other house, I got a terrible ant problem and the ants had decided to take up residence in my little shoe. I took it outside, poured water in it to force the ants out (not knowing if this would work). Well, the ants vacated but the poor cactus rotted. I kept the same dirt in the container along with some of the surviving dried cactus and decided to watch and wait; for a miracle had happened before and a girl can always dream right?

Well, nothing happened. We even moved and I moved that little shoe right along the way it was and then this past summer what do you know but it sprouted one green cactus and then more to follow.

It is certainly looking very fat and happy again so maybe I will even get a bloom. I love this little cactus because it reminds me of the resiliency we need in life in order to survive.