Beautiful Cybister Hippeastrum, and a Film Called ‘The Herd’

The beautiful red and lime green cybister hippeastrum that we planted nearly three weeks ago is beginning to bloom.

One of the cybister hippeastrum bulbs has started to bloom. I love its spare, spindly appearance. The lush blooms of ordinary hippeastrum are fat and decadent: this variety is gorgeous in its long-limbed, svelte profile. I’m eager for it to develop pollen so I can take and store some for cross pollinating this season.

The nursery that shipped me the dead banana trees has agreed to replace them at no cost, or issue a refund. I opted for the refund. It’s getting too cold now for young banana trees to travel across the country. I’ll order them again in spring.

I’m going to experiment with the ones I received. Although they appear completely dead, tonight, I’m going to chop them to the soil line and give them plenty of warmth and light, and a little nitrogen. If the root systems are intact, they may go into survival mode and send out shoots. It’s a long shot, but worth trying. It’s just too sad a thing to throw them away if there’s any spark of life still left.

My husband hung our large, illuminated Moravian star at our front door last night. When I arrived home, there it was, glowing soft amber in the dark. There’s not much about Christmas that I love, but simple, beautiful displays like the Moravian star, seen often in Germany this time of year, always warm my heart. When winter sets in and the nights and long and cold, the warm glow of a pretty luminary is just right.

At a friend’s behest, I watched a short film last night called ‘The Herd’. It’s a 21-minute-long vegan/feminist look at the dairy production industry. It’s not like any film you’ve seen before.

This film does a lot of things well, but one thing it does very effectively is take an honest look at the abject horrors of living and dying as a dairy cow. It’s pretty tough to see, but it’s truth from stem to stern, so go and watch it.

I don’t care much what your take is on animal sensibility: I think we can all agree that no creature on earth should live so wretchedly and die so miserably. I don’t want to be a spoiler, so I’ll just recommend that you go and watch it and figure it out for yourself. ‘The Herd’ is available for free on YouTube.

Last night, I dreamed I was at a beach. That’s all.

Live in peace.