Orchids Instead of Snow (Picture Heavy)

Watching the news early Saturday morning we heard that there was an orchid show at the Douglas College Student Center in New Brunswick.  The weather forecasters had been hyping a big storm coming so much so that the governor had issued a State of Emergency to become effective at 12 noon even though it wasn't supposed to start snowing until at least 4.  Since it's only about a 20 minute drive for us we thought we could get there and back in plenty of time and it didn't look threatening at all.  The only problem we had was that the Orchid Society had the wrong address on their website and we wound up on the Rutgers campus driving in circles until we found a young family who, although they weren't from the area, were able to help us find our destination 7 mins. down the road.

We walked around the displays and I took many pictures - just sharing about a dozen.

Rachel said the ones below look like evil French genies.

Some very odd pattern combinations.

Looks like a parrot in there doesn't it?

The closest thing to blue.  The blue orchids you see being sold are dyed.  These were so pretty with their mottled petals.

And I see an angel in this one.  

One of the displays.  I don't know how these people get these beauties to flower at the time of the show and I don't know how they transport them in such cold weather.  

I was able to get a couple of questions of mine answered.  The first was about my white orchid below. This one sent out a flower stem which developed leaves before continuing with the flowers.  I'd never seen that happen on any that I had and I wasn't sure what to do about it.  When I asked one of the vendors he said that it doesn't occur often, but it will send out some roots from where those leaves are and when it does I can separate that from the mother plant.  In the meantime he said to enjoy the flowers. This has been blooming for several months already.

My other question was regarding the drops of honeydew that I have on almost all of my orchids.  I was afraid it was a pest, but it turns out that they are very happy when they produce that and as long as there are no aphids it's harmless.  

I hadn't planned on purchasing any plants.  We've accumulated a little more than a dozen over the last few years which have surprisingly been gracing us with long-lasting blooms throughout the year.  But I saw this one and it was different than any of the others we have so we decided to take a chance on it.  Happy to see that it made it home in the cold weather unscathed.

So with the day off today I went through some of my stamps and found an orchid and this other stamp with multiple flowers that reminded me of the new one.  I stamped them with fadeout ink and colored them with my Prismacolor pencils since I inadvertently used regular cardstock instead of watercolor paper.  I drew in the leaves and roots on the orchid and the pot that they're both in.  I'll probably be using this as a card front in the near future.  

I colored some other stamped images today but I'm going to save sharing them until later as they definitely are going on cards.  

Oh, and by the way, the "snow" didn't start until very late in the day and then only was a cover before turning to rain.  Today however, the temps have dipped into the single digits and below 0 with the wind chill.  A holiday and day off for me, but a good day to stay in for the most part.