An Orchid That Smells like Chocolate Mint!

Stanhopea occulata, blooming in the back yard. This somewhat variable orchid species is named for the red eye-like spots that cover the flowers. I can alway tell when there's an occulata blooming as there is a powerful chocolate-mint fragrance that carries a good 20 feet. The pendent flowers sometimes get caught in other baskets or in the growing media as they attempt to burrow down to hang below the plant (in nature, below the branch that they are growing on). This one was stuck in another basket. I would have never even known it was in bloom had that powerful chocolate-mint fragrance not alerted me to the blossoms. I feel kind of like an orchid sniffer dog...

Post Vacation Stress

Hahah, I could use some chocolate right now. I found this sign up in the Seattle airport promissing stress relief via chocolate. Of course, I had not thought it would be prophetic (grin). As the credit card bills roll in for my little Alaska vacation, I'm thinking that chocolate is looking better all the time.

On another note, I'll get more pictures up of Alaska shortly. I have finally finished weeding out and deleting the worst of the blurry, underexposed otter, bear and bird pictures and STILL have over 12 GB of pictures left. 10MPixel is great until you have to store them all, chuckle. Meanwhile, I have a new appreciation for sun and warm weather and am going out to enjoy the San Diego beaches for a little bit.