October | 2015 | stillwaterlakedawnblog

Cactus plants are fun to grow for those who are patient. With a little water every now and then, eventually they begin to grow. You can hardly notice but after a while, you will see that they have changed.

We were in Arizona a couple of years ago and our kids were fascinated by the huge cactus plants. They wanted to bring some home.

Seneca and Raven really liked the cactus when we visited Arizona two years ago.

We told them that when we got home, we would get some small ones. We found that Home Depot had a great selection of small cactus plants and we bought a dozen or more for $10.

Small cactus plants at Home Depot, the flowers are fake!!

We arranged them in small pots. They looked lonely at first, but slowly, after months they began to grow and merge with each other. Eventually they crowded their pots and had to be cut back. One bloomed shortly after we planted it, a tiny blossom on a prickly base.

One cactus, one that is actually quite smooth and had little white tufts decorating it, developed a brown furry-looking nub a few weeks ago. The nub grew into a stem and then a bud emerged.

We watched carefully for several days, waiting for the flower to bloom. And when it did it was simply amazing, white with yellow toward the center and it smelled divine. It only lasted for a few hours before it faded.

So now we are waiting for the next event in our cactus gardens, and we are patient.

I know some of you read this blog simply to read news of Seneca and Raven. They have now been with us for seven years. Seneca is in 5^th grade. She loves dancing and drumming with the Elwha Klallams and participates in the after school program where, among other things, they learn the Klallam language.

Raven is 14 and in the 8^th grade. He is playing football on the middle school team which has encouraged him to keep his grades up. He and Seneca went on a two week canoe trip into Canada last summer where they paddled to various villages along the coast of Coast of Vancouver Island. It was an adventure to remember.