I'm back. Been out a few days prepping for court today. Sat there in the courtroom five hours waiting my turn, just for the judge to decide to ignore 10+ glaring issues to focus on only one, but, at least I will get to see my son regularly again. Today was the first day I had seen or even talked to him since December 8th. 6.5 weeks of ZERO contact with my oldest.

@ Demonskid:
OMG, hugs. *BIG HUG* I was 31 when my dad passed. He was 54. We were both too young. The younger we are, the more it bites to lose a parent.

Re: Bonsai
Many years ago, a local botanical garden had a series of bonsai on display, which included white pine, willow leaf fig, weeping fig, and trident maple. When growing wild, these trees can get 150 ft, 50 ft, 50 ft, and 35 ft, respectively. It's amazing at how they can prune these trees to survive as itty bitty little foot-tall house plants. I'm not even good at pruning industrious plants like mint, so manipulating a tree like that seems like sorcery to me!

Re: Houseplants
If mine don't have a label saying "hardy to 0°F / -17.8°C", they go in the pot, in the house. Like, the past few days we've been at 10°F / -12.2°C. Which I've got an out-of-season mammoth sunflower sprout in a pot outside that sprang up in December, and I'm shocked it trucked through being covered in snow. I thought they were a summer-heat-only kind of plant.

It’s already outside and been through ice and snow lol. No point now. XD;;

I wish my daughters father had the same motivation that you do, but he's legally he's abandoned her because he doesn't make an effort to see her at all. I don't know how to share at this point though. When we both (my daughter and I) had covid I reached out to see if we could ride the week out there and he said his mom was fine with it but that I couldn't stay with her. I got really mad, and I told my family what was happening. My mom and I agreed that if I would have dropped her there that they would have taken off with her and I'd have to get the authorities involved.

AsheSkyler wrote: ↑Jan 23rd, '25, 05:45 Re: Houseplants
If mine don't have a label saying "hardy to 0°F / -17.8°C", they go in the pot, in the house. Like, the past few days we've been at 10°F / -12.2°C. Which I've got an out-of-season mammoth sunflower sprout in a pot outside that sprang up in December, and I'm shocked it trucked through being covered in snow. I thought they were a summer-heat-only kind of plant.

Some of those mammoth sunflower varieties don't even BLOOM til they've had a first frost. I know this first hand, because my mom used to grow a massive variety with white seeds.

We grew sunflowers once I think. I don’t remember if they actually grew or not. Maybe. It was like 2 yrs ago and I can’t remember lol.

I think they were the one frivolous thing my mom would grow for us. Most the garden needed to be for staple foods.

Last night I was remembering when we got snow in May, and the pea plants survived it.

I grew black eyed Susan’s for two years. My mom didn’t like them tho. They have spiky stems. XD

@ Outline:
Yikes... Some people are just... bonkers. Crap like that is why I never wanted to have kids in the first place. Time, cost, parenting mistakes, all that stuff I was fine with. It was other people that made me dread the thought of procreating.

Re: Sunflowers
I would love to have an unofficial wall of them around my yard, but my potential 12-footers only made it to maybe 4 feet tall. I'm a terrible plant person. Oo, hey, if anybody has the yard space, make a sunflower room! (Just plant the sunflowers in a circle and put a lawn chair in the center.) Mammoths with stark white seeds sound pretty cool, and I'm less worried about my volunteer sprout in the pot knowing some actually need frost. Dunno if the sprout is one of them, but good to know it may do just fine despite the ice.

Hollyhocks make good rooms too. I've heard of people tying them together at the top to have a whole little hollyhock house.

I decided to never have kids because I knew they wouldn't be able to get away from me when I blew my top. Bad enough I yelled at my eldest niece and nephew. :(

I think I’ve heard of hollyhocks. Might’ve had them here too. Altho I think my Chinese mom calls them hollydogs lol. Chinese mispronunciation and all. XD