Thanksgiving Blooms

 

When we no longer are in danger of a frost in the spring

I take my cactus plants outside and put them on the picnic table.

I leave them there all through the spring and summer 

until the nights start getting cold in the fall.

When they come in the house,

I put them in one of the upstairs bedrooms where it is relatively dark.

Then when they begin to bud I bring them downstairs.

I brought this one down last week.

It is in need of being repotted after the first of the year 

because there is only one side of the plant that is blooming.

The story behind it is that this was started from a few leaves off of my 

mother-in-law's cactus that she had had since Strongheart 

was a boy.  

Hers sat in the kitchen and was huge but it just never bloomed...

until...

the Christmas after she passed away.

I asked my father-in-law if I could take a few leaves from it so I could try and start a new one.

And it has bloomed every year since. 

It always blooms early

and most years by Christmas it is not longer blooming.

But we always think of Mom.

"the rain is over; it is gone.

the flowers have appeared in the land."

Song of Songs 2:11b-12a

I have a correction to make.  I originally had this post titled "Christmas Blooms".  When I visited my friend Granny Marigold I realized that what I have is not a Christmas cactus, but rather a Thanksgiving cactus.  She has a picture of how to identify the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter cacti .  It definitely makes sense because it always blooms in November but not in December.  Thank you, Granny M for sharing that bit of information.