Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you all well. This morning I had the alarm set for 9 AM so I could eventually get up and get to church by 10:40. I am not an early riser and it usually seems I have to have a good reason to get up by 10. On occasion, I have to get up much earlier which I don’t mind. I can easily get up at 6 or 7 AM if I need to.

So, this morning the alarm goes off at 9 and I let it beep for a few minutes before turning it off. Well, I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until a little after 10.

I sprang into action after naming three things to be thankful for. Normally I mainly say thank you for good night sleep and for the day ahead. I then went in to get a cup of coffee and to feed the cats on the back porch. Even though the forecast said there was a chance of snow, I was surprised to see what was waiting outside. There wasn’t much, but it was still there.

I looked out the side door and saw the vehicle’s windows covered with snow. At that point, I may have easily closed the door and decided not to go to church. Except there was a problem… The minister’s grandson from Nebraska was here to be baptized. SO, I decided maybe I should go.

I had cleaned out the baptismal tank on Friday and a few of us guys met at the church on Saturday to start filling it. For a long time, one of the men from church had been doing it but he decided to show me how to do it a couple of years ago. This year he decided a few others needed to learn the tricks as well. It’s a process of turning a few valves on or off depending where they lead to. Then, once the water gets so high, it is recirculated from baptismal through the hot water heater. It’s not complicated and there are written instructions. You can see the pipes hanging from the ceiling in a hallway by the hot water heater and explain where every pipe goes and comes from. Like the wiring in the church, it makes one wonder how it ever works. But, it does work…

Oh, yeah. Lynn turned down the temperature on the water heater because the last time it became too hot in the baptismal. LOL! Luckily he was at church early enough that time to turn it down so the temp was a bit cooler for the baptism. That would have been a shock to step into hot water. Stepping into freezing cold water would also have been a shock.

SO, I went to church and made it on time. Our minister is a retired mortician and I will never forget his first baptism. A week or so after the baptism he presented the certificate of baptism to the girl that was baptized. He said, “I am pleased to present you with your certificate of death.” He was so embarrassed and everyone got a good laugh.

We have fond memories that we carry with us that we like to share with others along the way. Sometimes we have to share not so fond memories to let others know that they are not alone in a particular situation. Then sometimes we find out sharing the situation wasn’t a good idea because they tell others or our experience instead of theirs. We are human and we all do through a lot of different circumstances as we grow up. It is part of our learning process. But it isn’t just our learning process. The divine realm(s) also learn from our experiences…

I deleted MANY paragraphs… I started rambling about my opinion about religion. GEEZ! And to think I am now an elder.

Anyway, Saturday afternoon as I was cleaning the church, one of the minister’s son’s brought a pan of food and put it in the refrigerator. As I left, I saw the minister heading toward the church in his van with some of his family. Later I went back to the church to check the water in the baptismal and there was A LOT of food in the refrigerator. Then after the service, he told me that they were having lunch and invited me to stay. He said there were BBQ ribs. We also had a board meeting…

Well, who can resist BBQ ribs? There was also a pan of coleslaw and potatoes of some kind that was all delicious. Some of the ribs were from Bandanas! One of the furnaces wasn’t working so the fellowship hall was very cold. Then, they had ice cream and homemade cookies. By the time I left, I was stuffed and freezing!

When I left, it was snowing AGAIN. It looked like little styrofoam balls flying around in the air. When I arrived home I noticed a lot of birds looking for food under the feeders. The Juncos and migrating sparrows had finally arrived this past week. I went inside to warm up a bit then went outside to fill the feeders and sprinkle a little on the ground. I checked on the chickens and filled their feeders and made sure they had plenty of water. Even if it is very cold, the water in the chicken house doesn’t freeze unless it gets down to 20° F for several hours. Eventually, I took a little nap.

In all, it was a good day despite the snow and cold temperatures. It is going to be cold all week…

I forgot to post Six on Saturday yesterday because I was busy. Today I thought about taking a snow photo for Silent Sunday but then it became too dark to take a photo. So, I decided to just write a post without photos.

I had been doing good about reading your posts every day in the Reader then got busy updating pages on the blog. So, I became somewhat tardy in reading your posts.

Then one day I received a message on the Goeppertia ornata page. A man from Florida asked me how to pronounce Goeppertia. Normally, I include the pronunciation of the genus and species if it is available on Dave’s Garden. In this case, Geoppertia ornata had no pronunciation. The reason is that Geoppertia ornata became a synonym of Calathea ornata in 1858. At some point, maybe then, the entire Geoppertia genus became invalid. Well, truthfully the same guy published the description in 1858 and 1860 and iPNI has both. PREVIOUSLY, the 1860 date was accepted now the 1858 description is accepted. Hmmm… The reason I know is because my first notes say 1860 with the publication but my page says 1858 with the publication title. I thought I screwed up so I wasted 30 minutes or so to figure that out. Anyway, the latest version of The Plant List (2013) says Calathea ornata was the accepted name but when the NEW Plants of the World Online came out in 2018, the name had changed back to Geoppertia ornata. Apparently in 2012, after 154 years of not being a genus, a lady decided it needed to be resurrected. So, 254 species were moved back into the Goeppertia genus making it the largest in the family. I found that out from Phytotaxa via ResearchGate. So, the guy and I exchanged a few emails. (I first confused him by guessing the pronunciation for Geoppertia instead of Goeppertia). Then I find out this guy’s family owns a large wholesale nursery in Florida and one of their specialties is Calathea species and cultivars (A LOT). So, apparently, he is trying to figure out how to pronounce Goeppertia… Well, I certainly applaud him for that. It would be bad to change the names of plants and not being able to pronunce them. My only guess is that it is pronounced go-PER-tia but that really doesn’t sound right either… There are two P’s”. Maybe gop-PER-tia… I have studdied Latin in reference to plant names but it still is somewhat confusing. So, if you have any ideas, I would love to hear it. I hate to tell someone “I don’t know”. I wound up sending an email to Rafael Goverts from Kew to quiz him about the pronunciation. Then I noticed he didn’t approve the name change. Well, I am sure he will get a good laugh and I will be thankful for brightening up his day. It has been a while since I sent him an email asking how the Celosia argentea ‘Cramer’s Amazon’ was doing. I sent him seeds at his request and his reply then was that they were starting to flower. Of course, I am trying to get his approval to use Celosia argentea var. spicata name instead of merely Celosia argentea on Plants of the World Online. Doubt that will happen though. 🙂 Well, Celosia argentea is supposed to be, in part, native to Africa and ‘Cramer’s Amazon’ were discovered in Peru… Now I have to recheck where Celosia argentea were/are native. Celosia spicata became a synonym of Deeringia spicata which is a shrub in Australia. I don’t get the connection or even how an herbaceous plant was confused with a shrub in the first place.

I seemed to have gotten off subject while writing the above paragraph but decided not to delete it. I already deleted a half hour on pharagraphs earlier. What was the subject anyway? Oh yeah, my apology for not reading your posts this past week. Well, there was an attempt a couple of nights.

So, I guess I better stop writing this post and get to work. Either reading your posts or working on updates. Otherwise, by the time I am finished, it will be Monday already.

So, have a great week ahead! Be safe, well, and stay positive! Keep warm or cool depending on where you may be!