Like a Giant Greenhouse

As long as we're talking about windows, here's another one -- our front window, in our dining room. Like the kitchen windowsill I showed you yesterday, this has grown steadily more cluttered over the years, mostly with plants. This window has an eastern exposure and it gets great morning light. (Here's a photo from almost three years ago -- it looks so bare!)

Isn't that tall fiddle-leaf fig crazy? We're going to have to trim it at some point -- like the dracaena in the bedroom and the avocado and yucca in the living room, it's almost up to the ceiling. And we have high ceilings! I shudder to think how we're going to maneuver all these plants if and when we need to move.

Here's our back door, looking out onto the garden from the living room. You can see the avocado on the left and the yucca peeking into the frame on the right. We've pruned that avocado once already and now it's even bigger than before.

Do you see Olga out there on the lawn? She's become obsessed with the ivy-covered elder tree at the back of our property. It's pretty jungly back there, and I suspect some critters are nesting in that tree. She just lies on the grass and stares and stares, with periodic forays to sniff around its base.

Anyway, back to the dining room -- we keep five of our orchids there, and they've been very happy in the bright morning light, blooming again and again. All but one of them is flowering this year. That's one above, and I showed you another already. The rest haven't fully opened.

We have four other orchids in the living room, and two of those are flowering:

Despite the tropical ambience in the house, our weather has become a bit wintry again. I walked the dog early yesterday morning wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, expecting it to be balmy like it was all weekend, and I got cold. I looked at the temperature on my phone and it was 42º F! I needed a coat!

I did get some things done work-wise yesterday, so that felt good. Not as fulfilling as going to work, but it's something.