Something Beautiful from Debbie of It's All About Purple

I was looking at Debbie's blog, It's All About Purple and saw what she posted on December 31, 2023.

I'm not usually emotional, but this really hit me. I actually teared up.

I guess it's because I know I need to remember this, but I know it's going to be hard.

Reminding Me of Snow

I truly loved teaching in Illinois. I was part of a group of close knit teachers who supported each other and would go out to dinner once a month or so. Actually, the whole school felt like a family. Now that everyone except one younger teacher are retired they still meet once a month. There are nine of us. 

When I left Illinois to return to Hawaii after 35 years of living on the mainland, they had a loving farewell party for me. Whenever I return to Illinois, we all get together again. It's wonderful. I feel truly blessed to have such supportive, loving teacher friends.

In fact, we still communicate constantly through a group text. 

When we made that quick trip back to Illinois in October to attend the funeral for one of my dearest friends, Peggy, I wasn't able to meet with the teacher group. However, just for fun, I dropped off a box of chocolate macadamia nuts with one of my teacher friends to share with the group when they came together again. They texted several photos to me so I could feel part of the event when they had their luncheon and they even tried to do a FaceTime call.

And then a few days later I was surprised with a package.

Judy was the librarian at our school and a treasured friend, just like the others. Here we are together at Halloween 1996 in my classroom.

She sent me a dish towel with snowflake patterns, a package of paper napkins saying "Let it snow!" and packages of hot chocolate mixes. She wanted me to remember what winter was like in the Midwest.

So yes, I really was blessed and so very lucky to have these lifelong friends no matter how far apart we are. And you know what? It's rather chilly these days. Yes, 70 degrees F is chilly for local people in Hawaii. I think we'll have some hot chocolate tomorrow.

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Oh goodness! I got a text message yesterday from my daughter that KC's high school might be calling a Snow Day because they're expecting 8" of snow.

Yikes! 

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Good grief! Would you believe it is 58 or less degrees this morning? 

This is really rare. 

Granted, I know it's going to warm up in another couple of hours, but still... cooold.

Could this be why I slept so well last night? I need to text my teacher group and let them know I'm cold too. 😁

Totally Amazing Lunches for a Preschooler

I have a wonderful relative named Aya who is one of the most creative, artistic people I know. She is married to my cousin's son. 

When their child entered preschool, 3 year old JO did not want to go. So Aya began preparing these elaborate lunches which JO loved showing off to her teachers.

I was absolutely flabbergasted. Looking at this, I would definitely want to eat it. 😋

And here's another one. Aya has used little slices of nori to make the faces on the teddy bear rice ball.

If I made mini sandwiches like these for my kids when they were growing up, I know they'd have loved it. 

Uuuummmm.... But I wasn't this creative.

Then again, these are so cute, that I would just want to look at it and not eat it.

I do have the most talented relatives, by blood as well as marriage.

It's Back.... COVID is Back... (Not that it ever left)

Remember the movie Poltergeist? There's that famous horror line, "They're back!" 

That's what COVID is feeling like. (I'm writing this blog post on Saturday.)

We met three other couples through tai chi several years ago and became good friends. We text each other daily and have traveled with two of the couples to Europe twice now.

On Friday, I learned that: 

Couple 1 with their son (went to the Philippines for a couple of weeks and returned recently. Couple 2 went to pick them up at the airport.) Couple 1 and their son tested POSITIVE on Friday. Couple 2 might be OK. They were all wearing their masks in the car on the way home.

(My pilot cousin did tell me a while ago that usually the plane's air filtration system should make it safe onboard the airplane. It's the airport you have to worry about.)

Couple 3 had a granddaughter test herself before joining them on New Years Day. She tested POSITIVE for COVID 2 days later.

This was all making me nervous.

My brother, Dennis who usually picks mom up at the Day Care Center told me their musician son who had been performing in the islands was now feeling sick.

Art always takes mom to the Day Care and Dennis picks her up. All this COVID business got us nervous and Art volunteered to pick mom up instead.... just in case Dennis could be infected. 

And that's what Art did on Friday. 

An hour or so after Art and mom returned, the Day Care called and said someone sitting next to her on Friday had tested POSITIVE for COVID.

Are you kidding?

Arrrghhhh!

So we told mom that over the weekend, she'd have to be confined to her area of the house and we would bring meals to her. 

On Saturday morning, Art came home from his jog while I was still sleeping and prepared breakfast for her and served it in her room.

I've prepared Liquid IV which is a hydration drink for her to take throughout the day. 

I've programmed Alexa to remind her to drink the Liquid IV every hour. 

I tested her on Saturday and she was negative. I'll test her again on Sunday and on Monday.

She's really chipper today, but it's only one day since exposure. UNLESS she was exposed 😧 on Tuesday which is the other day that she goes to the Day Care.

Sigh...

POSTSCRIPT: (Written on Monday)

There's so much information on infectious rates and how long you need to quarantine and when you stop being contagious. Art found an NPR website titled Here's how to decide if you're safe to go out when you're recovering from omicron. 

Doctors are now saying to quarantine for 5 days and then wear a mask when going out for another 5 days. The NPR website is saying it's more like 8 days of quarantine with Omicron because the 5 days is based on earlier variants. On the other hand, I've also read that Omicron is less deadly than the earlier variants.

Mom tested Negative again yesterday. I think she's rather enjoying having her meals brought to her on a tray, often with a dessert. There's no coughing. So fingers crossed she'll be able to join her friends tomorrow.🤞

Training Alexa to Speak Japanese

OK... 

I'm actually now of a certain age that could be called "senior citizen" or Kupuna in Hawaiian which means grandparent or honored elder.

Whatever the case, trying to understand these new fangled contraptions drive me nuts.

I was happy to have my Echo Dots remind me to do things. I had Alexa on the Echo Dots figured out on this.

But then...

I put this Echo Pop in mom's room to remind her to keep hydrated by drinking water, getting ready to go to Senior Club, etc. 

I programmed Echo Pop in mom's room to the Japanese language.

Then I asked her in English what time it was.

She started playing weird Japanese music from Amazon. 😵

So back to the online drawing board.

I learned that I had to ask questions in Japanese or she would misinterpret things. Arrrghhh! Not only that, but I had to make sure I spoke with correct Japanese pronunciation. 

OK... That worked. She now answered corrected.

So I wrote a whole bunch of reminders (in English on my iphone) for mom. But I learned the next day that it didn't seem to work. Mom didn't pay attention to it. Turned out that Japanese Alexa was announcing my English reminders (in English) in a sort of Japanese accent. 🙄

So.... then I'm thinking... Do you suppose I have to write it in Japanese too? Arrrghhh! 

Thank goodness for Google Translate. I translated mom's reminders (that I'd written in English) to Japanese and pasted it onto my Alexa app.

And BINGO! I worked! 

Now Japanese Alexa (on the Echo Pop) was announcing reminders in lovely Japanese.  Woo hoo!

Will mom now pay attention to a machine?

I don't know.

So then.... I wondered if I synced the Japanese reminder (Everywhere) on the other 3 Echo Dots in the house, would it say it in Japanese everywhere even though the Echo Dots are programmed in English?

Art and I went to the kitchen to wait for it.

BINGO! 

It did. But the funny thing is that our Echo Dots, read the Japanese words correctly in Japanese, BUT Alexa said it with a hilarious American accent. 😂

This whole thing has taxed my brain to the MAX. 

It's bad enough that I got all confused on my blog schedule for the first week of January. 

Here's hoping I don't have to deal with understanding more technology for a good long while now. 

As a Kupuna, I don't think I could handle it.

And to my good friend, Linda in Kansas who got me started on making this Echo change for mom, thank you. This is one more thing to help us in our caregiving of mom.

POSTSCRIPT:

I asked mom whether the machine helped her remember what to do and she laughed and said, "Yes." 😄

Prepared for the New Year

Uh OHHH…

I goofed and see I posted this on the wrong date. I meant to have this post tomorrow. Sigh…

.........................................................................................................

We were a little behind on getting ready for the New Year. However, one of the chores we did get done was cleaning the refrigerators. Yes, we have two refrigerators. Many people in Hawaii do, because it's so warm and humid here. We don't turn on the air conditioners unless absolutely necessary.

Since we hate to throw out anything, our fridge gets rather crowded. So cleaning it out before the New Year is always something we try to do.

Yes I was wearing a cardigan. It was a cool 63 degrees F that morning.

Uuumm... There was a bottle of sesame seeds from 2021. It was probably petrified. I had to toss that. 

But what I really had to do was organize all the things we had to store.

One of the major things were all the treats we'd gotten from our very generous, excellent bakers and cooks we have for neighbors. 

There's also a particular friend who bakes the most unbelievably delicious, crispy Rice Krispies cookies during the holidays. They are coveted by everyone. We do not eat them all at once like somebody I know does (you 😂 know who you are). I freeze them and we savor them for a month slowly... very slowly.

We eat what we can of all the treats during the holidays and what can be frozen is dated and stored. 

Mom has also brought home a lot of treats from the Senior Center so I dole those out to her carefully. I have to watch her sugar intake, but the doctor told me that at 94, I should let her have what she likes within reason.

OK, the refrigerators are ready for 2024.

But then there's this sink caulking that's been bothering us for quite a while. The caulking between the counter and stainless sink has developed this black gunky moldy thing. When we had the sink installed some 15 years ago, they recommended this style because we were told you would not know what was growing beneath the counter if it was hidden. OK, now we know but it's rather unsightly to us.

What to do... what to do...

We decided to replace the caulk since I had a lot a latex caulk left over from the termite war. I'm not done with that yet, but anyway, I had the caulk available so I figured this was a good time to finally take care of this. 

Art warned me not to use a metal scraper because it could scratch the stainless steel. I happened to have a teflon knife so I used it to scrape out the yucky grout.

I looked online and discovered that you're not supposed to use latex caulk so there was a trip to Home Depot to get silicone caulk. Thank goodness for technology!

Once that was done, I used painter's tape on the stainless steel. I SHOULD have put it on the counter also. 🙄

Art then applied the silicone caulk which I smoothed over with my finger. Yuck!

The tube said 30 minute water ready, BUT you're not supposed to touch it for 24 hours. 😖

It's hard to do anything in the kitchen if you have to be careful about touching the caulk.

We told mom not to do anything at the sink, but we knew she'd forget so we taped everything up since she wakes up at 4:30 and might try to start cooking her oatmeal. 

I put up a sign saying we would be buying breakfast so she was very happy to wait for a McDonald's treat.

This was a much bigger project than I thought it would be, BUT I'm happy we're going into the new year with a mold-free sink.

For now...

Wishing for a Peaceful 2024!

Happy 2024 everybody!

I can't believe how quickly 2023 flew by.

Although the Hawaii government has tried to crack down on illegal fireworks, they are still getting through. I can't even imagine who they're buying it from because I certainly don't see any being sold anywhere. 

Since 2011, aerial fireworks, fountains, sparklers and other consumer fireworks have been illegal.  

I got this from Spectrum News:

"Last year, a 28-year-old Wahiawa man died after fireworks exploded in his face, a 20-year-old Hawaii Island man died from injuries sustained while holding a firework launcher that went off above his head, and a 35-year-old Hawaii Island man died while making homemade fireworks."

However, despite the law and despite the awful news every year of someone dying, being blinded or disfigured by fireworks, it keeps happening. In fact, according to Hawaii News Now:

Officials say approximately 16 tons of illegal fireworks were seized, with nearly all of the fireworks being multi-shot “cakes” or launchers capable of firing multiple fireworks into the air in long consecutive strings of fire.

But yes, we did still stay up to see them from our window. 

Ah well...

Here's wishing 2024 will bring peace and some good news because gosh... we need it.

POSTSCRIPT:

I just woke up. Here are some photos from last night. It was absolute madness!

The smoke from the fireworks must have been horrible for anyone with respiratory problems. I was worried someone's house could catch fire.

Friends and relatives around the island tell me they had to sedate their dogs and close their windows to keep out the smoke too.

Unbelievable!

Eating Crow Over a Dot

Have you ever heard the term Eating Crow? 

According to Wikipedia:

Eating crow is a colloquial idiom, used in some English-speaking countries, that means humiliation by admitting having been proven wrong after taking a strong position. The crow is a carrion-eater that is presumably repulsive to eat in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.

Well... This time I had to do it.

It all began when the Echo Dot in my office suddenly stopped working. I looked up how to fix it, and it said I needed to reboot it or something or other. I forgot the exact terminology. I unplugged it and replugged it. 

I need Alexa to time me when I'm doing my vertigo exercises. I need her to remind me to give mom her medications. I need Alexa to remind me to do a million things. 

And the Echo Dot in my office just had a crazy blue light going round and round and round driving me crazy.

I looked up how I could restart the Echo by pressing on the button. I pressed on that circle with the line going across it a gazillion times but nothing. Still got that blue light going round and round and round.

So I told Art I was going to get another Echo because this one was broken. I just KNEW it was broken!  

Then I saw this Echo Pop on Amazon. I don't really know the difference between the Dot and the Pop except the price. I'd never heard of the POP. And this was on SALE! Woo hoo! 55% off!!! Yay!!!

The Echo Pop arrived and I asked Art if the definitely dead Echo Dot should go into the technology waste or garbage.

"Let me look at it first," he said. So I handed it to him and went back to my office to send some holiday emails out.

I was startled a few minutes later to hear Alexa's voice saying something about setting it up. I thought it was the Echo Pop next to me... but noooo.

Art had reset the Echo Dot magically. He looked up the serial number on the back of the Echo Dot and found out it was the 3rd generation. He then checked YouTube and reset the Dot. Turned out you're supposed to press the  •, not the circle with the line across it. Arrrghhh!

Sigh...

So now the Echo Dot is working again and I had the extra Echo Pop I bought.

Ah well... I put it in mom's room.

I can have Alexa remind mom when it's time for her to join her friends at the Day Care Center. I can have Alexa remind her that Art and I are at tai chi or whatever. Mom's memory is fading so having reminders are important. Granted she might disregard a machine telling her something in English.

When Art returned the repaired reset rebooted or whatever Echo Dot to me, yes... I had to eat crow.

And did he enjoy the moment? He reassured me that he wasn't feeling good at all about my discomfort 😏.

So why was he laughing? 

Termite Tenting Reprieve Buuut...

My cousin, Arnold offered to have us stay at his house whenever we'd have to get our house tented for lurking termites who could be munching away at the house. And my blogger buddy, Honolulu Aunty also offered us a place to stay. 

For people on the mainland or anywhere else you are blessed with not having termites, let me explain. Whenever a home is thought to be infested with termites, a company can come and put a colorful tent over and around your entire house. A poisonous gas called Vikane is pumped into the tent to kill all the termites and some other bug that is within that tent. All food items will need to be bagged, including what you have in your fridge. And of course, you need to find somewhere else to stay while this is being done.

However, just as I was resigned to this eventuality, our friend, Terry told me about the termite inspector she uses from Aloha Termite and Pest Control. She said whenever they suspect a termite lurking, they call Stacy Hirota. I liked her even more when she told me she was once a teacher too.

When Art returned with my brother from the Aloha Termite fumigation vault with our cabinet we saw a lot of teeny tiny termites that had been trying to escape the gas in the wood. I sort of, almost felt sorry for them.

I texted Stacy and she came a couple of days later.

Stacy inspected the cabinet we'd already taken to the fumigation vault and the support beams of the house next to the cabinet where I thought there were more termites. She said we were safe. She really didn't feel there were termites there and said tenting was unnecessary. She also advised us to bang on the fumigated cabinet a few times to dislodge any more poop that might be there so that we don't get spooked if more droppings are seen. (As you can see, the kitchen, dining room and living room was in complete disorder.)

However...

Of course there's a however. She said we should try to paint whatever naked wood we see at the back of the cabinet (including the cabinet right behind the infested one) and caulk the cracks and holes where termites can crawl in. Those termites are very teeny. It only takes two to start a colony according to Stacy. I even had to caulk the extra shelving holes.

Well gosh darn! There's a LOT of holes and cracks. And then there's the sides, backs and underneath the shelves and drawers. Arrghh!

Stacy also confirmed that it was drywood termites that were feasting on our cabinets. Drywood termites eat rather slowly. The real danger, she said, are ground termites because they eat a LOT and quickly. Ground termites search for water and wood. Drywood termites don't need water to survive. Therefore, it's not good to plant a lot of things close to your house where you would be watering it. Termites will sniff that out and then eat your house for dessert. I have since heard lots of horror stories from friends and relatives. 

Stacy recommended we have the perimeter of our house treated with Termidor to kill ground termites that come into contact with it. You could tell Stacy was once a teacher. She had a folder full of information to teach us all we needed to know about termites.

So yes...

I caulked all the holes we could see in the cabinet and Art painted the naked unfinished wood. 

It took us several days and it was a misery having dishes, cups, mugs, bowls, blenders, coffee makers, rice cookers, etc. all around the rest of the house while hoping I would remember where I put them. 

But then there's the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen where Stacy said it would be a good idea to caulk the holes we won't be using.

Sigh...

And it took a whole day to get the cabinet back in place with the help of our neighbor. Now there's just the mouldings to reinstall and we'll be done.

This has been our lives this month. My friend, Cloudia recently said, "There is more drama here than in many Korean soaps!"  😂

I'm afraid so.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to Everybody who celebrates this fun holiday!

It's rather hectic at our house because of all the termite madness which caused our holiday preparations to be delayed.

I haven't been able to get on the computer to visit you for the past couple of weeks, but hope you're having a fun, joyous day.

Art will be busy doing his volunteer work delivering meals (Meals on Wheels) to all his "clients." 😄

And we're having a Popeye's chicken lunch for mom just for fun. Apparently they have KFC in Japan at Christmas so we thought we'd sort of copy them. The kids have sent mom a lot of gifts so it will be a lot of fun.

So on this Christmas Day, I'm looking back at this photo from 1980 when we lived in Chicago and friends had surprised us with a giant real live tree for the kids to enjoy.

It was a happy time. And it's making me smile. I'm wishing you all a lot of smiles today.

Terrible Termite Trouble! Arrrgghh!!!

I wrote earlier about the very unpleasant surprise we found when preparing for our belated Thanksgiving Dinner on December 2nd.

When people in Hawaii see those little termite poop, it sends a cold shiver down our entire body. Our brain is disbelieving at first. 

"Why me?" "Why now?" "Is it a Ground 😫 Termite?" "Is it a Drywood 😩Termite?" "Will the house have to be tented?" Where will we stay while it's being tented?"  "How did the termite get in?" 

At first, we thought the termites were only in the cabinet door.

Could we be that lucky? So we took off the door we thought might be infested. 

Nope! Not lucky.

I'd put white paper under where we saw that first poop and there was still poop the following morning.

And more poop the  morning after that. 

I thought Drywood Termites ate slowly. Why are they pooping so much?

Now we (me) were really freaking out.

Art even went to Home Depot to get extra large plastic bags to enclose all the doors and drawers so whatever termites were lurking in them wouldn't move to some other part of the house. Yes, we were paranoid.

We called Aloha Termite and Pest Control who sent over an estimator who told us we could avoid tenting the house and just bring the cabinet over to their fumigation vault. It would cost about $400.

We asked our neighbor for help in loading the 8 foot cabinet into our van. I was sure it wouldn't fit.

"Don't worry..." said Art. "It will fit. I measured it. So it will probably fit. Maybe."

But incredibly, it did.

Our friend, Dave came to help Art drive it to Aloha Termite and Pest Control's Fumigation Vault.

My brother came the next morning to help pick up the fumigated cabinet pieces and we saw a lot of teeny tiny termites. They were still attached to the cabinet here and there where they died after a desperate attempt to escape the fumes.

I thought our troubles were over.

I HOPED our termite troubles were over.

Arrrghhh!

However, I found more termite poop near one of the house support beams close to where the cabinet was located.

We've got another termite inspector coming and we already know what she'll be telling us.

Sigh... That we’re going to have to tent the house and everybody has told me what a headache that is. They say all your food has to be bagged, even things in your refrigerator. You have to stay at a hotel, relative's or friend’s home. And so on and so forth.

I did not need this to add to the stress of the holiday season.

Arrrghhhhhhh!

Glider Spider

This is just a silly post.

I don't like spiders. They have creeped me out since I was little. We had creepy garden spiders that I won't even show you because it will creep me out to look at my post. I hated the giant cane spiders that were about 5 feet across. Just kidding. They were more like 3 inches wide, but they would sit on the wall until you came into the room and then go skittering here or there... I never knew which way they'd go. 

Once, I walked into my bedroom in our sugar plantation camp house and a giant cane spider fell on me and seemed to run around my muumuu before I screamed, shook and made it fall to the floor. I yelled at my brother to do something but it turned out that he didn't like them either.

Anyway, I don't like spiders.

However, the other day Art noticed something he just had to show me.

If you can't see this, you can click on the photo to enlarge it.

This tiny spider had glided all the way from Art's forgotten bonsai tree to mom's overgrown orchid plant with a little help from the wind.

I have got to give this little spider props 👏 for courage and determination.

But I still don't like spiders.

Cleaning Up for the New Year

I know it's something I grew up with that mom ingrained into my subconscious. We always did our "spring cleaning" before New Years Day. It was the idea that we must go into the New Year with a clean slate. We pay off our bills, get rid of garbage, finish our thank you notes and obligations, clean up holiday decorations (we try), organize whatever needs organizing and clean everything.  

I started in November. (Mainly because Art has needed my computer to work on his African Safari photobook.) 

I first got our New Year Newsletters done and printed. Then I cleaned and organized the drawers in the kitchen. They were a MESS! There are certain members in our family who tends to drop things in drawers helter skelter and it's not me.

I should have taken a BEFORE and AFTER photo but once I got going, I couldn't stop. Please imagine that drawer with the tags and clips just one big junk pile. The other drawers were no better.

I just got this AI generated photo with the help of Ed from Riverbend Journal. OK, maybe it wasn't this bad, but close.

I now often open the drawers just to feel the satisfaction of having order again.

I donated old dishes and kitchen supplies to the temple rummage sale, gave away toys from the toy closet (grandkids are either grown up or in South Asia), and so on and so forth. 

(The Japanese signs are used to remind mom what we are doing if we're out of the house. Her forgetfulness is becoming more acute these days.)

I went through my bookshelves filled with all the books I'd collected and bought from rummage and library sales for my 1st grade classroom. 

I sent several large flat rate boxes of books to our grandsons in South Asia where English books are much needed and saved the rest to give away at our family get-together.

Then I moved to my office.

We keep receiving tons of greeting cards that we don't use from charities for donations we've given. Art even asked some of them to stop but it didn't do any good. 

Art hates to throw away things that MIGHT be used so he started putting them in my drawers. His drawers are too full. So I went through the pile that was stuffed in my drawer and ruthlessly tossed a bunch of them away. I kept the envelopes because .... well... who knows? I might be able to use them. Maybe. And then I told Art he was no longer allowed to put any more cards or anything else in my drawers. 😐

Two of my friends tell me they are also downsizing and organizing their households. In fact, they started a year or two ago. I guess it's partly because of our age. Do we really want to leave all this for our kids to have to deal with? 

When I did some organizing last November/December I put this dress in the donation box. Later, with a change of heart, I searched frantically for it.

I've written about how our son was born in the military hospital elevator in Illinois and how Art had been the one to deliver his son by himself. Well, this is the dress I was wearing at the time.

OK... I'm going to look at the closets now to see what I can take out for donation or trash... carefully.

I think I might be making Art nervous. 😏

When Life Doesn't Give You Lemons, Would an Orchid Do?

I wrote a post in 2015 called Art's Lemon Tree Grove. We had tasted Art's sister's Meyer lemons in California when we visited her in 2013. She and my brother-in-law are avid gardeners. We could not believe how sweet the lemons were. They tasted like sweet lemon juice without any tartness at all.

Well... she sent us a lot of seeds from her tree that Art promptly planted.

We ended up with quite a few lemon seedlings that Art even shared with friends.

Oops!

The ones he kept grew and grew and grew. 

But there were no lemons.

There were just huge, dangerous thorns which I would occasionally cut off.

When we researched how to propagate trees, we learned TOO LATE that you can't get the same sort of fruit from seeds.

You have to GRAFT them from the original tree. 😖

So now we had these trees and they kept growing. I kept telling Art that he needed to get rid of them. 

But now they were like his babies and he just couldn't kill them.

Eventually, the pots started to crack and weeds joined the huge, thorny trees. He even transplanted a couple of the lemon trees into new pots until I finally told him they just had to go.

So last month... finally... after ten years and more persistent nagging discussion, he said goodbye to his overgrown ugly not pretty lemon trees after I cut the tops off. 

Yes, I did warn him that I would before I did it. The pots were so brittle from the Hawaiian sun that much of it just cracked off. There wasn't a lot of dirt left in the pot.

However...

There were these plants (weeds) that had attached itself to the lemon trees' roots.

My brother, Dennis had taken a photo of one of the flowers from the weeds a while ago.

It looked like an orchid, but could they grow in really old yukky dirt?

Dennis said it was a common wild ground orchid and that we should just discard it because you can find them growing wild all over the island.

And did he discard the ground orchid weed? Nope, just transplanted them to this pot.

And do you think he tossed ALL the non-producing rather unsightly lemon trees? Sigh... Nope.

He said he liked the bonsai like roots at the bottom of the lemon tree. And wouldn't you know that even though I'd trimmed off the top branches, there were more shoots coming up at the top and the bottom.

Ah well... I give up.