Maggot Farm update

Yx (excited voice): "Let's go check the maggots!!"
W: *shudders* "Erm .. no, why don't you go ahead, I'll keep you company from my window."

Yx dons surgical mask spiked with lavender oil, latex gloves, tweezers and a container.
Yx climbs onto balcony.

Clank clank.
Silence.

YX: "ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"I'M NOT DOING IT, IT'S GROSS!!!"

Yx clamours back in.

The yucky things were HUGE. But the really gross part was the chicken heart we placed for them - there were maggots in there, and it was bulging and undulating and looking like ventricular fibrillation. That decided us - no way are we going to get buried when we die. Imagine that stuff under your skin.

I ended up flooding the damn maggot farm with chlorhexadine solution.

Anyway, collected the 3 bales of peat, they were huge. Intended to open one and leave it under my rack in the garden, and store the other 2 on the balcony, but now I can't see how I'm going to bring it all the way up the stairs. Lifetime supply - I might even be able to leave it to my grandchildren in my will.

Dumb Australian stuff will be delayed till Jan 10 due to their extravagant Xmas break, while Borneo's shipment will arrive in 20 days' time due to paperwork. Quite looking forward to the Neps from Borneo though, since I'll be getting something I've been procrastinating for 3 years. =) N.campanulata! Once thought to be extinct, it was re-discovered by Ch'ien Lee in 1997 in East Kalimantan, growing on sheer limestone cliffs. It's currently placed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, but I've managed to secure a tissue-cultured source.



This is actually too much trouble than it's worth, and goodness knows I'm not even going to be there on the first day. Yx's face can appear in the press for me. Still looking for a suitably-large tree trunk for the display. And nope - no displaying of the good stuff. I'm not going to risk my only specimens of N.merriliana, N.veitchii nor bring in any Darlingtonia. OK, except for the Darlingtonia, the others can only be appreciated by true collectors.