Hi everybody.
 

Hi all.

Todd Zimmerman here (TZ). Life has ups and downs. I will be moving to someplace in Florida soon (not sure exactly when - house sale here involved) with plans to move to someplace else in Florida about a year after that, so "Someplace" up north but short of Canada is where I'm at trying to keep a pile of baby orchids alive next to a sliding glass door in a cold old house right now.

I used to grow a lot of orchids about 15 years ago, then I didn't. I did some backyard hybridizing of weirdo heirloom tomatoes and potatoes for a few years after that, and then I didn't. Life recently changed drastically again and I started up with some orchids with the money I made selling the pile of stuff I had from the first time around. It was not planned but it happened. Impulse buy of sorts after someone pointed out to me that Florida was a good place to grow orchids. I suppose it is also a good place to buy orchids, but impulse with money in pocket knows no logic.

Then I started looking at orchid info on the Web again, and I feel like that old guy who slept a long time and then woke up. Rumplestilskin? Methusela? Who was that guy?

Everything changed in twelve short years while I was under my rock. All the orchid names changed. I couldn't find most of the old website vendors (out of business). Ray moved. I have no idea where the other people are who I use to hang out with on the OrchidSource forum. I don't have FaceBook, so maybe they are all there. Most of the same info on growing orchids (that didn't work well for me back in the day) seems to be floating around, but now on Novice-the-Expert YouTube channels. I have not seen anyone recommending humidity trays, so that is an improvement.

Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you.

TZ

Welcome Todd!:)

You are giving a whole new level to orchid addiction.:biggrin:

welcome

glad to have you

---------- Post added at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:11 PM ----------

where in florida and then where in florida?

Supposedly house sitting near Cape Kennedy for a year and looking to buy near Ocala to live after that.

Welcome. I'm making the opposite journey in a year, so I may be picking your brain if you decide to hang around. By the way - that old guy was Pappy Van Winkle.......wait....what?

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I dreamed of that man many a time during my long sleep. I hope to meet him some day.

I just got word that the house sold so I will be TZ-Someplace in Central Florida soon. Fast packing starts tomorrow.

I don’t know how I missed this thread for a month, but great to hear from you again, Todd! I just knew “TZ” had to be you, but had no proof until now.

Congratulations on the sale, I hope you get a similar speedy result when looking for a place to live.
Rip Van Winkle was the guy you were thinking of, I think I could find more to do than sleep in the Catskills though!

I still say it was Pappy Van Winkle. (Google it)

In the UK where I grew up, the story of Rip Van Winkle was a character in a fairy tale by Washington Irving. This story is based on several other stories.

RVW was a Dutch-American in colonial America who meets other strange Dutchmen and drinks their liquor and falls asleep in the mountains for 20 years, completely missing the American Revolution.

There is a similar well known story called the Seven sleepers of Ephesus.

Further research shows many, many stories across the world appear with the same theme.

It seems to me that all the stories seem to protect the the sleepers from what would be a traumatic time in their life, RVW and the American Revolution, the Ephesus sleepers escaped the persecution of Christians in Roman times.

I remember a movie starring Gene Kelly called Brigadoon, very similar theme there too.


I did Google Pappy Van Winkle and got loads of references to whisky, that would certainly account for the long time sleeping....lol
Julian Proctor 'Pappy' Van Winkle was the namesake to the whisky.
So I understand where you get the name from.

I hope everyone is doing well.

I finally made it to Florida AND got a new computer. The first buyer pulled out of the deal at the end of January at the last minute (without bothering to tell us), but we got the house sold (again) and hit the road first week of May. It was a horrible trip due to a wheel coming off of the trailer (we bought instead of hiring/renting a moving van) in Kentucky that resulted in several days in a hotel, rental of a big U-Haul truck, and eventual loss of the trailer all together because the damaged axel could not be repaired or replaced. In the span of four days we loaded one trailer, transferred to the U-Haul, then bought another trailer in Florida and transferred everything to that for storage.

We are currently house sitting in Titusville in a house under long term renovation, with a hot plate for cooking and a bathroom sink for washing dishes. I don't want to jinx our prospects for buying a new place so I won't say how that process is going.

My orchids seem very happy out in the side yard under some trees and shade cloth and are doing well except for an attack and damage from the largest grasshopper I have ever seen. I am familiar with that species from my time in Louisianna, but that particular one was about the size of a sparrow rather than normal hummingbird size.

And I thought my moves were an adventure!

Glad you're at least temporarily settled.