WINNER OF SERVER FARM DRAWING AND A NEW ONE

The winner of the last drawing is:

PARROT

To claim your winnings, just send an e-mail with your full name and shipping address to olympicorchids at gmail dot com, or leave a message on our Facebook page. 

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day packing perfume to ship and supervising the new person who was packing orchid plants. Such a lot of busy work. I’m still trying to sell the orchid business, even as it grows, so that I can spend more time with the perfume and other creative activities. 

In the evening our neighbor invited us over to sit on her back deck and drink a bottle of prosecco. We made a fire in her clay chimenea using wood scraps picked up in the woods. The high point was when we burned parts of an old, decommissioned bird feeder that was so dry that the flames leaped up immediately, crackled, popped, and sent up showers of sparks. The fire eventually settled into a red glow that just took the chill off the night air. We watched the stars come out, and the moon come up. Everything was perfectly quiet. It was like sitting around a campfire, and about as relaxing as it gets. 

There’s something magical about watching a controlled open fire. It invites contemplation, clears the brain, and brings people together in a friendly way. The smell of the wood smoke is part of the magic. 

To enter this week’s drawing, leave any sort of comment about fire. The prize will be at least 100g of perfume samples. 

[Photos of chimenea fire and rising moon are from Wikimedia. We had no devices of any kind with us last night. Moon and campfire painting by Albert Bierstadt, 19th century.] 

WINTER FLOWERS WINNER, SWITCHING TIME ZONES, AND A NEW DRAWING

The winner of the winter flowers drawing has been randomly chosen, and the winner is:

GINA TABASSO

To claim your 100 g sample bag, please send an e-mail to olympicorchids at gmail dot com (quickest way) or leave a PM on Facebook. 

Well before the spring equinox, Big Brother dictated that we would once again switch time zones, from Pacific Standard Time to Mountain Time (one zone to the east). This arbitrary change is euphemistically known as “Daylight Saving Time”. Logically, nothing is saved by cutting a segment off on one end and adding it to the other. The amount of daylight is the same no matter what you call it. 

What the legislated time switch accomplishes is unclear, but to me it’s depressing to go from finally having it nice and light when I wake up to go to my “day job” to having it still dark. This is not quite accurate in my case because the cat usually wakes me up at dawn no matter what, but now that feline wake-up call comes an hour later in the official scheme of things, I’ve lost an hour of what could have otherwise been productive time in the morning before I have to be somewhere, and/or I’ve lost an hour of sleep. Do people really want to get up an hour earlier so that they can finish work an hour earlier? If so, then why don’t the morning people just do it without calling it something else? Why force everyone to do it?

Time zones were designed to coordinate with the daily cycle of the sun and, with a few exceptions, generally provide the best approximation to it. I know there are movements afoot to do away with changing the time twice a year, but please, let’s not have a permanent move into the wrong time zone!

This week I’m offering the usual 100 g of samples and whatever else I decide to throw in as extras. To enter the drawing, just leave a comment giving your thoughts on “daylight saving” time. 

[All photos are mine. The colors of the crocuses were especially bright this year, maybe because they bloomed a month late.]

DRAWING FOR A SNOWSTORM

Today, after a short break, the snow continues coming down hard. New snow falls on top of old in a cycle that has reached the point of absurdity. As the snow event has progressed, I’ve found myself going through stages of relating to it. When the first snow came, I was happy and excited like a little kid because we don’t get to experience much snow, so it’s a novelty. I love to watch it falling even when it doesn’t stick (usually), and it’s even more exciting when it does stick and everything slowly turns white. What I didn’t like was the cold temperature, but I went out and ran a little in it twice anyway. The next snow was bigger, and by then I was kind of blasé about it, to say nothing of being concerned about the state of my orchid greenhouse, which, by the way, is still in lockdown mode. 

The third snow came yesterday, and by then it was mostly just annoying, although there was a little of the morbid curiosity that one feels looking at an accident or a natural disaster (How much more can it snow?). I think the third snowfall raised the total depth to about 14-16 inches (25-30 cm). Today’s snow will pile on top of that. By now I’ve become fatalistic about it and given up on even going outside, let alone going anywhere. Given that we stocked up on groceries last Saturday and our power hasn’t gone off, I can just sit and laugh at it. 

The bright side is that I am getting a lot of perfume-making done, putting together a big wholesale order. Who knows when it can be shipped, but at least it will be ready.

It’s time for another drawing of 100 g of perfume samples, so just leave a comment saying whether you have ever experienced mass quantities of snow, if so, how you relate to mass quantities of snow, and if not, whether you would like to have the experience. 

[Both photos are mine. The top one shows the condition of our street, which has just been getting worse for at least a week. ]

BIRDFIGHTS, SUMMER VACATION AND A GIVEAWAY

This morning I had the privilege of watching a big pileated woodpecker hack away at the old cedar stump in the front yard, chips flying everywhere, with frequent pauses to savor some tasty morsel that it had found. I’ve never seen a bird express such obvious enjoyment of its meal! Almost immediately the local crows decided it should not be in their territory, never mind the fact that they had no interest in the stump as a food source. The crows cawed and dive-bombed the woodpecker, and at one point a crow landed on the stump and engaged in beak-to-beak combat with the woodpecker. The woodpecker stood its ground, and the crow flew off to a nearby tree, watching the woodpecker. Gradually a whole crowd of crows gathered around, and at that point the woodpecker flew off into a tree where I think it has a nest.

With this first–hand nature observation and deletion of some spam comments from this blog, my summer break from the university begins. No more classes or meetings until mid-August! What a wonderful opportunity to work on perfume and other non-academic pursuits!

To kick things off, today is another random drawing sample giveaway – the winner will receive at least 100 g of perfume samples along with a small bottle of a celebrity perfume and some other miscellaneous items.

To enter, just comment about some interesting thing that you observed over the past week or so.

[Pileated woodpecker photos are mine]

SYNCHRONICITY, SAMPLES, AND GIVEAWAY WINNER

First, the winner of last week's giveaway: NELLE 25

To claim your winnings, please send an e-mail to olympicorchids at gmail dot com with your full shipping address.

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My laptop died last week, and I've lost at least four days getting a replacement, setting it up, and figuring out how the new versions of everything operate. In the meantime, as spring arrives, I've been thinking about a lot of things, including what to do with all of my perfume samples. 

It's funny how often events seem to coincide. I had slowly gotten to the point where I couldn't file away any more perfume samples in my "mini-osmotheque" library because the sheer number had become overwhelming, so many of them had evaporated, leaked, congealed, or otherwise gone bad, all of my file boxes were full to bursting and, most importantly, 90% of the samples I've collected are ones that I would not even want to revisit, let along take the time, trouble, and skin space to actually wear. My dilemma was what to do about the glut of sample vials.

A few months ago I gave up on filing and started dumping samples in a big box after I had tested them. I had also started keeping out the samples that I liked, and wearing them. The first one that I used up was DSH Albino, which performs well in public in that it is pleasant to me, but keeps a low enough profile so as not to bother other people. 

My final strategy is going to be to have three boxes - the first will be the old set of  file boxes, which will be strictly for useful references (i.e., vintage classics, especially noteworthy perfumes that are hard to find, etc, all stored in secure vials). The second box will be samples I want to wear and use up, and the third will be a box of samples to give away. The giveaway box will be by far the largest. I will be offering interested readers samples in 100 g lots for as long as I have samples to give away. The selection will be totally random.

Synchronicity comes into play because today I read a post onAPJ expressing the need to use samples rather than file them away, and recounting the writer's experience of finding that samples had leaked away, evaporated or were discontinued. That resonated completely with my intention to stop hoarding samples that I really don't want. For most, my notes are enough. Too many perfumes, so little time to enjoy them all!

If you would like to receive a pack of random samples measured out by weight, please leave a comment about how you deal with perfume samples. Do you save them, use them, pass them on, or do something else with them? Because international shipping is so expensive (not my choice!), this offer is for USA only. I haven't decided yet how I will choose the recipients of the samples, but your chances of getting a portion are very good!

[Cyclamen and jumbled samples photos are mine; library photo is from Wikimedia]