Today was a beautiful day, so I decided I would go for a nice walk. I also decided I would give one of my old enemies one more chance, before I get out the ax…

Here’s a picture of The Enemy (all photos are clickable thumbnails):

They may look innocuous enough, but let me assure you…they have tried on multiple occasions to eat my achilles’ tendons, and only stopped upon removal at the end of the activity, having taken with them more than one layer of skin. Let me show you:

Here they are, pretending to be my friends (July, 2005):

…and all the while, here is what they were doing to my ankles:

I do NOT have thin, sensitive, or otherwise ‘sissy’ skin. This was NOT the first hike in The Enemies for that year, or before that.

People have told me that with proper breaking-in, they will be a boon to my hiking and backpacking journeys. I am not sure those people aren’t out to get me, too. I have had The Enemies for about 4 years now. They are not allowing themselves to be broken in. In any case, I decided this would be the year where I decide if I am going to break the damn things in, or get rid of them, so as not to ruin any future backpacking excursions. I took my first short, easy ‘breaking-in’ walk in them today. It was a meager 2 and a half miles around town, but it was SOMETHING. You have to start somewhere. I am hoping that by the time we plan our summer vacations, they will be ready to go!

In other news: I wanted to share the flowers that are in my collection right now.

Here is a picture of the most flowers open at once on the Bulbine:

These are some Mammillarias that are blooming happily. The first is M. elongata ‘Copper King’, and the second is unidentified:

Thanks for reading!