Orchid Update! And Cleaning Up Silver Coins

We Have Another Bloom! ..

It finally bloomed.. The first bud on Pepper’s Sympathy Orchid finally opened a couple of days ago. As I am writing this this morning the second bud opened. I’ll also include a picture of that as well. It has been sometime since this orchid has last bloomed and it is nice to see some new flowers in the house. I guess it was peppers way of saying happy Valentine’s Day to us.

I hate to bring it up yet again .. BUT I will. Lol. Approximately two years ago, I decided to change the planting media from bark to lava rock. I did this, considering the advice of a friend who raises orchids, and had great success with it. It was not the case for me, and I almost lost all of my Phaleanopsis orchids. Thank goodness I was able to save the majority of them by purchasing new pots and re-planting them back into bark. We lost two work plants due to this tragedy. I currently have two that I am working on rehabilitating and hopefully we can save those as well. The others seem to be doing quite fine at this point.

Here is a shot I took this morning .. Of the two flowers that are open now. They are white, which I predicted early on. I’ve moved these orchids around so much in the past year, trying to repot them and clean them up that I almost lost track of peppers orchid plant.

And another little update .. Our Cattleya at orchid, which I mentioned, was pushing out on another set of blooms, is progressing nicely. The two flower buds have grown quite substantially in the last week. They are now about an inch outside of the flower sheath and turning a reddish color. It won’t be long before we are enjoying these flowers as well.

Changing Directions to Silver ..

I was chatting with @silverd510 last week.. And he mentioned that some of my silver peace dollars were quite dirty. I do believe he said dirty as hell ha ha ha. And he was right they are. So I decided to take his advice and clean them up awe’re quite dirty. I do believe he said dirty as hell ha ha ha. And he was right they are. So I decided to take his advice and clean them up a bit. He explained that I could put a tiny bit of dawn, blue dish soap on my fingertips, wet it and get a little lather going, then use a microfiber towel to dry them off. He said this was fine by ANA standards, and just be gentle about it.

We happen to use the blue version of the dawn dish soap, so that worked out. I took the coins carefully out of their capsules, and prepared to GENTLY rub some of the grime off of the coins.

Before

But first the before photos of both the 1921 and 1928 Peace Dollars..

Then a little Rub-A-Dub-Dub .. A little carful drying .. Then a few hand cramps later ..

After

That's the best I can do for now .. Without risking scratching the coins. I don't want to do that more than they already are, so maybe I should stop with the results I have. I put together a couple of before and after photos so you can get a better view of the results.

There you have it! Not as dirty anymore. I still see a little dot of something here and there, but like I said I didn't want to risk damage by rubbing too hard in one spot, plus my hand was cramping.. hehe.

What do you think? Orchids or Coins..

I think they both are look good.

Missing Our Little Guy Pepper ..

And Baby Girl Molly Too ..

Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!

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