11 | April | 2013 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Avocado growing

It all began with a special offer for avocado in the supermarket and a prawn cocktail. I made the cocktail myself with prawns and a self made cocktail sauce, and just to polish it up a bit I bought an avocado, cut it in small pieces, and mixed it with the prawns. Something I prepare as an entrée on high days and holidays.

The avocado had a stone, as usual. I had done this before a few years ago, but decided let’s try it again. I took the stone, put it in an egg cup full of water and put a cup over it to keep it in the dark and to encourage some roots. A couple of days later I had a sort of accident when I was watching the progress of my master experiment. Unfortunately the stone fell onto the stone floor and split into two halves. Undaunted I continued my experiment and put the two halves of the stone back into the water filled egg cup. I noticed that a strange structure had formed in the middle of the stone, but decided it could only get better.

Today, after two weeks of loving care and constant supply of fresh water, I discovered my stone had not only formed roots, but had started growing, not with one shoot but three. I decided it was time to plant my avocado tree, applying a “Hydrokultur” method of growth. I really do not know the english word for “Hydrokultur” as I could not find it in a dictionary anywhere. However, to explain, instead of planting the stone in earth, it is now growing in water, surrounded by foamed clay (another translation I found from the German “blahton”, but do not know if it makes sense).

Here is a photo of the growing tree, which has been given water containing special liquid fertiliser. In about ten years I hope to show a photo of the tree, complete with the first harvest of avocado pears.

Avocado Hydroculture

Give some love to three blog posts you’ve read and loved in the past week, and tell us why they’re worth reading.

Computer Time for Nera

I asked chief feline Nera what she thought about this, but she fell asleep looking through all the weekly blogs, so she left it to me.

I do read the blogs written on the daily prompt. Mainly to see how others have approached the task. There is a lot of good stuff out there, and it is difficult to choose one over the other. Three have made an impression on me this week so here we go.

Alma Mater by Mr. Atheist
The Daily prompt by Mr. Atheist with his speech to the Alma Mater. Alma Mater was something foreign to my English education, but I soon found out what it was. If I had heard a speech like this in my closing years at high school, it would have impressed me. The whole conception of this speech, the words used, particularly listing the “wants” and making the school proud of what you do in your path through life. This was a super work of prose and not only worth reading, but using if you are ever confronted with giving such a speech.

Perfect in its Imperfection by Huntmode
My second is by someone called “Huntmode”. I have often read her blogs. I saw this one this morning, so it is still fresh in my memory. She has shown that not only is she a writing talent, but also an artist. Her blog shows some of her paintings and they are very good. She describes her path through life, being hopeless in painting as a girl, but in later years getting down to it, buying books on the subject, recording films and eventually visiting classes. She did it, not only did it, but succeeded in becoming a very good artist. OK, I cannot even draw a straight line, but if I ever wanted to learn how it works, I would take this blog as an inspiration.

A Man for all Seasons by Paul Scribbles
For my third, I decided on Paul Scribbles and his blog Turn, Turn, Turn. We had to choose our favourite season and he chose all. His reasons why were so well explained. A beautiful piece of literature with some wonderful descriptions. Read it and you will start loving the seasons you usually find less attrative. He finds a good side to everything in this piece of work, and highlights many aspects in an almost poetic way.

Unfortunately I am only allowed to name three, but as an epilogue I would add that I am a disciple of Wiley Schmidt. A little four year old terrier dog living somewhere in Wisconsin. His outlook on life is more than human and we humans could learn a lot from this little dog. I love reading his almost daily blogs. I could not pick one out of the blogs, so I am giving him a special mention as my blogger of all bloggers, even if my cats are looking at me with daggers in their yellow flashing eyes.

Daily Prompt: Press It