The Continuing Cactus Saga

I thought I would be writing more, but breaks can be so all consuming! I found myself telling this story again last night, however, and thought it was high time I shared it on here.

As we were packing all of our things to leave our apartment and head home for the summer, I found myself talking out loud listing all of the things I still needed to accomplish before we could leave. I wasn't necessarily directing this monologue toward Ambriel, but I discovered that she was definitely listening.

You see, one thing I was trying to calculate was how many more trips it would take me to load the car. I thought I could do it in just a few, when I remembered the cactus and started complaining about how difficult it would be to carry it and other things at the same time and saying how much I wished that she were able to carry it.

I sighed and continued with my labor, not giving the cactus another thought until about 40 minutes later when I was actually ready to carry it out to the car. My first clue that Ambriel had been busy was when my thumb slipped into the potting soil and got very wet. I was surprised and looked down to see what was going on. What I saw looked more like a small sea than the desert home of our little succulent.

Me: "Ambriel, did you water your cactus again?"

A: "Yes."

Me: "How much did you give it?!"

A: "Two full cups plus another half cup."

Me: "But you just watered it yesterday! Why did you give it so much?"

A: "Well, I thought you might decide to leave it here for the summer since you didn't want to carry it, and I didn't want it to get thirsty so I gave it LOTS of water to last a LONG time."

A clearly logical answer, I'll grant her, but I was sure it would be the death of the cactus. It ended up riding shot gun for the trip home so I had a front row seat to a demonstration of how vibrations cause liquefaction (thank you Dr. Frankovitz for the high school science lessons that still stick) i.e. the cactus was looking like the leaning tower of Pisa, held up only by its prickers sticking into my upholstery.

By the time we got home, the cactus had absorbed so much of the water that the pink bulb-y thing on top looked like it was going to burst, and Ambriel was crying quietly out of remorse for probably killing it. It was touch and go for a few days, but with the help of a few very sunny days,  the soil eventually dried out and our little pink pricker is still with us.

And I hope, Ambriel has learned an important lesson about watering in moderation.