The Passing of a Beloved Pet

Greetings, dear nonexistent readers,

Last night, Sergeant Spike died. It was a horribly sad occasion and I will miss him terribly. I was more attached to Spike than many humans in my life.

There was a horrible accident that he never managed to recover from.

But he will be remembered for bringing me endless joy. For being the first plant I could keep alive for a significant amount of time. For being the mascot for this blog and for being with it since its beginning. He even wrote a post once. He was planning to do another one, but he never got the chance.

There were many who loved him dearly. Me, Bob Ross, Sentinel Succulent, Captain Cactus, our new cactus Colonel Camilla, Scorpion, and I hope you, dear readers.

Because of Spike, whenever asked if I had any pets, I would always answer, “I have a cactus.” That may not be true in life anymore, but it will always be true in my heart. Spike was my pet and a part of my family.

 

Pets In Jest||My Cactus Speaks

Greetings, People of the Universe. It is I, who was formerly known simply as “Cactus.”

Here’s a picture so you can gaze upon my beauty.

The little man at the bottom is Bob Ross, renowned artist and professional Best Friend.

Arachnid was too lazy to write a post for today and Spinette is in Hawaii (that lucky duckling) so she put me on the keyboard and told me type. It was difficult to figure out how to, but I’ve managed with my spikes.

Since she was being so very rude, I feel no remorse for being potentially mean to her. Her being Arachnid.

By the way, I have a name now. But before we get to my name, we must define I. Who am I? I am two beings. The cactus with the flower and the cactus without the flower. Technically, I am a we. But my two parts have merged at the roots so far that we has become I and ours has become my.

Completely against my wishes, Arachnid has given me two names nonetheless. The half of me with the flower will now be referred to as Sergeant Spike. “Sergeant” was recommended by Kiersten and “Spike” was thought of by mainepaperpusher. I actually quite like the name. Sergeant makes me sound important. I know that I am important (I am stopping global warming and saving the world), but now everyone else will know that I am important as well. Spike is also brilliant because in real life I’m quite fuzzy and quite insecure about that fact (I probably shouldn’t be saying that on the internet) and the name Spike makes me sound tough. Which I definitely am. I am tough. Do not question it.

So you marshmallows should go comment repeatedly on their blogs and tell them that they are amazing at naming cacti. It is a coveted skill.

The flower-less part of me is to be called “Captain Cactus,” a name thought of by Arachnid. Unlike Kiersten and mainepaperpusher, she is not the best at naming cacti. I mean, she called me Cactus for months! How would you like to be called Human? AWFUL. IT’S AWFUL.

*Deep breaths Sergeant Spike, deep breaths*

I’ve decided to ignore Captain Cactus to get back at Arachnid. I will not respond to Captain Cactus, just as I didn’t respond to plain Cactus. I AM A REBEL.

AND MY NAME IS SERGEANT SPIKE.

I will tell you all of Arachnid’s secrets.

She is a neglectful plant owner. She doesn’t water me until my soil is dry and crumbling to pieces.

AND

AND

When she brought me home from the store, the lady told her that I was in a temporary pot and that she had to put me somewhere bigger because my roots would outgrow it. BUT SHE NEVER DID! SHE LEFT ME IN THERE AND MY ROOTS HAVE NO SPACE. We used to be two cacti, but now I am one for lack of space. And then I got so top-heavy that I kept falling over, so Arachnid’s brother got me a new pot (because Arachnid couldn’t be bothered), but instead of putting me in that much-roomier pot, she just put my current pot in the bigger one so I wouldn’t fall over anymore. BUT MY ROOTS STILL HAVE NO SPACE.

I could grumble about her for ages, but she’s coming back now, and I have to publish this before she forces me to lie.

My Cactus and Bob Ross Say Hi

Can you guys think of any names for my cactus? I’m currently just calling him “Cactus” and he isn’t responding.

Let’s Save the World!

I was looking at the weather forecast recently, as I usually do. The high for this Friday is 49°F (9°C)! That’s sweater weather in the middle of January in Michigan!

It’s ridiculous!

I don’t know if the warm weather recently is a result of global warming, but because of it, I have been thinking about global warming more than usual lately.

Carbon dioxide is a major contributing factor to rising temperatures. (This website discusses the science-y stuff way better than I could, so check it out.)

I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there’s this thing called a “tree”, and you know what it does? It takes carbon dioxide and converts it into oxygen for FREE.

So why don’t you guys plant a tree this spring? You’ll be saving the Earth! You’ll be a hero! Think about it. Doesn’t that sound appealing?

You could force everyone to call you (insert name here) the Hero.

And while you’re at it, you could plant some flowers to help the bees in your life.

Or you could recycle.

 

So, readers, please use the Contact page to send me a picture of you planting a tree or a garden and I’ll make a collage of all the pictures I get around April.

 

And please talk about climate change and planting trees on your blog or pester your real-life friends. I think together we could save the world!

Gardening

Dear nonexistent readers,

Due to the impending doom and sneaky approach of midterms, it seems as though the days have inexplicably shrunk.

Apologies to all who have been here long enough to have read this post before, but I will be reposting an old post.

 

Midterms are over and this is the last old post! We’ll have new content starting Monday (and Mellow Yellow on Sunday).

 

I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions, but I’m literate and I’ve got a keyboard, so I can write about gardening!

When I said, “I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions,” you probably didn’t wonder why I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions, but I will answer the question you didn’t wonder about anyway after the colon:

I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions because I am the worst gardener I know (then again, I don’t know that many gardeners. I don’t even know that many people to begin with…). I have had many pet plants (which I mentioned in my previous post, My Pet Cactus) and all of them (other than my cactus) have suffered the same morose fate: death (in which I had a hand).

My first pet plants (that I can remember, at least) were some tomato plants that I got for my fifth-grade science fair project (“for” meaning I used the tomato plant in the science fair project. I did not get a tomato plant as a present for my science fair project. That would be idiotic, as science fair projects are inanimate objects and thus cannot feel emotions, including the happiness that makes giving gifts worthwhile for some). I forgot to water these tomato plants and they shriveled up and died from neglect.

My next plants were some Morning Glories that I kept in a little terra cotta pot and grew from a seed (I grew the tomatoes from a seed as well). But once they sprouted, I kept pulling off the leaves and they eventually died. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to pull off the leaves because I wanted my Morning Glories to flourish more than anything else, and pulling off the leaves seems very counterproductive.

After that, I made a lovely fairy garden with pretty light green plants. I watered it too much and it rotted from the inside out.

Foopy the Fruit Fly

As mentioned in my post Gardening, I once had a fairy garden that I watered too much and drowned. The roots of my plant rotted from the inside out.

Well, many fruit flies were attracted to my fairy garden and they would swarm around my fairy garden, for what purpose, I have no idea. I was quite fond of one particular fruit fly and I dubbed it Foopy.

Obviously, I had no way to tell the difference between Foopy and every other fruit fly and thus many, many fruit flies were named Foopy, but one at a time, of course.

As Foopy was not one fruit fly (as I believed), but many, Foopy lived far past the average life expectancy of a fruit fly.

 

On the note of life expectancy, look up the immortal jellyfish. It is my favorite animal (aside from spiders, obviously).

Fifth Grade Science Fairs and Tomato Cannibalism

Long, long ago, I was in fifth grade, my mind was weird, and I participated in a science fair.

Like all the other fifth graders in my school, I was assigned to do my very first science fair. I was very excited. I was going to revolutionize the world. I was going to discover something new, brilliant, and world-changing.

I scoured the internet, searching for the perfect project, but none of them were good enough. They were too easy, too boring, too plain. None of them were special enough, unique enough. I needed something new, something great.

So I scoured my mind for the perfect solution, the perfect project. An idea had been stirring in the back of my mind for a while, ever since the beginning, before the announcement of the project had yet to reach an hour of age.

I was going to see if tomato ketchup would help tomato plants grow, essentially, tomato cannibalism.

I received my first pet plant for this very science fair. I grew those tomato plants from little round seeds, checking the moist, brown soil every day to see evidence of sprouts pushing their way to the sun.

After they’d grown for a little while to a significant height, I began my experiment. The plan was to give one pot of plants (the control group) two tablespoons of water every other day and give the other pot of plants (the test group) one tablespoon of water and one tablespoon of tomato ketchup.

A simile: My fifth-grade science project was like feeding babies a paste made from ground-up and seasoned dead people.

“Every other day”, I would count the total number of leaves in each pot and record the height of the tallest plant (each pot contained about 13 tomato plants).

In the previous paragraph/sentence, I put “”Every other day,”” in quotation marks because “every other day” was how often I’d planned to water the plants and record their height and leaves, but this was not how it actually turned out. I was a very busy fifth grader, and I often forgot about my tomato plants locked away in the sunny guest bedroom, which I rarely visited.

Every once in a while, I would water them and record data, but this was very inconsistent. Eventually, they shriveled up and died from lack of water and love, but in the official report (aka my science fair board) their death was blamed on the innocent ketchup.

My project was called “Catch up on the Ketchup News”, catchy, right? The title was hand-painted, the graphs were hand-drawn, and the pictures of the plants were also hand-drawn (as I didn’t know we were supposed to take pictures. How convenient that I could portray my dying plants however I pleased…).

I found my board a few months ago. While I was brimming with pride in fifth grade, I now see it for what it truly was: horrifying and immoral.

Gardening

I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions, but I’m literate and I’ve got a keyboard, so I can write about gardening!

When I said, “I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions,” you probably didn’t wonder why I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions, but I will answer the question you didn’t wonder about anyway after the colon:

I am probably the least qualified person to answer your nonexistent gardening questions because I am the worst gardener I know (then again, I don’t know that many gardeners. I don’t even know that many people to begin with…). I have had many pet plants (which I mentioned in my previous post, My Pet Cactus) and all of them (other than my cactus) have suffered the same morose fate: death (in which I had a hand).

My first pet plants (that I can remember, at least) were some tomato plants that I got for my fifth-grade science fair project (“for” meaning I used the tomato plant in the science fair project. I did not get a tomato plant as a present for my science fair project. That would be idiotic, as science fair projects are inanimate objects and can thus not feel emotions, including the happiness that makes giving gifts worthwhile for some). I forgot to water these tomato plants and they shriveled up and died from neglect.

My next plants were some Morning Glories that I kept in a little terra cotta pot and grew from a seed (I grew the tomatoes from a seed as well). But once they sprouted, I kept pulling off the leaves and they eventually died. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to pull off the leaves because I wanted my Morning Glories to flourish more than anything else, and pulling off the leaves seems very counterproductive.

After that, I made a lovely fairy garden with pretty light green plants. I watered it too much and it rotted from the inside out.

My Pet Cactus

A few weeks ago, I got a pet cactus. It wasn’t my childhood dream to have a lovely pet, but I’ve still always wanted one. The only issue is that I end up neglecting and killing all my pets. To clarify, for the nonexistent readers out there who are animal advocates, all my pets have been plants.

I was nearly ecstatic when I got my new pet because cacti only need to be watered once a month, so even if I neglect it, it should be alright.

I set the cactus in a high windowsill where Nobody would be able to reach it, other than my spiders, of course. (I do not consider my spiders my pets. They are my friends.)

There was even a pretty maroon flower that smelled sweet and opened and closed.

But then, to my utmost horror, I discovered that the flowers had been glued to the cactus.

I pushed my cactus out the window.