I will remember 2011 as a good year, full of new joys, and a testament to the adage that patience is a virtue, and that hard work has its rewards.
On the patience front was the blooming of some of my South African bulbs, the seed of which I had sown as long as fourteen years previously. Fourteen years ago my life was vastly different. I lived in a very different climate with temperatures that could be consistently above 100F for months at a time, and bulbs were a hobby but also a consuming passion. My work was in the medical profession, and I shared my life with a partner. Now I live in the cool coastal climate of northern California and the bulbs are my work, as well as my love. I live a single life, which I enjoy a great deal, and I have a new passion, the sport of dog agility. It is almost disorientating to look back, feeling as though the person who optimistically sowed those seeds was a different one than that of the present day. Many of the changes in my life were not of my choosing, but life goes on, and there are rewards in store for us that we may never anticipate. The blooming of my Boophone haemanthoides was the pinnacle of excitement on the bulb front, although Behria tenuiflora was a close second (this did not take fourteen years!).
On the more competitive front, my female Wire Fox Terrier, Hannah, won her first championship title in CPE agility in May, then went on to win a second championship in November. While the first one was exciting, the second one was even more so, since it was at the largest trial we attend, and many of our friends were there to cheer us with our winning run. 
Hannah loved it, and pranced and danced around to the applause and cheering. What a ham! I should mention here, that when I got Hannah she was about ten months old, and was so terrified of the world that I could not even enrol her in a puppy class. She was afraid of dogs, cars, noises, new situations and people. It took a lot of both work and patience to bring her around, but she loved agility from the very first day.
Besides the trials, we had a wonderful trip to Oregon, hiking the mountains in the Bend region. Here is a picture of Smith Rocks north of Bend.
And now we end the year with the Oxalis season well under way. Here is the lovely Oxalis massoniana to the left and an unidentified Oxalis to the right. The right handed one is clearly in the Oxalis flava group.
Happy New Year, and happy bulb growing in 2012.
www.telosrarebulbs.com
