Soon Penito will be finished blossoming and who knows what will happen next.
At least the bees have been showing him some love.
Here is my artistic rendition, sans bee:
We’re heading into a potentially deadly heat wave which always causes our power company, the notorious PG&E, to fly into conniptions. Turn off unnecessary lights! Set your AC to 78 degrees! Don’t run major appliances between 4 and 8 at night. The grid is straining, the grid is straining. Oh my!
So we may lose power at any time. Thankfully I have plenty of books and a basement which is generally twenty degrees cooler than the upstairs. Hope you are all managing to stay cool during these hopefully final hot days of summer.
Saying nothing in particular 
You have been showing him lots of love. Don’t ever forget that.
There’s no foliage right? Are Penito’s & Penita’s stalks green? Green stalks indicate chlorophyll. I’m trying to fathom how the plant can build up enough energy in its bulb to create such explosive growth. Maybe it’ll go dormant next year and only produce leaves for photosynthesis?
Flowers indicate the potential production of seeds, but only if the plant was part female and received pollen. The flowers indicate those long protuberances are anthers atop stamen (stay men = male parts). If there’s a pistil (female) in the center there — then the plant has both sex parts.
Can you get a really close photo of a flower?
The stalk is almost purple. Last year it didn’t bloom – it just sent up huge leaves which didn’t fade until almost Thanksgiving. I’ll try to post a picture of the close up.
Your photo of the bee and Penito is stunning. As for your power grid, I’m sorry to read about it. While I’m sure you can adapt to whatever happens, it seems lousy that it might/will happen.
Thanks Allie! This time of year we generally lose power very often. But generally not for too longer – we’re really close to the downtown and the BART. You learn to cope.
Good luck in this heat wave. Latest forecast for where I live for Labor Day is 111°. I hope, when the power goes out, which it probably will, my newly fixed generator kicks in.
It should! I just went to the farmer’s market and bought a bunch of goodies to get me through! Wasn’t too bad … yet.
I like that last shot. Although we’re in Southern California right now, I chuckle when people say to turn your AC up to 78. That’s colder than I ever have it in Arizona. Hope you get through the heat wave without a problem.
Thanks! We don’t have AC but if we did I doubt we’d have it cranked up either.
In Arizona, AC is a necessity but in Ohio and Illinois I didn’t use it too much.
Oddly enough, I’m going to miss him. At this point he seems like a member of the family.
Fingers crossed you don’t lose power.
🤞
Me too. I live in an area where we only really need AC a couple of times a year but we don’t have a generator so no electricity means possibly have to through out rotten food and I hate doing that !
That plant seems to have a mysterious being all its own…
It does!
Don’t you guys have solar panels to provide aircon? Seems like a quid pro quo. We just moan which gets us through most things
I hope you are doing well in the heat.
It’s a truly stunning plant 💜💜
Unfortunately we’ve had a heat wave that really wiped the poor thing out – but it was fun watching its progress.
Itay surprise you next year, you never know?
I imagine it will do the same thing as it did last year – just sprout foliage.
Possibly 🙂
Wow, what beautiful flowers. I especially love the last shot. I hope you are staying cool. Take care!
Thanks – yesterday was pretty rough – it didn’t cool down until almost midnight!
So sorry! I hope some cooler air finds its way to you soon.
Wonderful photos of the plant flowers and bee dance, Jan. I am refraining from comments about evil PG&E as I hope this heatwave doesn’t have brown-outs like they are wont to do. Glad to hear you have a plan, best wishes to you.
Thanks Jet. At least PG&E said they would let us know and the blackouts will only last a couple of hours so hopefully that’s true!
Thankfully you have the basement!!
And love that photo with the bee approaching Penito from the upper right! And all the photos here made for a nice artsy post, JT
Thanks – I had to take about fifty shots to actually get a good one of the bee. Last night it didn’t cool down so today is going to be rough. I’ll probably end up in the basement
🙏
Hi Jan, we are just going into spring here and it is already hot. I hope the promised rain will arrive soon. We haven’t had any since April (normal for us). The plant is amazing and I enjoy bees and spend a lot of time trying to get good pictures of them.