Posted onJuly 31, 2020|Comments Off on Have a Safe Weekend
Thanks to a shoutout from Dallasites 101, i welcome all of the new folks coming across the Triffid Ranch for the first time, and welcome you all to the Porch Sales running every Sunday from 7:00 am to noon. And for those wondering about the big deal with carnivorous plants, here’s a combination of fascination and elaboration. Enjoy.
Posted onJuly 27, 2020|Comments Off on The Last of the Triffid Ranch Flash Sales: July 26, 2020
(Texas Triffid Ranch Audio Promo, take Whatever)
“This is the story of the last of the Texas Triffid Ranch Flash Sales. The year is 2259. The place is…”
(Frantic whispering in background)
“What? Let me try again.”
“The end of the last great Triffid Ranch Flash Sale. Everybody lost.”
(Emphatic whispering in background)
“This isn’t the script? Then where IS the script? Oh, I’ve got it? Then why isn’t it labeled? Well, it’s not MY fault that the folder doesn’t read ‘SCRIPT’ on both sides…oh, someone just put it on there. Let’s try it again.”
“Wow! The last of the Triffid Ranch Flash Sales! A real museum piece! Be a shame to blow it up.”
(Sound of apple bouncing off announcer’s head)
“I can’t work under these conditions! You said you were okay with day drinking! Next, you’ll expect me to know how to read!”
(Sounds of announcer flouncing off, tripping on the carpet pattern, and falling down fifteen flights of stairs and down an open elevator shaft while production crew laughs)
“I can try again…”
July 26 marked a slightly sad occasion: it was, indeed, the date of the last of the Triffid Ranch Flash Sales. The original idea behind the Flash Sales was that in the early days of COVID-19, as shows and events were collapsing around us all, setting up on the gallery porch with an assemblage of carnivorous plants suitable for beginners was a reasonably safe way to show off plants and let people take a break in the green. The ancillary idea behind the Flash Sales was that they were going to be temporary: back in April, there was no reason to assume that state and federal authorities wouldn’t have a pandemic plan worked out, implemented, and organized and that COVID-19 wouldn’t burn out by the beginning of August. Instead, we ran right into Riddell’s Law: “any sufficiently developed incompetence is indistinguishable from conspiracy.”
Anyway, as we settle into the New Normal, the idea of flash sales is both quaint and a little obsolete. Back in February, the whole concept was entertaining. Now, it’s almost vital, especially for those who cannot, for various understandable reasons, engage with large crowds in indoor environments. Because the Triffid Ranch sales are now semi-permanent, they need a better name, so through August and probably the rest of the year, they’re now the Sunday Carnivorous Plant Porch Sales.
For those who are new, and for those who haven’t been here for a while, the Porch Sales continue all through August, and admission is free. (You don’t have to sign up for a ticket through EventBrite for any of them, but it’s highly encouraged, just to know how many people to expect.) Because of the Porch Sales, standard gallery appointments aren’t available on Sundays without extensive advance notice, but are available through the rest of the week. (For members of the press, I highly recommend Fridays, and yes, you can bring photographers and anyone else you need.) See you next Sunday.
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Posted onJuly 25, 2020|Comments Off on August Events and Activities
We may not be 30 million years past the last live Triffid Ranch event, but it’s sure feeling that way. Between the initial Dallas County COVID-19 shutdowns and the subsequent shutdowns because certain people can’t play well with others, it’s been capital-R Rough for art venues across the DFW Metroplex. Exhibitions have gone virtual (some may recognize a few of the entries in the Texas Now Online Showcase being hosted by Artspace One Eleven in Fort Worth), galleries are on severely curtailed hours, and the days of dozens or hundreds of people jammed into gallery open houses are now about as quaint as the thought of Dallas beachside houses along the Western Interior Seaway. It’s still possible to do things outside, but it requires care, consideration, and a stout stick for those who don’t want to play by the rules.
With that in consideration, it’s time to open things up a bit in August 2020. To start:
Numero Uno: what was intended to be a few quick flash sales to get through April have turned into a regular event, so it’s time to rename the Sunday Flash Sales. Starting August 2, they’re now Carnivorous Plant Porch Sales, and they run every Sunday morning in August from 7:00 to noon. Other than the name and the time, nothing changes: they’re still selections of beginner carnivorous plants available for perusal and sale on the gallery front porch, and they’re open to everyone. (The link above is mostly to get an idea of how many people are coming on a given day, as well as the opportunity for new people to discover them through the EventBrite app, but we won’t shoo you off if you don’t have a ticket.) As always, at the end of the month, we’ll reevaluate days and hours, but they’ll probably keep going through October or until cold weather make them impossible, whichever comes first.
Numero Two-o: Since the fifth anniversary of that original soft opening at Valley View Center hit this year, the plan at the beginning of the year was to host the biggest gallery open house we could possibly pull off on or around August 20, celebrating beating the odds on gallery survival and generally using it as an excuse for a big birthday party for Caroline. And so Napoleon went to Moscow. The plan is still going to happen: it’s just we’re going to do it in two stages. The first is a virtual open house via streaming on Twitch, set on a Thursday evening so it doesn’t interfere with friends’ streaming events, running from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm Central Time. Obviously, this means that those who had to work during normal open houses, those who can’t get out of the house, and those who oh-so-conveniently live on another continent can join in, ask questions, heckle the host without mercy, and otherwise get a chance to see what’s been going on over here since the last show.
Numero Three-o: Remember my stating that the anniversary party was a two-stage plan? The third stage is an attempt to have a real-live open house on the evening of August 22. Because of Dallas County restrictions on events and crowds, no more than five attendees are allowed into the gallery at any time, and functional masks are required. That said, if you like what you see during the virtual open house on Thursday, or if you’ve had an eye on a particular enclosure since before all this came down, feel free to come out and browse, quickly, so others can peruse as well.
Other than that, it’s back to the usual: the last of the Flash Sales runs on July 26, and appointments for private viewings are available through the week. And now to get back to work to make all of this happen.
Posted onJuly 24, 2020|Comments Off on Have a Safe Weekend
Since they’re now a regular Sunday event, calling the Sunday Flash Sales “flash sales” is a bit ridiculous, so expect a new, equally ridiculous name for the August events. In the meantime, the last July Flash Sale is this Sunday. See you there.
Posted onJuly 21, 2020|Comments Off on Flash Sale: July 19, 2020
The usual state of retail: some days are raging, and some days are slow. This wasn’t and is never a problem: a relatively slow Flash Sale means that other plants (in this case, a large contingent of bladderworts in apothecary jars) get another week to get up to optimal size, and the folks who come out get more time to browse without feeling as if they’re keeping others from getting in. That’s why the Flash Sales keep going: this way, everyone gets more of a chance to peruse plants than during the pre-epidemic open houses.
Posted onJuly 17, 2020|Comments Off on The Texas Triffid Ranch Occasional Newsletter and Feed Lot Clearance Sale – #18
(The Texas Triffid Ranch Occasional Newsletter and Feedlot Clearance Sale is a regular Email newsletter, with archives available on the main TTR site at least a month after first publication. To receive the latest newsletters, please subscribe.)
Originally published on June 19, 2020.
Installment #18: “Faces of Meat”
We’re right on the cusp of summer in Texas, although for all intents and purposes that started in the middle of May and won’t let up until the middle of October. Out at the gallery, that means that the air conditioning pretty much runs all day, with things getting worse in August and September as the sun shifts to the south and the entire southern wall of the gallery turns into a convection oven. It’s not much better in the greenhouse: the only difference is that greenhouse film stops the constant drying south wind that turns most of Dallas into beef jerky, which the plants love. The plants love it, but the sweat glands don’t.
Even in the worst of it, life continues: plant, animal, and fungus. The best part is the motley crew of visitors that keep coming back, whether out of expectation of food, curiosity, or other, more obscure reasons. It’s time to introduce some of the background characters.
To start, while the ongoing migration of the suburbs across North Texas disrupt innumerable native life forms, some take advantage of the world of ranch homes and lawn sprinklers and move right in. This includes the introduced Mediterranean gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus), which can be found under any light at night capable of attracting insects, and the native Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis), which patrols those areas during the day. Carolina anoles are famed for their coloration changing abilities, thus explaining their common nickname of “American chameleons,” even if their range of colors and patterns don’t come close to those of true chameleons. What’s not so famed, and deserves more recognition, is that Carolina anoles have a wide range of oversized personalities. Anoles will not drink still water and depend upon dew, rain, or other splashed water for sustenance, including spray from hoses and sprinklers. This led to one big male that lives in a grapefruit tree in my back yard training me to water him: he sees me with a garden hose, and he promptly goes into a full display of dewlap-flashing to get me to spray him down.
The real antics, though, come from a big male who lives on my front porch. Named “Guy,” as in “Gardner,” this galoot alternates between overseeing the front of my house (anoles are highly territorial, with males claiming individual spaces and doing their utmost to protect them from interlopers) and letting me know who’s really in charge. Now, he knows that actually doing more than pose and threaten is a bad idea, with the end result being comparable to that of his namesake, but he can’t resist. He doesn’t challenge my wife, the postman, or cable solicitors. He challenges me, because I think he knows that I’m getting as much entertainment as he is.
Another resident with an unexpected broad personality lives at the gallery, and comes out to visit during the flash sales every Sunday. Jumping spiders of the genus Phippidus are completely harmless to humans, settling for feeding on small arthropods, but they have a curiosity more expected from mammals and birds than from a spider. This one in particular apparently thought I was absolutely fascinating, and after being moved for safety to atop a pitcher plant, was determined to get back to my elbow, flashing his palps in an obvious attempt at some sort of communication. I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to communicate, and still can’t, but so long as it keeps coming out to the tables on Sundays, it’s always welcome to keep trying.
Nearly everybody in horticulture has stories about the greenhouse cat: the one that moves in, figures “this is a pretty good deal,” and promptly takes over. For the last two years, this Creamsicle menace spends his winter evenings in the greenhouse, sleeping on potting benches until he decides to go home. In the summer mornings, he camps atop a smoker near the greenhouse to oversee watering operations and occasionally demanding ear-scritches. He doesn’t pick fights with my cats, his most outstanding damage comes from cat fur atop the lawn mower (he apparently decided that the grasscatcher bag is the perfect hammock), and he acts as a referee when opossums get into the greenhouse and start screaming matches at each other and at their own asses. He’s absolutely indispensable, his owner is thrilled that he’s camping out in a place where he’s appreciated and valued, and he’s probably going to be the first Triffid Ranch fulltime employee once I figure out how to get him on a W-2 form. best of all, as of last week, I learned his name is “Baby,” which beats out my naming him “Benji,” and to which he responds about as well as a cat will to any name. Yes, you can tell that the beasts have me well-trained.
Other News Members of Dallas fandom of a certain age will most likely recognize the name of “Ogre”: for those who weren’t part, Ogre was an essential component of local conventions and music through the Eighties and Nineties, particularly when he worked security. If his hair, bulk, and the carefully affected lower canine popping from his lip didn’t explain his nickname, there was the bison femur he carried to enforce his authority as Someone With Whom You Do Not Want To Mess, complete with a rawhide thong with the other end attached to his wrist so that, as he put it, “I don’t lose it if the blood makes it slippery.” Despite or probably because of that, Ogre and I became friends pretty much from the moment we met in May 1989, and he remained a good and dear friend even after I quit writing, when most people suddenly cut me off as if they were afraid my condition was communicable. Even when health issues prevented him from coming out to shows to hang out, I always made sure to have a chair on hand for him to sit, because it wasn’t a real party until Ogre got there.
(And then there was the famed 2000 fundraiser where if contributions reached a certain level, Ogre was going to stand on the intersection of LBJ Freeway and Dallas North Tollway on a particular Monday morning in a Sailor Moon outfit, singing “I’m A Little Teapot” to the morning commuters. As soon as he told us all that the only way he was wearing a Sailor Moon dress was wearing it commando, contributions to an identical fundraiser that promised that he’d never do this doubled the original. Me, I threw in $20 into both: at the time, I was commuting up that stretch of Dallas North Tollway every morning, and that trip was really, really dull otherwise.)
Anyway, my dear friend died on May 18, and this newsletter is dedicated to him. If Valhalla exists, I can see him at the best banquet table, pulling out the odd liquor concoction everyone referred to as “Ogre’s Blood” and making sure that everyone got some before he put up the bottle. Hail and farewell, dude: life is going to be a lot less interesting without you here.
Shameless Plugs
Because we’re all hurting, and because the Triffid Ranch isn’t the only reason to visit Dallas when it’s safe to do so, the Shameless Plugs section keeps on, well, plugging. This newsletter, the two you should be watching are Visions of Venice, the glassware retailer located right next door (and the best business neighbor a boy could ever ask for), and Blu’s Barbecue, which I promise you makes the absolute best collard greens you’re ever going to find west of Memphis. (Blu’s barbecue and sides are all exemplary, but if you’re getting on a plane and crossing the International Date Line to visit Dallas, those collards are the best reason to pay for First Class.)
As an additional plug, the Dallas goth club Panoptikon already has a special place with the Triffid Ranch (co-owner Jiri forgets more about carnivorous plants in his sleep than I’ll ever be able to learn), and the ongoing shutdown has hit it as hard as every other club in the area. That said, the crew has become very proactive with regular Friday and Saturday night events via Twitch, and the Friday night streams are now essential listening while I’m working at the gallery. When things get better and you’re hopping that flight to Dallas for glassware and collards, do it on a Friday so you can stop by.
Recommended Reading
One of these days, I’ll get down to writing that essay on how much science fiction design over the last 45 years owes to the modelbuilders working for Gerry Anderson on such television shows as UFO and Space: 1999, but until then, go snag a copy of Martin Bower’s World of Models ASAP. For those unfamiliar with the name, Mr. Bower was a model builder and designer for dozens of movies, television series, and assorted sideprojects: most are familiar with his team’s work on the shuttle in Alien, the various alien ships in Space: 1999, and almost everything in Outland. For anyone looking for more particulars on kitbashing for science fiction, or merely looking for inspiration for fantastical art from the days before CGI poisoning was a thing, this book is worth every pfennig. (For those familiar with the Jason Heller book Strange Stars, the connection between rock & roll and science fiction gets even more entangled when discussing commissions between Bower and Roger Dean, the prog rock album cover artist. Trust me: it’s worth it.)
Music Having first come across her work as part of the band Angelspit, listening to Amelia Arsenic‘s solo albums are now essential greenhouse music, and will probably remain so for a while. When working with carnivorous plants, good dark music, preferably from Australia, is almost a prerequisite.
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Posted onJuly 16, 2020|Comments Off on State of the Gallery: July 2020
What about that June, huh? Go to bed with the place looking as if Hunter S. Thompson had been camped on your couch for the last month, and wake up to July. Most people would just look at the waves of dumpster fires rolling by and say “Well, that’s the last time I freebase Preparation H.” Around here, we say “Well, until Jimi Hendrix and Joey Ramone ride up on tyrannosaurs and ask about using the place as background for a music video, it’s time to get back to work.” Good thing, too: I don’t have time to put in a watering trough in this heat, much less make sure that the parking lot is shoveled clean after they leave.
Welp, to start, those looking forward to Triffid Ranch shows and events in 2020 are going to face more disappointment. Because Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to plagiarize state policy on COVID-19 from a 1974 teleplay, we’re looking at state cases exploding to the point where most events for 2020 are preemptively cancelled through Texas and elsewhere. The big news came last week, when both the Oddities & Curiosities Expo show in New Orleans and the Houston Horror Film Festival had to reschedule for 2021. Unfortunately, they’re running on the same exact weekend, and that’s a week after the Oddities & Curiosities Expo show in Austin, and since being in multiple places simultaneously isn’t an option at the moment, attendance at both depends upon what happens in 2022. The situation stinks (the plan was that New Orleans was going to be the first Triffid Ranch event outside of Texas, as well as being an opportunity to show off work to New Orleans friends whom I haven’t seen since 2000), but safety is utmost, and Nola and Houston folks should look to both of those shows next June as great opportunities by great people.
And other shows? Right now, the only still-scheduled 2020 shows on the itinerary are Texas Frightmare Weekend and NARBC Arlington in September and AquaShella Dallas on Halloween, and everything is contingent upon whether shows like these are safe by then. As always, keep checking back: because everyone else will know as I do.
As for events at the gallery, now here’s where things get interesting. The porchside Flash Sales continue through July and probably through the end of October, or as long as weather allows, and appointments for larger enclosure viewings and commission consultations are still available. The big acid test is going to be the currently very tentative plan to open up for an open house for the gallery’s fifth anniversary on August 20: besides masks and gloves, watching as other galleries and museums are opening with individuals and small groups coming through in 15-to-30-minute blocks is probably going to be the way to go. It won’t allow people to hang out all night and talk, and food and drink definitely won’t be an option, but so long as city, county, and state regulations continue to allow operation with reasonable precautions, it’s better than nothing at all. Again, as details work themselves out, they’ll be shared. (If you can’t make it, or if you have additional reasons to self-isolate, well, that’s what video is for: aside from lots of new video on the YouTube channel, it’s time to dust off the Twitch channel and hold some more streaming events. It’s just that other things got in the way.)
And as a final note, as aggravating, irritating, and terrifying as the last four months have been, there’s one good iridium lining, other than having plenty of time to study further developments in museum and zoo design. A lot of the plans set in place at the end of 2019 were dependent upon a lot of big shows between March and July clearing out space for new projects, and those plans turning back into pumpkins and mice means that now is a perfect time to conduct a stem-to-stern renovation of the gallery space. The recent renovation and removal of the old AC unit and replacement with a vastly improved unit makes this considerably easier, as well as making a future opening considerably safer. If everything works out, expect a seriously changed look to the gallery in time for its fifth anniversary: it’s about time for a change, and it’s not as if either a day job or a failing AC are getting in the way of that happening.
Posted onJuly 15, 2020|Comments Off on I’m Living In My Own Private Tanelorn
Shameless plug time: Dallas has a lot of restaurants, ranging from the corporate to the ethereal, and one of our best draws for visitors is our only Canadian restaurant. I’ve hyped the Maple Leaf Diner for years: when the old gallery was at its Valley View Center location, the Maple Leaf was right across LBJ Freeway, and it became a regular locale for grabbing breakfast before one of the old Valley View ArtWalks, meetings with old friends after gallery tours, and regular Wednesday night dinners with my in-laws. Everything on the menu is both authentic and worth trying: I can state with authority that the Maple Leaf’s Belgian waffles are the best I’ve ever had this side of Toronto, and it’s the perfect place to introduce Texans to the Euclidean idea of poutine. Short of being greeted at the door by Rick Mercer, it’s the best chunk of Canada you’ll ever find this far south.
Anyway, one of the minor draws of the Maple Leaf is the east wall, covered with all sorts of kitschy tourist souvenirs from Our Home and Native Land, including a souvenir plate of Canada’s flower emblems, the provincial equivalents of state flowers in the US. It’s a little out of date, as it only lists “Newfoundland” instead of “Newfoundland & Labrador” (not to mention nothing about Nunavut), but it still shows off the Newfie flower emblem and beloved flower of Queen Victoria, the purple pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. For years, the plan was to bring in a purple pitcher plant or ten on July 1, Canada Day, just so the staff and customers could see one in the pulp, and possibly go into a discussion of the carnivorous plants of Canada. (Oh, trust me. Canada has a lot of them.) Unfortunately, there was always one minor disaster or another that prevented that from happening, especially after Valley View closed and we had to move gallery locales. 2020, though, was going to be the year that we actually pulled it off. I was sure of it.
Well, in 2020, it happened, kinda. Right in the middle of a pandemic, right after the Maple Leaf reopened for takeout and curbside service, Sarracenia purpurea came to the Maple Leaf, even if only long enough for quick pictures and a staff ogling before my masked presence had to clear out for safety’s sake. (Their safety, not mine.) Next year, though, once it’s safe to do so, expect a lot more.
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Posted onJuly 15, 2020|Comments Off on Flash Sale: July 12, 2020
Personal interlude: the summer of 1980 was my first summer in the Dallas area. For those either unfamiliar with the area or who weren’t around when that summer hit us all like the fist of an angry god, June 1980 was when most of the records on summer heat were broken and reset. That was the summer that confirmed that all of the plans made for local reservoirs and other water sources after the Drought of Record in 1952-1956 were, if anything, a little conservative. It was a summer of endless “you know it’s hot when…” jokes, and calls to Hell, Michigan to confirm that Dallas was indeed hotter than Hell, and plans to fry up bacon and eggs on the hood of a ’76 Pinto. For me, personally, it was a summer of experiencing that heat on a very personal level while delivering papers for the late, much-missed Dallas Times Herald: since the Herald was an afternoon paper in my area until September 1980, the day’s papers arrived right about the time we were breaking another heat record. Although Sunday’s paper was delivered in the morning, that didn’t much help, as things were just starting to cool off just before dawn, and the rise of the yellow orb meant that we could expect more of the same in the new day. This was the summer of understanding the limits of human endurance, the necessities of proper hydration, and appreciation of the habits of Gila monsters. (Spending 90 percent of my life underground, emerging only to suck eggs and eat baby bunnies, and confront enemies with a venomous bite has served me well over the intervening four decades.)
All of this, in a roundabout way, is preamble to thanking everyone who comes out each week for the Sunday Flash Sales. I know it’s hot even at sunrise, I know the glare is oppressive, and I’d love for the current Dallas County lockdown to be lifted, knowing that everyone would be safe to wander freely, and host more gallery open houses. I’d love to be able to come out to shows and events throughout the state and let everyone peruse plants in air-conditioned splendor. I also know that the overwhelming majority of attendees, both customers and interested bystanders, understand that until things are safe or at least a lot safer, the Flash Sales are about the best way to go. Thank you all, and I’ll see you and friends at the next Flash Sale on July 19.
Posted onJuly 10, 2020|Comments Off on I’m Living In My Own Private Tanelorn: the HVAC Edition
Very much as with home ownership, commercial property leasing is one of those things where beginners often don’t know what they’re getting themselves in for. For the last three years the Triffid Ranch has been in its present location, most issues with that location were relatively easy, especially compared to its first space. (There’s nothing quite like discovering that the owner of Valley View Center was refusing to let the Dallas Fire Marshall inspect the fire suppression system, right on the heels of the air conditioning system blowing out during the hottest November in Texas recorded history and said owner refusing to repair it for a full month.) It’s the little things that surprise you, and if you’re lucky, they reveal themselves just before they become catastrophic failures. Such is the story of the Triffid Ranch air conditioning system.
With many commercial properties in the state of Texas, any improvements to the property other than common areas (driveways, parking lots, access ramps, and the like) must be paid for by the tenant. Necessities such as electricity are maintained and updated either by the property or the utility supplying it, but everything else falls to the purview of the renter. Want to replace bare concrete floors with carpet or wooden flooring? That’s on the renter. Replace fixtures such as sinks and toilets? The renter. For the most part, we cheerily go to work, installing break areas, adding lighting, and doing all sorts of other things to make the space liveable and pleasant, and the question is always “how badly do you need this?”
And this is where the air conditioner comes in. When we moved in, we knew the gallery’s existing air conditioner was a bit, say, chronologically challenged. When installed back in 1987, the individual who paid for it went with the absolute cheapest system s/he could get, which meant a system that cooled the front vestibule, where Caroline’s space is currently located, and a side room that was apparently an executive’s office. Everywhere else, you got what you got, which meant that summers required lots of fans. This also meant that between May and October, that little unit was pretty much on day and night, just to keep the inside area liveable. Things weren’t helped by what could be called “enthusiastic nonmaintenance”: when we moved in, the air filter on the AC unit apparently hadn’t been changed in years, said filter was held in place with two old AC-to-DC power adaptors originally used for a long-removed security system, and the previous tenant had managed to get a ridiculous amount of glitter and most of a blue feather boa into the vents. (That story comes later, because it’s even weirder than you’d expect.) When we had problems with the system three years ago, a thorough cleaning improved the situation somewhat, but we knew that eventually the whole unit would need replacement. In Texas, having an operational AC unit, even one as kludgy and obsolete as this on was, was a necessity for survival for three months out of the year.
Even before the days of COVID-19, the plan was to replace the AC in the gallery before the summer heat got going, as open houses during the summer were already a bit sultry when the place filled with people. However, circumstances led to an acceleration of the plan. Just before the July 4 holiday, the whole old AC unit froze up, leading to water leaking from underneath the unit, and an inspection led to the discovery that the unit coils were rusting out. It may have remained intact through the summer, and it might not have survived July. The compressor on the roof was just as old, just as rickety, and just as ready for failure, and replacing the indoor unit would likely lead to a failure compressor, again in the height of the July repair season. After consulting with our AC rep (anyone needing contact info is welcome to ask), the plan was to replace the whole mess with a new, larger indoor unit and a new compressor, offering nearly twice the cooling power with considerably lessened power consumption. More importantly, because of the surprisingly cool and rainy weather in this first week, switching it out quickly was imperative.
The upshot? The unit still needs some additional work to bring everything up to code, but the difference is amazing. Even in the worst heat, not only does the new unit do so much more to cool the main gallery area, but IT DOESN’T RUN ALL DAY AND NIGHT. Obviously, the real acid test will be to check its performance during a packed open house, which may be a while, but this takes pressure off both attendees and the plants. The plants, in particular, appreciate the sudden coolth. Now let’s wait until it’s reasonably safe to have indoor events to test the system’s limits.
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Posted onJuly 10, 2020|Comments Off on Flash Sale: July 5, 2020
Okay, now things are getting interesting. Independence Day Weekend was the first serious test of the new Flash Sale hours through the summer. We didn’t get quite as hot as expected, but by the time everything was broken down, the heat and glare were passing from “Okay, that’s interesting” to “I HAVE THIRD DEGREE BURNS ON MY RETINAS.” Hence, because it’s only going to get hotter and hairier from here, the current 6:00 to noon schedule every Sunday continues until probably mid-September. It’s not fair to expect anyone to come out in the afternoon heat, both for the plants and the people.
Aside from THAT, Mrs. Kennedy, the Flash Sale schedule for July is up and accessible: please note that while it’s nice to sign up for tickets via EventBrite, it’s not necessary, nor do you need to show proof of tickets to come out for a flash sale. (The EventBrite listing is more to let local news venues know about them, with several creating their weekend calendars based on what EventBrite lists in its local schedules.) For those who do, though, thank you: this gives me a better idea of how many people are interested in attending, even if they can’t quite make it.
In any case, the next Flash Sale is July 12, this coming Sunday, and all are welcome. Heck, if you get out early, we might even share our cache of Topo Chico: I just hope you like grapefruit, because Topo Chico Touch of Grapefruit is becoming the olfactory equivalent of a summer soundtrack.
Posted onJuly 1, 2020|Comments Off on Flash Sale: June 28, 2020
After a solid month, it’s safe to say that even with current events and considerations, the Triffid Ranch Flash Sales are a hit. It’s now a mix of old friends, new people wanting to get into carnivorous plants for the first time, and regular and occasional attendees of the (sadly delayed) gallery open houses. Combine that with expanding the available plant selection, and the bigger issue is with folks who want to research their options first before purchasing a plant. This is a very laudable attitude and one that’s encouraged as much as possible, and that’s why the Flash Sales are held every Sunday.
As for July? The Flash Sales continue through every Sunday in July, from 6:00 am to noon. (They’ll be moved to 7:00 am in August due to shortening days.) Make your plans now, because there’s no guarantee that a particular plant you’re seeking will be available in subsequent weeks. And so it goes.
Posted onJuly 1, 2020|Comments Off on Happy Canada Day
For friends, cohorts, and relations outside of the Dallas area, a tribute to the flower emblem of Newfoundland & Labrador. For those in the Dallas area, it’s time for breakfast takeout from The Maple Leaf Diner, serving the absolute best Belgian waffles to be found this side of Toronto. And yes, when I pick up my waffles, I’m bringing a purple pitcher plant, just so the owners get a little bit of home.