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I’m back!
Wow, over 6 months since I’ve gone anywhere near OB. Life has a way of getting in the way sometimes. I don’t know how much of the old crowd is still around, but hello to you all! To the people who don’t know me, I was once a very active member and mod here, up until roughly a year or so ago when I progressively visited less and less.

I’m finally getting back to my orchids after a very prolonged haitus, during which they were quite severely neglected. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, getting more and more involved in my photography hobby, had a lot of changes in my private life in the past year (including a stressful move in June) and for most of this year I was dealing with a near burnout caused by too much work and stress (I’m a PhD student) which left me too exhausted to do anything. I feel better this fall, and am taking things slowly. The orchids are in bad shape though. My ongoing mealybug issue ballooned to take on gigantic proportions, and I’ve thrown out a substantial portion of the collection. So I cleaned up the survivors, segragated the infested orchids to the very back of the apartment, and am slowly building up a healthy collection again. I’m down to about 30 orchids, from a high of 95-100 2 years ago. This coming weekend I’m going to an orchid show, so I’ll be able to expand my collection quite a bit! My new apartment is great for orchids, the eating/living room has nearly 9 meters (30 feet!) of floor to ceiling windows, facing west and south. It’s an orchid dream (much to the boyfriend’s dismay). I’ve decided to focus on my true love, which are Phal species and primary hybrids, and only keep a limited amount of other genera, and eventually venture into the high light types, probably Catts and a few vandaceous orchids.

With the end of my PhD in sight (next summer) I doubt I’ll ever be on OB like I used to, but I will try to come here on a regular basis again. I’ve missed my orchids, and missed my orchid friends!

And to finish off, a few somewhat recent photos of some of the survivors; Dtps Liu's Berry, Howeara Lava Burst, Phal pallens.