[Sacred Succulents] updates and auction-fundraiser

[Sacred Succulents]

(please respond to: benkamm at monitor.net)
Greetings,
We hope this finds you relatively well during these tumultuous
times.It has been a bit of a bumpy ride here. We had taken the month
of September off from shipping orders in an attempt to catch up with
necessary nursery projects and upkeep. Unfortunately the numerous
wildfires burning near us were a bit of a distraction and the smoke
made it impossible to work in the nursery many days, even with a
respirator.
The extreme temperature swings have not been kind to plants–we had a
few days of unheard of 108 F heat followed by a drop to the 50s in
less than 24 hours! These climatic convulsions and a water shortage in
August has devastated sections of our perennial gardens–some Andean
and Asian plants have been the hardest hit. Even many California
natives are suffering. This will effect our future seed production of
a number of plants. 
The _Trichocereus_ cacti initially responded to the hardships with
enthusiastic joy, they had more flowers than we've seen in nearly a
decade. This gave us the opportunity to try some novel hybridization,
yet even this was brought up short–about 2/3 of the fruit aborted
during one of the heat spikes, something that has never happened in
the 25 years we've been producing hybrids. Enough fruit did survive to
fully ripen that we will have a small list of exciting new hybrids
soon. 
Melissa has been dealing with unexpected anemia since September which
has its own medley of stresses for our family while she rests and
recovers. This means that I've been helping out with the girls
homeschool even more in addition to trying to keep up with the nursery
and deluge of crises. 
Bringing things up to the more recent trials and tribulations; _We've
had some recent issues with our _sacredsucculents at hushmail.com _email_
– we were not able to view or answer correspondence to this address
for a couple weeks. We finally got this fixed yesterday. We apologize
if we've not responded to a recent email because of this mishap, we
now have over 100 emails to answer and we'll do our best to get to all
of them over the next few days. If it is something particularly urgent
please use benkamm at monitor.net 
Two weeks ago we were woken by frantic neighbors at 5 am and had to
evacuate – high winds had knocked a tree onto the power lines and
started a forest fire less than 1/2 mile from us. Luckily our local
volunteer fire fighters got the fire out quickly and we were able to
return home that day. The experience was highly stressful to say the
least. 
Specimen Plant Mini-Auction Fundraiser: We were going to hold another
mini-auction in September but the numerous wildfires delayed it. We
had then planned mid-October but this was delayed by the stress of the
evacuation. I thought I'd get it underway this last Sunday but a
paranoid PG&E cut our power for nearly 48 hours! So after far to much
effort I finally got the auction posted last night and it is now
underway–See partway down our homepage for the terms and listings:
www.sacredsucculents.com  Please read the full terms before bidding.
Use benkamm at monitor.net for email bids. Due to all the delays it is a
short auction this time, it closes at 6:30 pm PST, Sunday, November 1.
We also have quite a few new Specimen Plants available, see the
listings below the auction on our homepage. Even with all the losses
this year we have lots of new plants and seeds in the works– if we
can just have a few weeks of minimal crises we might be able to write
descriptions and get the catalog updated along with the RPL and
wholesale listings many of you continue to request. We are still a bit
frazzled by the near immolation of our home, gardens & greenhouses.
The flood of calamities has made keeping up with business and just
about everything else a challenge. I apologize for once again being
erratic or slow with correspondence and shipping orders but I am doing
the very best I can given the situation.
We deeply appreciate your ongoing patience and support. We wish you
best of health and peace of mind. 
Ben & family
Sacred Succulents
 PO Box 781
 Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA
 http://www.sacredsucculents.com
 To receive our periodic emails listing new plants & seeds, specials,
musings from our greenhouses & travels sign up at - 
 http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/sacredsucculents
 We do not take Paypal or other online payments. Still just cash,
check or money order to our PO box.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/sacredsucculents/attachments/20201030/227768ae/attachment.html>