Holy Crepitus

     Today was Annual Spider Plant Resuscitation Day.  That means bringing the spider plants from the basement where they have spent the winter to the front of the house where they spend the summer suspended from the branches of the evergreen trees.  They look like released prisoners, yellow, scrawny and thin and half dead.  I snip off all the dead parts, which is about half of the plant.  The plants never die; they are revived in time to go on with their lives.  One plant started it all; I must have  had about 50 or 60 of them over the years.  My goal is to hold at 4 plants; they're said to help in purifying the air, and while I don't have room for them in the house, I figure it can't hurt to have cleaner air in the basement.  They reproduce like crazy; each plant puts forth a number of  babies, and when I transfer them from cellar to the great outdoors, the shoots break off, and each is ready to grow into a new plant.  Over the years,  I have given many away--to the Democratic Committee fundraiser, to the Valley Falls Library and to friends and relatives.  I have to wait until fall to do so though, because that's when the plants look green and healthy, unlike their puny condition now.
     Last fall, I gave a number away, 6 plants I believe, and kept only 4 of the original plants, including one which Greg entered in the Schaghticoke Fair and won a First Place Ribbon and $5.00.  I think I have 7 or 8 plants now; those little broken suckers thrived and grew.  I used to transport 2 plants at a time from downstairs to out front, but last year carried only 1 at a time.  This year I asked Dave to do it.  I just trimmed them and hung them from the trees.  Next year, who knows?  Crepitus, crepitus.