The seed

I decided to stop putting it off and just do it. I'm trying to germinate a lotus seed.

1. Scratch off an area of the hard, outer seed coat to expose the seed inside so water can penetrate
2. Keep scratching
3. Realise why lotus seeds survive unscathed for over 2000 years. I've scratched the tops of my fingers, and the seed coat looks unblemished.
4. Finally get through to the seed
5. Place in jar of warm water
6. Change water daily, keeping jar in a warm, sunny spot.
7. Have the two coldest days of the year so far immediately after. Tropical Queensland only ever gets this cold for about 2 weeks. So of course its the day after I start trying to germinate the lotus that this winter snap begins.
8. Persevere anyway.

Will keep you updated on the progress of the lotus seed. I'm hoping as a symbol of longevity and fertility, and beauty from adversity, its going to bring some seriously good cosmic karma my way.

On a slightly more positive garden note, the fig tree my dog dug up (TWICE) has actually sprouted a new bud after some serious trauma. Roots started last week after 3 weeks in a bucket of seaweed solution and my first attempt at grafting. Lita managed to amputate the growing shoot, so I salvaged it and tried grafting a bud back onto the rootstock, holding out little hope for the previous graft union. The old graft seems to have survived though, not sure about my attempt - maybe another week or two, doesn't look too healthy, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Going to take a trip to my health insurance fund, try and get some money back on my FET medication scripts. Progesterone ain't cheap. And now I'm stocked up again.