goodbye for now, bananas

every march, the baron and the husband get impatient for the last frost to arrive, after which they can put out their seedlings and bring all manner of tropical plants up out of their basement.

the husband, you see, is a BIG fan of tropical plants. in their yard, in the warmer months, you can find ferns, pineapple plants, a coffee plant, pencil (and other types of) cactus, a papaya, and this one weird, allegedly psychotropic plant gifted to the husband by a couple who have since moved overseas. every fall, right around this time, the husband packs them all up into clay pots and drags them into the basement, where they will pass the next 4 months or so eking out an existence by the light of many sunlamps.

next to the cactus (which are plentiful, reader, plentiful), the plant the husband has the most of is banana. from two small corms given to him by his mother have grown a multitude of banana plants - the largest this year stretched 20 feet into the air. bananas, being warm weather things, can't stomach a maryland winter... so, up they come from ground, where the husband will cut them down to about 3 feet, wrap them in newspaper, and stash them in the basement. next spring, they'll be replanted, and - miraculously - will reach 20 feet again.

below, the husband shows the bananas who's boss.