Naked Ladies at the Mill

I really wasn’t expecting to walk inside the retail shop of the mill and encounter so many naked ladies. I was quite taken aback at first until my memory jogged into function and I vaguely remembered that these got pride of place at my late mother-in-law’s house, proudly showing off their wares. But I hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night so I thought my eyes were fooling me. Was I imagining this? Was I dreaming in the daytime? Nope. I even asked the young sales clerk who was adding up my ticket for two sacks of chook wheat what these were called. But of course, she was too young to know the real answer.
Laughing, I went back to the car where my semi-comatose husband was waiting for the bags of wheat to be dropped into our boot (trunk in American-speak), so we could proceed to the next outlet on our trek for foodstuffs. Oh, what an exciting life living out in the back of society making each journey into town one for some sort of refill of supplies. But I digress. I came back to the car and told John there were some naked ladies inside. Oddly, he perked up immediately. Probably wondering if he should have gone inside to pay for the wheat seeds. The bugger. I could see that he was more awake than before.
Hmmmm.
Well, as I remember it these pink colored flowers come up suddenly around this time of year and appear ‘naked’ because there are no leaves on the stems to cover them. Sorry to disappoint you. But I was definitely enthused to see them. When I first visited New Zealand and then moved here, I used to see these regularly at this time of year in all the houses of the older generations-- my late mother-in-law and her sisters proudly displayed these lovelies in heirloom vases. It was a tradition around here. There were all kinds of flowers and plants that were so foreign to me. Like daphne shrubs that have a very particular scented flower, quite distinctive and pleasant. Just like all of New Zealand to my American eyes, there was so much that was new and exotic to me coming from California. A mix of old-world species from Europe and tropical looking plants and flowers from islands in the South Pacific. So much catching up to do initially but I’m still discovering things I don’t quite get. What a slowpoke.