I'm an orchid grower.
I grow millions of orchids. Yep, millions. In one of the largest greenhouses in north America.
I think my job is so awesome, I volunteered to to talk at career day at Tam's school last Friday.
What?!
Wait.
How do I make growing orchids sound wicked cool to a bunch of seven year olds?
Well, I gave it my best shot.
They set up the parents in the gym, 6 careers at a time. Then the students rotate in front of the parents as a class. Each parent is slotted for only an hour before the next shift comes on and the next group of students enter. So, I had to give my orchid spiel 6 times ;-) Now, it has been over year since I had to give a lecture to kiddos, so I was a little out of practice.
So what do I do?
I start with this little baby orchids.
60 plants per tray
50 trays per table: 60 x 50 = 3000 plants per table
41 table per row: 41 x 3000 = 123,000 plants per row
10 rows per compartment: 10 x 123,000 = 1,230,000 plants per compartment
4 compartments of young plants
4 x 1,230,000 = 4,920,000 plants in young plants.
Young plants is my section, where the plants stay for about 6 months before moving on to the next growing section.
Here's one compartment. Each green splotch is a baby plant. That black splot in the upper right is my co-worker.
Plants need sunlight (hence all the windows on the greenhouse) and water provided by a super cool sprinkler system that I manage.
And orchids need warm temperatures, about 75 degrees Ferenheit. So, I work in warm weather all year round, no matter how much snow is outside.
I can't give too much water or too little or too much sun or too little...like Goldilocks, it much be Just Right. And I monitor much of this with computers, plant measurements, and plant computers!
When the plants get bigger, they get removed from the trays, placed in their own cups and moved to the next growing area.
All these green splotches are individual plants. The orange splotch WAY in the back center is another co-worker wavy at us.
There are so many plants, that nearly every available space is covered with an orchid. So we don't step on any (and to maximize access using minimal space) we have mechanical booms that travel over the TOP of the plants.
Eventually, in about a year, the plants put up their flowering stalks and then eventually begin to flower.
We ship about 250,000 plants a week from the greenhouse. Mostly they travel to stores like Cosco, Giant Eagle, Lowes, and such. The flowers come in a wide variety of colors...but no black = dead flower.
The kids were also good in coming up with things I have to worry about and protect my orchid from. They were surprisingly worried about bears coming in and eating the flowers. (No bears, but we have had to chase out cats and raccoons occasionally). The kiddos were also very excited to hear that we keep good bugs to eat the bad bugs that attack the flowers...which includes all the spiders we let hang out in the greenhouse :-)
Overall, I had a blast talking to first graders. I certainly got to see the differences in how interested the kids were and how they behaved while listening. I liked the curve-ball questions they threw at me. (How much money does it cost to grow an orchid? Do flowers sleep at night? Do you worry about storms?)
Good times....next year, Brian can go!
Well, Tam's doing stellar. 
I remember going to Kindergarden and learning my letters with the letter people. I also remember finishing Kindergarden and being really upset that they hadn't taught us how to read! Now, here's my kid reading like a champ and my 3 year old trying his darnest to learn to catch up with older brother.
