I am Joy, well, ok, not always, and this is my personal blog.
A couple of years ago, my husband got me a new digital camera for my birthday – which falls at the end of July. That’s the heart of summer and the only time anybody should ever live in CT. A good summer in CT is better than anywhere else on earth. Unfortunately, summer is a short season and perfect ones don’t come along often. It actually works out quite well for me. I make good businesses better for a living and nobody wants to be made better in the summer. They’re off to the beach so I’m off to my gardens.
The lower path from the garage to the house takes me past our wooden deck – resting on the remains of one of my much cherished Norway Maples that bit the dust a few years back. That’s a story in itself. I was gardening one day, bent over, with my derrière in the air, when I heard someone calling my name. I was barefoot, dirty, sweaty, wearing shorts, and a tee-shirt with the neck band cut to a “v” and the sleeves cut out – and there he was – one of my clients – all crisp and clean. The first thing he said was, “I’ve never seen you like this before.” The fence went up. It’s a privacy fence – and it’s six feet high!
That fence cost two big Norway Maple trees their lives – casualties of a fence installer’s greed. The trees were only into our property about three feet. I asked the installer if he could SAFELY work around their root systems. He assured me that he could so I signed the contract. After he left, I discovered huge chunks of roots he’d whacked off to get his $2300 for 24’ of fence. There’s a special place reserved in hell for people like that. It only took the trees two years to die – then I had to pay to have them removed. I used the stump of the biggest one as part of the foundation for a deck. Through the years, the deck has shifted a bit and now slants. That’s actually a good thing because I keep it loaded with planters – at least around the edges – along with a fountain or two – and the slant helps with drainage.
I gave up land based vegetable gardening years ago in favor of container gardening – so my entire vegetable garden sits in containers on that deck. Not that tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are anything but gorgeous, but I do need to include flowers to complete the scene. Planting marigolds around the veggies seems to help keep veggie munchers at bay but I have containers filled with flowers as well. Flowers assure the arrival of the scant supply of bees and no small amount of butterflies. My little winged friends make sure I have a great crop.
So, on that day, back in July, 2007, my route to the house took me past that deck. I stopped and went up on it to check out my plants. There are usually a few grape tomatoes, some strawberries, maybe a cucumber, perfect for lunch, and I usually pick them on the way into the house. I’d put the camera together on the way home and was dying to try it out. I have no idea what possessed me, but I just held my arm down by my side, camera in my palm, lens up, stuck it under an Echinacea bloom and just clicked. I took half a dozen pictures then went to my computer to see how my pictures had turned out.
LOOK WHAT I FOUND!! All rights reserved! No common anything on this picture! Sometimes one needs a little something that is just theirs and this picture is mine. I’ll share my gardens, and my cats, and my knowledge, but this picture, (and my husband now that I’m thinking about it) are mine!
As I looked at this little guy, I started thinking about how everyone, including me, wants to be up high. We always want to look down. We like living on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The best part about flying is taking off and landing because it’s so much fun to peer into the backyards at we fly over them. We like riding in the cab of a truck so we can look down, and into, the cars as we pass by. Whether it’s just scenery, or voyeurism, we like the view from way up high!
Most of life’s secrets, however, are found under cover – we cover things we don’t want seen, and we hide under covers when we seek protection. I’m sure my little bee felt quite safe napping under this flower. Since then, I’ve spent many hours looking for things that I can examine from the bottom side up – and not just in my garden, ideas too. I started thinking about all the things that we humans do wrong, even when we intend to do right. I don’t know if it’s selfishness, laziness, short sightedness, or just human nature, but we really do let ourselves down time, and time, again.
Found on these pages are my thoughts and random observations on issues that cross my path and my mind. I’ll warn you, they’re not always going to be politically correct. Political correctness may be one of those things that have unintended consequences. We’ll see. The jury of me is still out on that one. These are my feelings, good, bad, and indifferent. If you don’t like the way I think, don’t read my work. Go write your own blog. It’s that simple.