How hard is it going to be to make a garden-related post with no more than three pictures? NOT HARD AT ALL!
I've taken a few days off, away from home. I didn't bring my cellphone with me, which means no photographs. If you have not tried being away from your cell phone for an extended period, let me take this opportunity to implore you to do so! Remember the good life, where one could take off in the car, or on a horse, or on foot, and know they would not be interrupted by another human being's needs or wants. It's very liberating! Do it right now. Go for a short walk and leave your phone at home. Hug a tree for good measure while you're out there. You'll see. You'll find yourself smiling a lot more than you usually do.
That's the tiniest thing I can think of that gives me pleasure in my garden, something that is not even a thing, but is instead the absence of a thing. When I am outside tending to my self-imposed charges without my phone, I cannot be interrupted. I commune more deeply with non-human beings, large and small. Trees, birds overhead, worms in the dirt, budding fruit trees, thriving seedlings, tiny cucumbers just coming into the world, and much more. The beings in my tiny patch of the earth are countless and priceless to me, no matter their size.
But there are a lot of tiny things that do thrill me: the first view of a seedling pushing up through to the sun, the earliest blossom on a pea plant, the first whiff of lilac, or the tiny hanging flowers of Solomon's seal. Large things can be quite beautiful too, such as trees that are in full bloom, yes. Even more so when the trees are fragrant.
I have a viburnum in the back of my little yard that isn't all that spectacular while in bloom, and its 'fragrance' is more noxious than pleasing, but when the tree drops its flowers, the ground beneath it is breath-takingly gorgeous. Blooms that are composed of many tiny blossoms while on the tree, break up into very small star-shaped flowerettes, and carpet the ground underneath. I make sure to spend some time just standing there, gazing at the ground, feasting on its beauty, allowing the nearly spent blossoms to massage my eyes. I know that in another couple of hours, the glory will have faded, and I am grateful that I happened along at just the right time.
This is my entry to the Hive Garden community's monthly creative garden challenge for June. Come join in the fun!
rock this challenge!
.@carokean, you could
This is my entry to Hive Garden Community's monthly creative garden challenge for June 2023.
Yes. My thing today was my husband.
'Do you need a hand weeding?'
'No thanks, I'd rather be on my own'
Mainly as he'd been grumpy and making me anxious all morning! End of term stress, and I pick up on his energy which was NOT working well with my own.
So yes. Sometimes the pleasure is absolutely in the absence of things. A very clever response! Loved it, thankyou!
Interesting: What we want most, sometimes, is the absence of things. Distractions. Stressors.
What do you want for Mother's day? "No fighting amongst you kids. No whining."
Oddly, that was one gift they could never give me. Until they all left home.
No phone while gardening - excellent idea.
Not that long, we grew up in a phone-free world.
The idea of people being free to call us anywhere, anytime, even while we're on vacation, would have seemed unbelievable to us. I'm so old, I remember when we thought the picture phone might occur in our lifetime. Now we FaceTime and video-call and Zoom people all over the planet.
And how many times did the mom step out of the shower in just a towel and walk into the room while the kid was in school via Zoom...
I often say that if my husband would have just left me alone now and then, and taken the kids with him, the marriage would have lasted longer than 27 years.
Thanks for your appreciation! And for all you do!
Aw, thankyou!
Geez, if only men were more considerate, no one would get divorced....
I'm officially taking this as a sign to do the no-phone thing. Been on my mind a while. Some character on a show (Yellowjackets) phrased being phone-free quite well, as liberating yourself from the tyranny of other people's priorities.
Beauty in the little things is actually the biggest beauty of all. It's our minds that make em little. I love this post <3
Yes exactly - libertion from other peoples priorities!
I don't take my phone with me very often. I went out recently with two friends, and when one of them didn't show up on time, the other ordered me to 'call her.' When I said I hadn't brought my phone, she got quite angry with me for being unreachable! Told me I 'should think different.' I said 'I am thinking different!' The late friend knows my refusal to bring my phone with me most places, and would have called the restaurant if she needed to get in touch with me, like we all did,not long ago, in those good old days, the 90's, which @riverflows longed for in a comment above. We have been deliberately enslaved to our phones. They are the enemy's weapons. Lay them down.
"Lay them down" - what a great rallying cry!
Phones are the enemy's weapons!
Distracting us, enslaving us.
In our last-century childhoods, if we could have seen documentaries of our granchildren as school kids walking around, heads bent over some gadet in hand, talking to nobody we could see, we'd have thought they were all escaped from the mental ward.
Tracking us, indoctrinating us, making us dumber and enslaving our minds! Get rid of them. I know many folks use them to blog. The only app I have on my phone is a GPS, and I try very hard not to use it. I print out directions, look at maps, and ask friends for directions instead. Many say "I just put it in my GPS." People no longer know how to drive around their own towns without a GPS!
Oh, the lying GPS...
Last week a Fed Ex driver tried to hand me a package addressed to my neighbor.
I pointed to the house to the east of me.
"But the GPS took me to this house," he said.
YOU CANNOT TRUST the GPS.
Paper maps have been more reliable. Unless road closings and detours, hence, "WAZE," one of those apps. My husband and children can use these apps. I am allergic to apps. Unfold the map from the glove compartment please... note to self: try again to teach daughter to READ MAPS....
I try to imagine what my own kids/grandkids will have, in lieu of smartphones. Then I remember the answer depends on who I'm gonna be, at least to an extent, and how much access to that sort of distracting tech they're gonna have. Too many parents, sadly, gave into social pressure (or just rejoiced in having their children temporarily outta their hands) without understanding the addictive path they were walking the kids down on.
You're totally right. Enslaving is just what they're doing. And with each new tech they roll out, it gets a little harder to break free.
lol is that a typo I see in your comment? As I live and breathe...
I probably told you about a bat mitzvah I went to a few years ago, jeez it would have been nearly 8 years ago now, and all the kids were sitting glumly at their table with their phones in their hands, while their parents cut up the dance floor! It was bizarre.
I've considered doing this, and that social aspect's always what stops me. What if they can't reach me? I was meeting a friend yesterday, and I kept fidgeting with my phone, waiting for her. And then, I had like an aha moment. Like why do I keep holding it? She'd told me where she was, I had an estimate how long she was gonna be. The informational transaction was over. Conditioning, you know?
I agree with @carolkean. Lay them down may be one of the coolest battle cries I've heard in a while. I'm definitely gonna adopt it into my personal day-to-day, hope you don't mind :)
It's so ludicrous it's funny. I don't even think it's so much a matter of being reachable, as in that's not what bothers. What bothers others in this sort of thinking is (as ever) how it reflects on them, and I've noticed smartphone addiction is something of a sore spot. We don't wanna be that person, but aren't willing to think different, either.
Our obsession with the smart phones, like all obsessions, has gone too far. We really have to stop using them altogether! It's nearly impossible, but I am slowly training everyone I know to leave messages on my landlines (I have three), or email me, and wait for me to get back to them. This makes everyone slow down some.
I've been saying "Our phones are our enemy's weapons. Lay them down" for a while now, hoping it would catch on. Go right ahead and use it lavishly!
Thank you, I will! :D I always cave in for the music, though I'm aware it's a self-sabotaging mentality. I go yeah, but I still wanna listen to my Spotify or whatever, and then abort the whole digital detox plan altogether. I know it might not sound like it, but it's a big thing for me, so quick question, do you YouTube or CDs or something? :)
CDs and vinyl, all hardwired, no wifi in my house except when guests are staying over, because I can only hardwire one device at a time. I listen to music that I want to learn, but have no hardcopy of, on my computer. I like live music best, especially making it with others - imagine the connection! We must go back to non-tech times as much as possible. Technology is a trap.
I've gotta say, I love your outlook! I agree. I did an impromptu jam session with my brother the other night and it was such a uniquely freeing and fun experience. It made me think I might actually like to learn a bit of piano (when I've never ever thought of myself as a piano person). Wouldn't have happened just sitting around listening to other stuff. Thank you, I greatly enjoy interacting with you :) have a great day!
I love technology breaks! Although I work online, I grew up pre-Internet and with rotary phones. I have no difficulty setting down my phone and walking away!
One of the reasons summer has become my favorite season is precisely that we garden a lot and leave the technology in the house.
Sometimes I wish we could go back to the 1990s.
It's so much more pleasurable if I know the time is all mine, and will not be someone else's until and unless I go into the house. Or until a neighbor stops by. In the flesh, I enjoy these visits. I get to show off my garden!
The tiny things are what makes life go around. !LUV
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Right? The big stuff is just fluff. Thanks for the LUV!
Oooh yes - the nondescript white blossoms of the viburnum, and then, this:
Our crabapple tree dropped fuschia (pinkish purple) confetti, like lining the streets with rose petals for the queen. The derecho took that tree, but lots of baby crabapple seedlings are popping up everywhere we no longer mow (thanks to "no mow May"). Redbud seedlings too - but most appear in cracks in the sidewalk, almost impossible to extract -
Let it snow (spirea and viburnum)...
Yes! Folks get sad when flowering trees drop their flowers, but I love it. Walk in a botanic garden when the cherry blossoms or crab apples drop! I haven't done that in many years. I'm so sorry you lost a crabapple! I think crabapple might just be my favorite tree of all.
I need a red bud. I've always loved them and had no where to put one. Now I have the lake.
This is where I am lucky, my husband and I have TracFone's. We buy minutes, 60 every 3 months for 20 dollars. Our cell phones are only for emergencies. We have a landline and everyone knows to call it. While outside I carry my phone with me to take photos.
Yes! I destroyed my phone a while back, and had to go with a tracphone. I was stunned at how inexpensive it was. Maybe I'll switch to one of those, for those very few times when I actually need a smart phone, which is hardly ever nowadays. It's nice to know this about you!
It is inexpensive if you are like we are and do not use the phone much. I can go on the internet with it at no cost, as long as I have internet at home. I can not go on it anywhere else unless I hook up to someone's internet.
Words can paint a picture in our mind's eye, letting our imagination form its own image, scents and sounds!
You have that gift @owasco, such a lovely post.
I do love your image though, there's so much beauty that we miss. We forget to look at what's below. I sometimes take photos of leaves or pebbles lying on the ground when out walking, startled a friend once, she thought I'd lost all my marbles!
So so true, we become slaves to our phones and neglect those sitting in the room with us!
It's very true... those devices we see as convenience are in essence simply restrictive... you can feel the liberation as you walk off in that moment!
20+ years ago when I got my first phone, I never dreamed how precious the moments without it would be.
It seems to me that we had a 'similar' period of detox and desire for silence, rummaging in the garden and observing.
One picture worth thousand words - see you don't even need all three! 🤣
You so exquisitely and succinctly expressed the joy of working with plants and gardens! So much beauty in such a simple post! 😁 🙏 💚 ✨ 🤙
Why thank you!
You're so very welcome, most definitely! 😁 🙏 💚 ✨ 🤙
This is why I don't have a cell phone. I bring my camera instead, if I can remember...