My Blogging Mind

My blogging mind is a bit like the leaves of this Coleus plant. Coleus leaves tend to rule the day and so it was with my mind and blogging. I would come up with blog thoughts as my life unfolded. Then came Facebook and Twitter and my mind started to think in short thoughts.

The above photo comes by way of my garden and originally the red leaves were still dominant, but then I lowered the exposure as I tweaked it on iPhoto and the blooms popped out. Not what I expected, but did I expect other social media to affect blogging.


Has one social media changed another? Has this happened to you?


Every August I do a computer vacation to cleanse my soul and that will arrive after this coming wordless Wednesday. In September, I am thinking of returning to an a-z theme to get this blogging mind of mine flowing again as it did in April.

We will see. Maybe it will become like this Zinnia jungle...

Spring

today I ventured into my garden, well at least the front yard. I spent an hour cleaning it up and seeing what is happening and this is some of what I found:

I love flower buds and while I tried to get the one and only Scabiosa (pin cushions), no fine photos emerged. But I am OK with this Hyacinth:



Mosaic Woman digs the Hydrangea and in the midst of all the dead wood:


The rock garden has started growing over the stump of the ornamental Cherry tree that died soon after we bought the house:


Early blooms:

a) Siberian Irises, which are new this year and are fast becoming a favorite of Mosaic Woman:


b) also new this year to both my home and work gardens, Snow Drops. Here is what they look like if you look up at one:


c) and the golden crocuses are done for the year. How sad is that, but they are still giving some brightness to these March days:

Spring emerges slowly, like what will one day be a plant filled with coneflowers:


The Hens and Chicks seem to be ready to photosynthesize in full force:



My favorite tools include this stirrup hoe which make weeding a bit easier:



Given to me at Christmas by my assistant at work, now it seems to be the day to celebrate the sun in the garden:

The eye of the zinnia

The eye of the zinnia stares at me and captures my attention. "Slow down," it shrieks at me; for it knows it is hard to get my attention as I rush to get the gardening tasks completed. The first zinnia bud spoke to me several years ago where I garden with my students. Now I anticipate seeing them every summer, however, what other buds have I missed?





I am still reading Here and Now by Henri Nouwen and this morning he spoke of being in a hurry:

"I am constantly puzzled by my eagerness to get something done, to see someone, to finish some job, while I am fully aware that within a month or even a week I will have completely forgotten what it was that seemed so urgent. It seems that I share this restlessness with many others."

When I am trying to get all the over-the hill blooms deadheaded, what do I miss in the process? My eyes are so focused on the dead and dying that I know I miss what is becoming. When I explain deadheading, I joke with my students that it is a good thing we don't treat old people the way I treat old flowers. "Get rid of them so we get more blooms." But if I spend all my time searching out the dead and dying, what use is getting more blooms? In the flower garden it is blooms that we want, but first come the buds.


Here are two more I discovered by slowing down with camera in hand:



This is leadwort. I have become a lover of plants that end in wort.










This is a vuurvogel which could sound even better than wort, but I don't know how to pronounce it. Maybe somewhere dahlias are known as a wort.



When one slows down one can experience the moment, the beauty of becoming.