WPC: Weathered Flowers

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Flowers have survived on our Hydrangea quercifolia shrubs longer this season than ever before.  From buds to these weathered remnants, we have enjoyed them daily over their season.

This is the longest they’ve ever lasted, as some years the flowers  are eaten off of our oakleaf Hydrangeas by hungry deer before the flowers fully mature.

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I see these winter wilted leaves and weathered flowers as a small sign of victory in our ongoing struggles with this garden.  Like an elderly person, a story of survival is told in every detail of their countenance.

Winter teaches us to find beauty in all stages of life.  It shows us the dignity of strength and tenacity, and serves as

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Allium flowers, gone to seed, and now with the seeds mostly blown away.  Their structure and grace remains.

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“…a reminder that there’s beauty to be found in the ephemeral and impermanent.”

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For the Daily Post’s:

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Weathered

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Summer Garden: Shifting Focus

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“The beauty of that June day was almost staggering.

After the wet spring, everything that could turn green

had outdone itself in greenness

and everything that could even dream of blooming

or blossoming was in bloom and blossom.

The sunlight was a benediction.”

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Dan Simmons

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Allium

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“And so with the sunshine

and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees,

just as things grow in fast movies,

I had that familiar conviction

that life was beginning over again

with the summer.”

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“There’s this magical sense of possibility

that stretches like a bridge

between June and August.

A sense that anything can happen.”

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Aimee Friedman

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Carrot flower and Coreopsis

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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Clematis

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“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”

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Oscar Wilde

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Focus

Sunday Dinner: Community

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“No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:

any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls;

it tolls for thee.”

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John Donne

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“If man is to survive,

he will have learned to take a delight

in the essential differences between men

and between cultures.

He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes

are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety,

not something to fear.”

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Gene Roddenberry

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“What should young people do with their lives today?

Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing

is to create stable communities

in which the terrible disease of loneliness

can be cured.”

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Kurt Vonnegut Jr

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“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches

is that our relationship to the planet

need not be zero-sum,

and that as long as the sun still shines

and people still can plan and plant,

think and do, we can, if we bother to try,

find ways to provide for ourselves

without diminishing the world. ”

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Michael Pollan

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“Remember that the happiest people

are not those getting more,

but those giving more.”

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H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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In Memory of Special Agent Michael Walter,

who was lost in the line of duty May 26-27, 2017

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“But many of us seek community

solely to escape the fear of being alone.

Knowing how to be solitary

is central to the art of loving.

When we can be alone,

we can be with others without using them

as a means of escape.”

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bell hooks

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Wednesday Vignette: Peace

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“Peace begins with a smile..”
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Mother Teresa

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate:

only love can do that.”

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Martin Luther King Jr.

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“The day the power of love overrules the love of power,

the world will know peace.”

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Mahatma Gandhi

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“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness.

If you are attentive, you will see it. ”

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Thich Nhat Hanh,

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“The mind can go in a thousand directions,

but on this beautiful path,

I walk in peace.

With each step, the wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.”

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Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday Dinner: Gratitude

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Verbena ‘Lollipop’ at the Heath family’s garden in Gloucester.

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“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardeners

who make our souls blossom.”

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Marcel Proust

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“Beauty is not who you are on the outside,

it is the wisdom and time you gave away

to save another struggling soul, like you.”

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Shannon L. Alder

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Alliums with Iris, Gloucester, VA

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“I believe that what we become

depends on what our fathers teach us

at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

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Umberto Eco

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Allium in our Forest Garden

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“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up

trying to pay back the people in this world

who sustain our lives.

In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender

before the miraculous scope of human generosity

and to just keep saying thank you,

forever and sincerely,

for as long as we have voices.”

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Elizabeth Gilbert

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The rare daylily left ungrazed to bloom in our garden; for which we are most grateful!

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

With love and appreciation to all of those Fathers

who give of themselves so generously

to make this a more beautiful and more loving world for all.

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Zantedeschia aethiopica in our Forest Garden

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“You pray in your distress and in your need;

would that you might pray also

in the fullness of your joy

and in your days of abundance.”

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Kahlil Gibran

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Silent Sunday

Allium with bees

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“Handle a book as a bee does a flower,

extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”
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John Muir

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“One can no more approach people without love

than one can approach bees without care.

Such is the quality of bees…”
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Leo Tolstoy

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Woodland Gnome 2015