Sunday Dinner: Small Delights

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“The great underestimates the small,

the leader underestimates the led,

the beautiful underestimates the ugly,

and you underestimate who?”

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Alan Maiccon

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“Smallness is subversive,

because smallness can creep into smaller places

and wreak transformation

at the most vulnerable, cellular level.

In a time when largeness is threatening to topple us,

I wish to remember and praise the beauty of smallness,

in order to banish the Goliath of loneliness.”

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Sarah Ruhl

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“Great man

is the one who is aware

of his smallness in this universe!

Greatness starts first of all

with accepting the reality.”

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Mehmet Murat ildan

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“All space is relative.

There is no such thing as size.

The telescope and the microscope

have produced a deadly leveling

of great and small, far and near.

The only little thing is sin,

the only great thing is fear!”

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David H. Keller

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“Express gratitude

for the greatness of small things.”

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Richie Norton

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“Just because our brains are limited in size,

does not mean our minds need be.”

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Jeffrey Fry

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“You may think I’m small,

but I have a universe

inside my mind.”

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Yoko Ono

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“To see things in the seed,

that is genius.”
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Lao-Tzu

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The Williamsburg Botanical Garden is filled at the moment with butterflies!

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5th Annual Butterfly Festival

Williamsburg Botanical Garden

August 3 & 4  9-4

Admission Free, Donations accepted

Attracted

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Distracted, or focused? A short walk outside, into the garden, is all it takes.

Whatever my purpose, I’m soon distracted by the life of the garden around me.  A bird zooms from shrub to limb.  A butterfly hovers, a rabbit skitters off for cover.  My eyes search out new growth and newly blooming flowers.  I check the progress of the season.

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If momentarily distracted from the business of the day, my attention is re-focused on the beauties unfolding around me.

I make a quick observation of what needs to be done:  deadheading, staking, weeding, harvesting….

I can get lost in timeless loops of doing; of nurturing the many different growing things and buzzing things and skittering things and gliding things who animate this magical world outside our doors.

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Each time I step outside the light has shifted, the players changed:  goldfinches, skinks, turtles, hawks, cardinals, swallowtails, caterpillars, dragonflies and toads.

Each passing day brings flowers budding or fading; new leaves unfurling; new stems materializing overnight.

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The earth is wet, the earth is dry, the earth has covered itself with green or turned stubbornly hard and barren.

The unfolding drama of each day captures my attention entirely.

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The phone may ring, and I may fish it out of my pocket with a muddy hand; and distractedly connect the call.  Or perhaps I’ll silence it and send the message to voicemail while I frame another shot.

Such concentration it takes, to capture it all as the light shifts and the wind blows and the butterflies float away a nanosecond before my shutter clicks.

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I am hopelessly attracted by the wonder of it all.  I will wander the paths of our garden in sun or rain, dusk or broiling mid-day sun; the air so thick with summer that it is nearly liquid and dense with life.  The scent of ginger lilies permeates the evening breeze.

I hear the furtive rustling of a lizard behind a pot, or on the backside of a trunk; the call and response of crows; the sunset clicking of cardinals settling into their shelter as darkness falls; and bats re-claim the evening sky.

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Photos By Woodland Gnome 2017

For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Ooh, Shiny!

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“We are here to love.

Everything else is distraction.”

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Scott Stabile

 

Sunday Dinner: Sunlight

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“The awakening is the purpose.

The awakening of the fact that in essence

we are light, we are love.

Each cell of our body,

each cell and molecule of everything.

The power source that runs all life is light.

So to awaken to that knowledge,

and to desire to operate in that realm,

and to believe that it is possible,

are all factors that will put you there.”

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Dolores Cannon

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“Being the light of the world

is about being a broken, exploding, scarred star

and shining a light of hope and inspiration

to everyone around you.”

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Ricky Maye

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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“Once in a while you get shown the light

in the strangest of places,

if you look at it right.”

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Grateful Dead

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Wordless Wednesday

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“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”

Paul Valéry

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Woodland Gnome 2015

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Lavender Lovers

 

When Jennifer issued her One Word Photo Challenge: Lavender this morning, I headed out between showers to capture a few photos of our lavender flowers in the garden.

We have been admiring the lavender Rose of Sharon from the living room windows.

 

Rose of Sharon

In fact the hummingbirds have been hovering near them them all morning between the showers, and we enjoy watching them come and go.

But I suspected there might be other lavender flowers blooming this morning, if only I’d go out and notice them.

Chocolate mint in bloom

How does one draw a firm line between what is lavender and what is blue or pink?

There are so many shades, and all shine differently depending on the light.

Salvia nemerosa with Artemesia

 

Soon I was straying off the patio and into the wet grass, following the trail of lavender flowers through the garden.

And despite the wet, overcast weather, the garden was still buzzing with hungry creatures flying from flower to flower.

Perhaps moving a bit more slowly today, they seemed not to mind  me closing in with the camera to capture their portraits.

I wonder how these flowers appear to our bees, and to our dragonflies.

Bumblebee on Joe Pye Weed

 

Do their compound eyes see these colors even more intensely than ours?

Can they see flowers in ways we can only dream them?

A moth shares the Joe Pye Weed blossoms with the bee.

What must it be like to spend one’s entire lifetime in pursuit of flowers, and the sweet nectar and pollen they hold?  Might bees, like whales and dolphins, have a level of intelligence in advance of our own?

We have learned much about bees, and their language of dance, in recent years.  

Now scientists have learned they can be trained, even more quickly than dogs, to sniff out certain odors.

New technologies are in development which use trained bees to sniff out drugs and other substances.  It is all quite amazing to realize that bees can communicate with us in so many ways.

The low hum of their contented buzzing filled our garden this morning, much like the hum of a cat’s purr.

Hearing from friends across the country that bees are scarce in some gardens this summer, we feel special appreciation for the bees who choose to visit ours.

 

Another vital link in the web of life which brings food to our own table, we  appreciate the lives of bees;

and all of the other small creatures who spend their lives in pursuit of nectar, moving from flower to flower in the garden.

 

Dragonfly resting on a rose

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

One Word Photo Challenge: Lavender… Forest Garden

More One Word Photo Challenge: Lavender photos

 

One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze

One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze

These beautiful dragonflies, living in our garden, look metallic.

I wonder sometimes whether they might be tiny drones made to look like dragonflies.  One reads about these things.

This same dragonfly, or its twin, landed right beside me on a plant stake yesterday morning while I was watering on the patio.

Tame as a companion cat, it sat peacefully as I admired it and encouraged it to eat plenty of bugs that day.  It never moved until I turned away, and then only to continue its swooping aerial dance around the garden.

 

 

Photo by Woodland Gnome 2014

With Appreciation to Jennifer Nichole Wells for her

One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze

A “Dirty Hands” Garden Club

Colocasia, “Blue Hawaii”

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I would love to join  a “Dirty Hands” Garden Club;

One whose members know more about fertilizers

Than they do about wines…

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A gift of Glads, from a sister gardener…

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I’d want our meetings spent wandering through nurseries,

Learning from  expert gardeners,

Or building community gardens…

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Bumblebee on Lantana

 

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Not frittered away in chit chat over hors d’oeuvres .

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Bumblebee on Basil

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And all of us would be at least a little expert in something,

Glad to share what we’ve learned;

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Tiger Swallowtail on Echinacea

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And we all would love putting our hands in the dirt

To help something grow.

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Eastern Redbud Tree seedpods

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My club would collect species, not dues;

Re-build ecosystems rather than plant ivy and  box.

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Blue dragonfly on Lantana

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We “dirty hands” gardeners can band together

In spirit, if not in four walls.

We can share plants and insights,

Instigate, propagate, and appreciate;

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Rooted Begonia cutting resting on a bowl of Pitcherplants

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Perhaps we can even help rehabilitate 

Some sterile lawn somewhere

Into something which nurtures beauty

And feeds souls….

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A gift of Siberian Iris, from Barbara, growing in a new section of the garden.

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Others can judge flowers,

Decorate homes at Christmas

And organize tours.

These things are needed, too.

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Native Hibiscus

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(But I would rather be out in the garden;

Where cardinals preside over the morning meeting,

And  hummingbirds are our special guests for the day.

The daily agenda ranges from watering to transplanting;

From pruning to watching for turtles and dragonflies.)

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We  wear our muddy shoes and well worn gloves with pride,

Our spades and pruners always close at hand.

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We converse with Nature,

And re-build the web strand by strand,

Plant by plant.

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If this invitation speaks to you,

Perhaps we can work together,

From wherever we might find ourselves

Around the globe.

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We can each put our hands in the dirt

and create a garden,

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Nurture Beauty,

And restore health and vitality to our Earth, together.

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Does a “Dirty Hands” Garden Club

Appeal to you?

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Words and Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

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Canna

Weekly Photo Challenge: Contrast

Contrast– The art of bringing unlike things together

with an intent to heighten the appreciation of each element.

Contrast is an essential principle of good design, whether we are cooking a meal, decorating a room, building  a life, or constructing a garden.

We enjoy sweet with salty; creamy with bitter… 

 

We bring disparate elements together in fresh ways so the element of surprise wakes us up, invites us to see what might otherwise be overlooked.

Contrast jars us into thinking, sometimes.   It invites us to make choices; to see the relative values of things.

 

Our garden is one of sharp contrast:  We move from cool shade to bright sun in  a single step.

We have areas of dense growth and areas of lawn.  Areas carefully curated, and areas sown by nature.

 

Skillful contrast helps us frame  the view to tell our story.

 

 

“Happiness ain’t a thing in itself;

it’s only a contrast with something that ain’t pleasant.

And so, as soon as the novelty is over

and the force of the contrast dulled,

it ain’t happiness any longer,

and you have to get something fresh.”

 

Mark Twain

 

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Contrast

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

Butterflies, Dragonflies, and Bumblebees

Eliza Waters is a wonderful advocate for wild creatures of all sorts, but she has a special interest in Monarch butterflies.

We have been corresponding this spring about the plight of the Monarch.  She has been involved in creating habitat for them.  And she responded to the post with photos of a Monarch  we found near Yorktown, Virginia, in late May.

We found this Monarch on May 23, 2014. There was no sign of Monarchs today, sadly.

Eliza asked, earlier today, whether we had found any eggs or signs of Monarch larvae on the Milkweed by the pond where we have been watching for butterflies.

So my partner and I returned this evening, to see what we might see.

We found the Milkweed plants just covered in bumblebees, feasting on their tiny flowers just as the flowers were opening.  And the bumblebees were so blissed out on the wonderful nectar, they were totally oblivious to my presence.

Just inches away, they continued to feed while I took photos.

But in the entire time we explored, there was only one small butterfly or moth.  I don’t know its name, but suspect it is a moth.

Not a single Monarch to be found.  And at Eliza’s suggestion, I searched for signs of eggs or larvae on the Milkweed plants.

I”m so sorry to say that I couldn’t locate either.  The Milkweed leaves look pristine- no larval munching.  I checked the closest Milkweed plants and found no eggs, either.

Perhaps the Monarch did lay her eggs on one of these plants closer to the pond; one I didn’t climb down the bank to inspect.  Let us hope that is the case.

And we’ll continue to check back from time to time to see what evidence we may find as the summer unfolds.

Today we were happy to find a brilliant blue dragonfly.

He was quite happy to sit still while I snapped off several portraits of him.

He was watching me, but didn’t even flinch until I moved away.  He was a great sport, and I appreciate his patience.

The swans have moved on, too.  But we found Egrets wading further down the road.

Early summer brings such a pageant of life to our community.

We enjoy the staccato music of the frogs and the basso continuo buzzing of bees under the melody of birds calling to one another.

So much life, and such beauty.

All Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

Beautiful Bees and Flutterbys

This gallery contains 17 photos.

Bees are always welcome in my garden for their wonderful buzzing and their help in pollination.  We have many different sorts of bees zooming around with the dragonflies, butterflies, and the humming birds.  Here are a few who stayed still long enough for me to get their photos.  The shrub “bones” of this garden are … Continue reading →