While out plotting new vegetable plots for this year’s planting, I stumbled on this exquisite miniature garden. The tiny, fresh leaves were dotted with fresh raindrops.
From a distance, it’s easy to miss the beauty nature poured into a cement block.
But up close, it’s every bit as calming as sitting on the veranda of Nanzenji in Kyoto. If you ever make it to Kyoto, Nanzenji 南禅寺 is a temple worth visiting, though with more than a thousand temples in Kyoto, and with hundreds you just have to see, you might think of planning a very long vacation there.
Not to be outdone is the garlic patch here at a man and his hoe®. You don’t have to get on a plane and travel across the world to encounter exquisite beauty. Sometimes you just need to look down and see what’s growing at your feet.
Category: Reflections
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Popup Garden
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Living in an Outdoor Museum
No matter how busy we get, there’s always time to enjoy beauty. It only takes a second or two.
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A Shovel Worth Having – and Made in Ohio to Boot
Good tools are indispensable when it comes to farming. And this is especially true with hand tools. A few weeks ago I found a sturdy shovel made by Bully Tools of Steubenville, Ohio, where they make all their tools. What impressed me about the shovel is that the back of the shovel head is sealed. Most shovel heads are not sealed in the back so when you use them, dirt gets clogged between the handle and the head. And if you’re dealing with any clay, they are a pain to clean.Since the head of the Bully Tools shovel is sealed in the back, there is no place for dirt to clog, making cleaning a breeze. You can see in the photo of a regular shovel, how easy it is for dirt to build up on the back of the shovel head.
The head is made of 14 gauge steel which means it is strong. The handles are made of ash. This is a shovel that last for years. Keep workers in Ohio employed. Make your next shovel a Bully Tools shovel.
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Transformation – or Where Did the Cherry Blossoms Go?
What is this? It’s what cherry blossoms become. All those beautiful blossoms which drifted down, covering the ground like fresh snow. Now they will slowly decompose into the garden and turn into other flowers and vegetables. They don’t look like much now, but what is amazing about them is that much of their matter came out of thin air. Plants have this incredible ability to eat the air. Through photosynthesis, they can trap the carbon molecules in the air, and turn that carbon into stems, leaves and flowers. Like magic, plants can take what is invisible and turn it into exquisite things of beauty, and eventually into rich matter that nourishes all of us. Some of this matter will even end up being chicken and eggs and vegetables, and eventually us. Then as we breathe, we exhale carbon dioxide and at some point, the plants will eat that carbon dioxide, extract the carbon, and the whole cycle continues round and round.
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Tsuneko Sasamoto – Almost 100 and Still Going Strong
Yesterday I saw a reporter interview Tsuneko Sasamoto, a renowned Japanese photographer, who will turn 100 years old this September. In honor of her upcoming 100th birthday, there is an exhibit of her photographs at the Japan Newspaper Museum titled
100 Years of Japan’s First Female Photo Journalist Tsuneko Sasamoto. The exhibit runs through June 1, 2014.As I watched the interview, it was hard to believe that the vivacious woman being interviewed had turned 99 more than half a year earlier. It made me wonder what I would be still doing at that age. Would I still be raising chickens and working the soil with a hoe? In the interview, she credited her long life to always have something more to do, to never giving up.
Below is a video of her made October 2013 when she was 99. Even though the interview is in Japanese, you get a good idea of how active she is. It is her voice narrating the video. She was just as vivacious in the interview I saw yesterday.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wXohfgZKVk?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]
About Tsuneko Sasamoto in Japanese and that page translated into English