mount Fuji and big pretty waves

I have a garden. I'm American so "garden" means a place where things are (or should be) planted, it does not mean the piece of ground surrounding my house cause I call that a yard not a garden, tho apparently in England that is called a garden (fact which I know but my brain has not really yet come to terms with)

my garden is on a vacant lot across the street from my house on the top of a hillside, the top of which has been flattened and cleared for planting things.

OK so clue me in, British peoples ...in British English what does one call a vacant lot flattened and cleared for planting things, if it is not a garden

anyhow, when I say "my garden" that is what I mean.

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SOOOOOOOOOOO

I have been thinking lately about what is and is not really good to post on an art site.

I use DA as a blog, really, and some have suggested, now and then through the years, that this is not really what DA is for. I see their point, but each time I think it through I decide this is exactly what DA is for.

MY life is my art
My art is my life
I think that's a good things and this is the perfect place to share it.

My garden is an onging art project.
my garden is a thing that I create, periodically, and then it uncreates itself, or I should say,. it forms itself into a different sort of canvas, which I must then figure out how to create a garden on again.

I have not gardened for a few years. lost interest after the year my husband was Mayor when the city workers weed-eatered my garden and killed the new fruit trees, in revenge for him trying to get them to stop doing illegal things. that discouraged me so much I haven't felt like gardening for several years now.

this yeah, I decided I would make myself get out there and plant a few things.

Angie wants Okra, and there is no more in the freezer from before.

so, if nothing else, this year I am going to grow okra.
okra is the one thing that grows well and easily in my garden, so this is a good place to start to try to regain by passion for gardening. great probability of success, If I just get up there and harvest it once it starts producing.

I went and planted okra this morning.

(you, the three or so people who will read a journal this long, should all congratulate me for this, and keep asking about my okra, and encourage me to take care of it, cause I need all the help I can get to maintain what little interest it will take to not abandon my garden this year.)...yay okra...go okra...grow grow grow....

Okra is a pretty plant, related to mallow I think, it has pretty leaves and pretty flowers, and it attracts pretty insects.

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I hadn't been up to the garden or really even looked at it for more than a year, really almost for two years, I suppose.

there are trees in my garden now. some of them are not little trees, three year old trees 20 feet tall with trunks two or three inches across. trees that are too big to just cut down and make walking sticks out of. Real trees.

now, I love trees, in fact at the moment I love trees more than gardening, and I hate to kill trees. Every year I have to kill millions of babies trees before they get a roothold in the garden because the garden is completely surrounded with lovely trees, and there are always lots of tree seeds there. but these are not babies, these are big happy trees. I'm going to have to kill them


or I will have a small forest and not a garden.

I would love to have a small forest, I really would. but they are elm trees and hackberry trees, they produce nothing but wood, and with the economy as it is I really feel we may need to have a garden place where we can grow food (Okra is so expensive to buy at the grocery story)

I am really gonna have to kill them. but I am gonna put it off as long as possible. which means in the end I will end up digging out large stumps and roots from my garden for the next 20 years.

oh well. I can live with that.

yay trees, go trees, grow for a while, at least I can use you for firewood, and a little bit of shade in the meantime.

I'm gonna go take pictures of my garden, and my trees, before have to cut them down

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when I cleared the row for my okra this morning, I sliced open my right hand ring-finger tip. fairly deep too, it bleed alot. I think I cut it on a piece of grass, I have never before had a grass cut which bled so much

anyhow so I have a big band aid all over my finger and i Am therefor typing with my left hand and only 2 fingers of my right hand, so forgive if my typing is even worse than usual.

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Second Vollunteer

~Glinadaro

We have been DA friends for a little over a year. I’m not really sure how we met, but I’m glad we did. Her paintings make me want to paint, her photos make me want to make costumes and pose people in them and take photos. The hard things about doing these features Is picking only three things to show off here. I like many different things in her gallery. So go look for yourselves.

She is also a very nice person, leaves me comments and even helps me find typos in my writing I love when people do that for me

Thanks, ~Glinadaro ! and thanks for volunteering to be featured here.

This is a beautiful drawing:

I haven’t yet read the book it is about, but I have been wanting to and seeing illustrations like this makes me want to even more. Those wolves look so lifelike. I know they are trying to kill him, but they just look so soft I want to pet them.


This is a cool painting and it has a story/poem to go with it, so to fully appreciate this you have to go read the poem, not just look at the painting, but isn’t that dead horse rising out of the ground just so cool? (I love bones)and the Moonlight looks so...um...moonlightish

I also love that she always gives links to reference pictures used for her paintings. It’s always fun and inspiring for me to see how artists use reference images for their creations


Ok it was a hard choice because there are so many other great drawings and paintings in her gallery, but just for variety, here’s a great photo. So pretty, I love candle light, and that’s such a wonderful outfit






*******first volunteer***
~DawningDevil

In real life Erica has lived down the street from me and been one of my daughter's best freinds for about 10 years. Actually it's the other way: I moved here 10 years ago; she has lived there all her life, her family has been here for generations, she is a part of the heart and soul of the small town of St George, Kansas.(whereas I am maybe an infected toenail or a mole on the nose or something...lol)

On DA, Erica leaves great comments, and responds to almost every comment and almost everything posted by her DA freinds. SHe has beeen an awesome freind to me here, she has even read most of my stories, in fact she is the only person in the world who has read most of my stories, and I really really really really appriciate that.

Erica, you are so Awesome!! everyone in the world should have a DA friend like you!!!



the above image is a photo of my Daughter Aubyn in Blackjack creek in St George Kansas. this Summer me and Erica had fun taking pictures of the same subjects, on a differant day, at the creek, and then comparing. usually hers were better than mine, tho I did get some good ones she has several good creek photos in her gallery. Be sure to read the description. Ericas pictures are always even better if you have read the description

I like the bucket in the foreground on this shot, it gives it the hunting for treasures feeling that is one of the fun things of creek exploration.

yummy macro, must full veiw
I love this cause it looks so yummy, and has great macro details. it makes me want home grown strawberries. I wonder if any of my strawberry plants will have lived through this winter.


this one I like cause I just like pictures of old junk, and this just has the perfect feeling for walking arround in St George looking at old junk in people's yards. lots of us have old junk here

but also.....
these last two go together. I didn't know until after I read the description, but this one shows where the strawberry came from. full veiw to see the little vollunteer strawberry plants growing under the washtub planter.