My Secret Garden: Raw

So, I recently begin shooting in RAW.
Merc (slang for Merci=thanks), MW.

More editing power. These pictures are the same old thing as before. Flowers and Insects around my garden.

I tried messing around with shutter to get a good shot of bees in action, pollinating a sunflower but I was only mildly successful.

The process is: focus, 1, 2, 3, hold your breath, focus again, wait for a good shot, snap, gasp for air with the sun at only 9 degrees beating down on your back.

Those bees as you can see are pretty tiny. They're smaller than flies and they buzz about that sunflower for roughly 9 hours a day.

Morbid nursery rhyme time.

There once lived 3 little pigs.
The 1st little pig snuck into Clay's yard (because I left the gate cracked--cracked!!) and decided to feast on Clay's plants.

Said the extremely irritated and fed up with wild animals Clay, "Little pig, Little pig don't come in!"

"I will if I want to because I roam around with no one to watch over me all day and my owners don't care if I destroy anyone's property. Besides I have hair on my chinny chin chin!" Replied the 1st little pig.

So, Clay took extra care to make sure his straw gate was always closed because, in the end, it was his fault that the 1st little pig snuck into his yard.

But the 2nd little pig, he was much more determined than his brother. He tried the gate.

"Little pig, little pig don't come in." Clay taunted from his bedroom, proud of himself for locking his gate.

But just then, Clay noticed that the 2nd little pig was still trying to get into his yard. He went to investigate.

To his absolute blindingly rageful extremely irritated and, now literally, fed up with wild animals horror, Clay saw the 2nd little pig trying to knock down his fence to get to his plants.

"I'll grunt, and I'll squeal, and I'll push your straw fence down!" Oinked the pig.

"Not if I have anything to do with it or by the hair on your chinny chin chin." Muttered Clay.

Clay walked over to the fence, made a noise to scare the pig but to his shock, the pig continued. This time, Clay picked up a stick and beat the fence, still the pig grunted and squealed and tried to push his fence down.

So, Clay did the only thing he could think of: paused to apologize to the universe, told himself he wasn't a bad person, and gave the pig a swift kick in the head through the fence.

That did the trick, the pig went squealing away.

Little did Clay know, and this is in large part due to the fact that he doesn't under stand Pig Latin, the pig was actually saying "I'll get my revenge. I swear by the hair on my chinny chin chin!"

The next day, literally THE NEXT DAY, Clay left his house, he securely locked his gate and looked back at his garden. He went about his village doing Peace Corps Volunteer things, and yes this included going to the market. When he arrived at his house he was happy to see that the gate was still securely locked, the fence seemed to suffer no damage. With a smile he opened the gate and what he saw next threw him into a great rage, so quickly in fact that he now, after some reflection, thinks he might be an emotionally unstable person.

There, across from him, on the other side of his garden, was nothing.

NOTHING! Nothing but the ragged bits of a plant his students had lovingly given to him, 2 fully grown and FINALLY BLOOMING cosmo plants that looked as if someone had gone over them with a lawn mower and a pushed-in fence. In the distance, he noticed, the 3rd little pig running away, squealing delightfully.

Instead of doing anything rash he said a few cursewords, wished the pig an awful death, and decided to reinforce this specific area of the fence with sticks. After staring at the fence, Clay realized that sticks wouldn't be strong enough. So, he decided to reinforce the fence with, you know what already, brick. Clay patiently staked the cosmos, praying to the flower growing gods to work their magic, and threw stones at any pig that came near his garden for the rest of the day.

And he is currenly living nervously ever after, waiting to see if the brick is in fact too strong for the 3 little pigs to knock down.

The End.

Notice my "care packages" section.

AND, my body thanks everyone for sending me delicious processed, American, goodies. [no sarcasm] My sanity thanks you for the seeds:D Also, my soul thanks you for your love<3

Around My House....

...is a misleading title because I bet you were thinking I'd be showing you the inside of my house! But, you should pay attention to the preposition of place that I used: around not inside. ;)

I decided to snap a few extra shots of what I could see from my porch. In that moment, the things I could see were: goats grazing, and really big beautiful puffy clouds. Also, there was an arc en ciel (rainbow, literally: arc in sky) but I couldn't get it to show on my camera.
Also, I can see shooting stars every night....those of you who want to see should take this however you want it to...just remember that if I had a tripod I could do night photography :):):):)

My Secret Garden: Flower Power

I'm gonna toot my own horn and say. Yes, these were taken by me, on manual setting and focus :)

My Secret Garden: The Blooming of Sunflowers

Woo!!!

This photo set is actually incomplete. The sunflowers are pollinated and seeds are already starting to form in the center. It's really neat and exciting to see! I will Take a picture and post soon.
Also, that last picture is fuzzy in the center (boo) so I will replace it.

My Secret Garden

So

these next few blogs are just for pictures' sake but I have a story.

You saw from the video I have cosmos (which may be zinnias, MW and I are in the process of figuring this out) in my yard.

I was riding my bike one day and happened to glance over and there they were, growing wild. The flowers that you see are from the seeds of the wild ones I found. I just scattered the seeds around in front of my house and waited. Neatly enough, the wind took a few of the seeds, and by a few I mean more than 50 but less than 100, and dropped them right out front of my gate. It was very pretty. I walked out of my gate every morning and there waiting for me was a tiny field of budding flowers.
Here in Benin, there's something called sacle-ing. I probably spelled that wrong. Basically, in villages, the school has kids go around with hoes and destroy the Earth; personally I find it offensive because what's left is barren ground and sometimes the kids hoe up trees. It's worse than when locusts pass through.

The school, for my safety, told the students to sacle around my house and yes, they DESTROYED all of the flowers. Apparently, if there's too much green stuff growing in one area all sorts of evil serpents and reptiles hide there waiting to STRIKE!

f-ing annoying.

I now walk outside and feel like there was a tiny war right in front of my gate. I call the area death valley. I don't have pictures of it.
But, here are some pictures from my garden--which in every way, is holy ground. Noone is allowed to come inside the gate and the flowers are somewhat of a wonder to the kids of my village because they're not use to cultivated beauty in that way :)

Usually, things are planted are for practicality; squash, corn, etc.

Enjoy.

3 Dead Mice and other morbid interpretations of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

I haven't had to deal with mice in a while. The other week, I heard one rummaging around and decided to "get it."
I chased it from my kitchen to my storage room and hunted. In my storage room, I have a spare screen door. The mouse started to climb the screen door and I whacked it square on the head. It fell to the ground convulsing. I felt bad only for a second but then came to my senses and said a little prayer for the mouse:
"I'm sorry I killed you but I guess you shouldn't have been in my house."
I decided to clean the whole room.
A few months back, I had chased another mouse into my storage room and thought it went behind my lock-box. Out of frustration I kicked the lock-box against the wall. As I was cleaning my room, I pulled out the lock-box and found the mouse I chased behind it a few months before, squashed flat against the wall. It looked like a cartoon character when they fall on the ground off of a ciff--splat!
Totally hilar.
Then, I pulled the lock-box further out and...there was...ANOTHER MOUSE! Squashed flat underneath the lock-box.
3 dead mice, 3 dead mice, smell how they smell.

I wrote a while back that I would kill all the chickens in my village if they ate the plants in my garden, again.
Yesterday, I came home from visiting a friend and sure enough there was a hen eating my morning glories. I got my broom and swatted the hen--really really hard. It sqwuaked. I noticed that I had broken it's right leg as it hopped away. I felt so guilty. I mean, I wanted to hurt the chicken because it was destroying months of hard work, but I immediately regretted and felt immoral.
I went to find the owner of the chicken who was a Puhl man. The Puhl are a very quiet people. They're nomads so they don't settle down in one place. In my village there's a little camp of them. As I approached the man to talk about his chicken, he was dressed in all white from head to toe...praying. I literally felt like I was confessing to god-incarnate, my sins.
He was incredibly understanding and reminded me that I've given up a lot to come to Africa to teach children who are different from me and that he is extremely grateful for that. He told me not to have fear about the chicken because her leg would heal itself and suggested that I could make it up to him by teaching him English.
I was touched.
Hope you enjoy the garden video. The sunflowers are so beautiful!

Give and take.

Here are just a few ways I know I've adjusted to life in Africa. These aren't arranged in any order of importance.

1. I get a cold when the temperature drops below 75.
2. 75 degree weather is an excuse to sleep in a hoodie and pajama pants.
3. Babies screaming bloody murder doesn't phase me.
4. 30 year old body stench don't phase me.
5. I've lost 35 lbs in 8 months and look emaciated but I'm considered healthy.
6. Finally, holding hands with another male doesn't feel like cheating. Love you boo :)
7. Eating nothing but starch in 1 day doesn't make me feel unhealthy.
8. Riding in a car with no door handles, rearview mirror, or locks doesn't cause anxiety.
9. It isn't abnormal to delay class an hour to wait for rain to stop.
10. I was literally shocked when I found worms in my garden.

Garden Tour :)

a few comments:
:31, except the one I'm showing you. you can get a glimpse of the white one a few seconds before.