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