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.