Tuesday
Jun152010
Getting Up Close
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 10:51AM
One of my favorite ways to show respect to this planet Earth I call home is to slow down and get close. There are too many miracles around me, and my life is far too brief, to rush on by them. This year, I'm exploring the practice of macro photography as a way of saying, "Look! Look at what I saw!" to anyone who sees my photos.
For example, can you guess what this is? (Don't worry, I won't make you wait too long.)
Did you know that the leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of tomato plants are slightly poisonous? It's true -- they contain small amounts of the toxic alkaloid tomatine. I don't know that it's enough to kill you, but it surely isn't as delicious as the tomato fruits themselves.
These little fuzzy pre-flowers are on one of our backyard garden plants. Last year, we put in the tomatoes too late, and the summer was brutal, so we didn't get any fruit until October. !! This year looks more promising.
Gardening and learning how to grow food from scratch is one of the small ways that I try to make the world a little better. Even though I'm not able to feed my family entirely (or even 10%) from my garden yet, I'm learning, and even the practice of tending a garden cultivates patience and great gratitude for the farms that provide the other 95% of the food I eat every day.
What's your favorite way of slowing down and taking a good look at the world around you?
For example, can you guess what this is? (Don't worry, I won't make you wait too long.)
Did you know that the leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of tomato plants are slightly poisonous? It's true -- they contain small amounts of the toxic alkaloid tomatine. I don't know that it's enough to kill you, but it surely isn't as delicious as the tomato fruits themselves.
These little fuzzy pre-flowers are on one of our backyard garden plants. Last year, we put in the tomatoes too late, and the summer was brutal, so we didn't get any fruit until October. !! This year looks more promising.
Gardening and learning how to grow food from scratch is one of the small ways that I try to make the world a little better. Even though I'm not able to feed my family entirely (or even 10%) from my garden yet, I'm learning, and even the practice of tending a garden cultivates patience and great gratitude for the farms that provide the other 95% of the food I eat every day.
What's your favorite way of slowing down and taking a good look at the world around you?
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