Nature and Things

Nature and Things
 
This morning I took a walk through the vineyards.  As far as the eye can see there are vineyards.  I enjoyed picking and eating grapes as I walked.   Within the next two weeks the harvest will begin and there will be much activity in the village.  Whereas at one time all grapes were picked by hand, today more than half are picked by machine.  There is still much to be hand-picked and there are not enough people to do the picking.  We older folk find it difficult with all the bending required and the back takes a beating.  Perhaps some of the Winzer will utilize migrants to help with the harvest. 
It was beautiful to gaze at the surroundings - the mountains in the distance with the ruins of old castles visible. As I walked I thought of Diane and Betty who often talk about nature and wondered how pleasant it would be to be walking with them and sharing this beauty.  In the past my wife would walk with me, however she can no longer do that.  It was customary for us to go to the Alps and climb some of the lower peaks. Those memories remain, but doing it again is no longer a consideration.  When I got home I discussed this with my wife.  She was watching an old movie with much singing by those hiking.  She recalled the wanderings in her youth, taking nature hikes with the school.   As they walked they sang.  They would stop and the teacher would point out things about their surroundings.  My immediate thought was that today it would be much different.  Kids carrying cell phones or I-Pads would miss out on the nature surrounding them.  Singing was a big deal years ago.  Every village had a band and a choir.  We still have a band in our village and they play at every festival.  The choirs are fading out.  Our Men’s Choir begins practice on Monday.  The participants are dwindling.  Death is the primary cause and young people are not interested in joining.  I foresee the end of these traditions within the near future. 
 
Every day is a gift of life.  For me, enjoying what nature offers is something special.  I see the handiwork of God everywhere.  The variety of plants to the birds flitting from place to place.  Nature is alive.  We are part of the universe with the unseen energy flowing around us.  Connecting with that energy can be an exhilarating feeling.  Someday we will be part of that energy field perhaps in an invisible state or in some other life form.  Since energy never dies, I can only imagine what happens to it once it leaves the body. 
 
I am happy to be alive.  I am not happy to see the suffering of so many.  I am not happy to hear talk about war.  Although I want to be informed, sometimes the news can be very depressing.  I find that nature can bring some balance to what is happening in the world around us.   
 
Thank you for listening to my Sunday morning ramblings.

Thank you for putting it all in perspe tive so beautifully. I will walk today - maybe in the swamp or at the beach.

Some of my most peaceful times were long, solitary walks in the woods and mountains.

9/6

               It's funny being from a large city like New York, now living in a small town
    of 69,000 verses 8 million people. I enjoy the tranquil quiet, to sit outside and quietly
    hear the gentle breeze from the wind, to see the thick fluffy clouds in the sky, to see
    the mountains with fog rolling in and you know by just looking there's a storm up there,
    to see a rabbit or a squirrel or a Coyote , a chipmunk I get excited like a little boy ! To
   seem the fall colors up close and personal in the mountains so I can photograph it, that's
   a joy. I stay ever once in awhile at a friends house 45 minutes outside of Santa Fe and it
   amazes me at night when I look out the large living room windows, you see one house in
  the distance with a light on and you look up at the sky which is navy black and you see
  thousands of stars, that site is awesome, when I go back I have to bring my camera,
  where I live there's too many lights....


                                                       Cheers..Joe.......

I loved  hikes and long walks.  Now I make it around the corner with Dave's  help.  LOL

Nature has everything we need and it's free.  IMV, getting in touch with natue is getting in touch with God.  My remarks have nothing to do with religion.

Pole Beans:
In the past I used poles and when the vines grew and the wind came, they blew down.  Using props to keep them up was a bother.  This year I tried something different.  Using the same poles, I built a Teepee.  At the bottom of the pole, I planted the seeds and it worked well.  Wish I had taken a picture of the beans a week ago when the flowers were blooming, but here is what it looks like.  It is more like a tree and it is sturdy.  There is an entrance at the bottomer (now covered with leaves) where one can go in and pick from the inside.  The cats use this opening and go inside for the shade and/or for protection from the rain.


It saves space and could be put in any yard.  Cut some poles (you could use saplings from the woods), put together like a Teepee, tying them at the top and sewing the beans around the bottom of the poles sticking in the ground.

What a clever idea!  In Florida, the bugs eat everything.  To have a garden you have to kill the soil, let it rest, add nutrients and continue killing bugs.  It's more bug killing than gardening.  The bugs won at my house.  My neighbor had a great garden up to my fence.  It rotted my fence and I had to pay $500 to catch the rats. The rat man said they were gathering from the garden and storing it in my attic for their family plans.

On the otherhand, I planted a piece of dry yucca wood and it grew a beautiful bush about five feet high.  I think the leaves are edible if you boil off the cyanide.  Similar for the roots that are made into powder for making all sorts of foods.

There was a cute picture on Facebook saying to teach children how to garden -food is important.

I had a home in the hills of Cupertino, California.  It looked out over all the city lights at night - beautiful.  By day, the backyard was even with the city's water tank top - painted green and fenced.  There was a dropoff from my yard down to the bottom of the water tank with about six feet from my yard to the tank - sort of dangerous - and our rabbit is probably into several generations of living there by now...

Anyway, the previous owner had not wasted that drop off exactly, but planted grape vines that covered the dropoff on my side.  The grapes were fabulous, but tricky to pick leaning over the edge of the yard and under the fence we added for a bit of safety.

Friends used to enter our front door and see through the house to the top of the water tank and ask about our "tennis court."  - How lucky we were to have one in our backyard.  I used to joke with friends that in a droubt, we could open the door on the top of the tank and fill our water buckets.  No one thought that was funny.

Forgot to add - I wasn't going to volunteer to cross on the ladder reaching from our yard to the tank top.

It is a shame when the insects override gardening.  I can't imagine having to deal with that.
I suppose insecticides are needed when one is desperate for food and that creates other problems including one's health.

A few years ago I was visiting a fellow choir member and he showed me a peach tree that was now producing a new kind of peach.  He explained how he took the branch of one tree and grafted it to another and created this new peach.  It was red inside and very tasty.  He gave me a few to take home with me.  I ate the peach and was about to throw the seed away and then on impulse, put the seed in a flower pot with ground that I had intended to throw away.  It sat outside over winter and then in the Spring I noticed some green shooting out of the pot.  I watched this plant grow and it was a small peach tree.  When the tree got large enough I took this small plant out of the pot and planted it in an area that got lots of sunshine.  The tree grew and last year there were peaches on it, but they were small and most fell off.  This year the tree is full and we have hundreds of great-tasting peaches from that one small seed.  Although I have planted seeds for other plants, this one small peach seed that I normally would have thrown in the garbage is special.  It has produced some wonderful fruit.