Dad’s Castle

The land, willed to my father, had been in our family for generations. Everybody considered it useless and unbuildable. His dream became constructing something wonderful on the eroding bluff, somehow overcoming the treacherous pull of gravity. Every portion completed required constant reinforcement afterward. Even as the lowest levels crumbled away, more rooms and terraces were added on top. He was certain that one day a magnificent castle would stand atop this land.

When the land was willed to me, his dream became mine. Someday there will be a castle here.

I just hope I live long enough to witness it.

This week’s entry for the Friday Fictioneers, a 100 word story based on the photo prompt above.

Hosted by the phenomenal Rachel Wisoff-Fields. View other entries below.

Zig Zag

“Nature abhors a straight line.” – William Kent (via)

While nature provides many shapes that are pleasing to the eye, such as the parabola, the spiral, and the ellipse, the straight line is far less common in the natural world. It is human’s folly to try to impose such rigid regularity onto our constructs and architecture.

The zig zag is also a pattern that is seen regularly in nature, and sometimes it seems like an attempt at at straight line before the invisible artist that shapes the universe changes it’s mind.

Jagged Zags

Crassula ‘Tom Thumb’

Crassula zags

Crassula ‘Moonglow’

Chasmanthium latifolium

Euphorbia ‘Zig Zag’

Mangave ‘Bloodspot’

Astroloba zags

Cactus zags

Crassula ‘Red Pagoda’

Euphorbia rigida zigs

Posted for the DP Weekly Photo Challenge – Zig Zag

Summer Suns

To me nothing says summer like sunshine and sunflowers.

The living’s easy and the veggies are free.

Stay tuned for a recipe of what you can do with all those hot chilis you’re growing.

hot chilis

bhut jolokia – ripe and ready

monster cayenne

so many

Posted for the DP Weekly Photo Challenge – Summer Lovin

Floraphilia

flora (ˈflôrə) noun; the plants of a particular region, habitat, or geological period

–phile: (combining form) denoting fondness, esp. an abnormal love for a specified thing.

I live in California. I grow plants and take photos. I run a school garden and teach Science. I am a floraphile.

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This is the tagline for my Tumblr, which is where I post about my adventures as a plant fanatic. It started from a New Year’s resolution in 2012, and this Tumblr essentially jumpstarted my floundering creative potential. It started out with me just sharing other people’s photos of plants, and then I soon began taking my own photos. Then I got a better camera and started taking better photos. I tried to capture the photographic evidence of the beauty I witnessed in my own garden. I wanted that sense of calm and serenity I feel in the garden to be delivered through my photographs. Not sure if I can succeed in this, but I keep trying.

Just the act of creating my own content soon led to other things. Soon the writing began. Then a workshop, an online course, a novel in progress, a slew of potentially mediocre short stories. Then this wordpress blog happened because I needed somewhere to put all these extra words. Frankly, the wordy posts I had been composing about my plants hadn’t exactly proved popular on Tumblr, and every time I posted a short story at least ten people immediately unfollowed me. I have a sneaking suspicion that many Tumblr users refuse to read anything longer than fifty words, but I’ll be damned if they don’t like a pretty picture of a succulent. So now, I’ll just have to subject the blogoshpere of wordpress to all my rants, raves, and unfortunate literary transgressions. I apologize in advance.

This is a collection of some of the photos from my garden that I posted this week.

marigold

Crassula ‘Moonglow’

Zinnias and friends

the shelf

Sedeveria ‘Green Rose’

Echeveria architecture

Originally posted on flora-file.tumblr.com

The Road to Ruin

where we went

Adventure of a lifetime or the road to certain death. What story would you tell?

Future Architects of America

I guess I need to be more specific when I tell my students “Just stack the bricks over there.”

This photo pretty much sums up everything that is great and frustrating about teaching middle schoolers. They need help following directions, keeping their hands off each other and out of each other’s backpacks, and seemingly just about every other social skill associated with civilized societies. But they can also surprise you with some unexpected moments. The four boys in this photo all acted so cool and unaffected most of the time, like doing anything that required even a dollop of effort wasn’t worth the calories required. But when they were stacking these bricks they were so proud, and they seemed like preschoolers playing with building blocks. Unfortunately their structure did not pass the strict seismic building code in California and had to be scrapped and relocated to the place where they were supposed to stack them in the first place. It was one of those moments that made me laugh while I was pulling my hair out.

Welcome to my life as a middle school teacher.

DP Weekly Photo Challenge: Split Second Story

Give Me Leaves or Give Me Death

plant orgy in progress

When most people think of spring and plants they immediately think of flowers. How disgusting.  Did you know that a flower is the sexual organ of a plant? Most 7th graders don’t know this, and you should see the look on their faces when they find out. Priceless. I tell them that every time they sniff a flower the plant is using them to perform its sexual biddings. I tell them there are unmentionable things happening between the plants and their little “friends” the birds and bees. I make sure to use air quotes when I say “friends.” Really it’s a depraved nature orgy. And people like to cut the flowers off and display these colorful and pungent reproductive sculptures in their homes. How sick are we?

Personally when I think of spring I think of young, green leaves filling in on the trees and other plants. The leaves are the true workhorse of the plant, creating sugar money in their little chloroplast factories. Sure, they get some help from the stem and the roots as they help collect resources and deliver them, but really the true magic happens in the leaves. They are turning sunlight into food, storing the sun’s energy in their bodies until those calories can trickle down the food chain to all us hungry heterotrophs downstream. Keep your filthy flowers. Give me leaves, and I will know the world will be fed for at least one more trip around the sun.

Bloodgood Japanese Maple

Gingko

Cotinus coggyrgria

Hosta Monsta

Heuchera ‘Tira Misu’

At least there’s no sex happening

Compiled for the DP Weekly Photo Challenge: Spring

and, DP Weekly Writing Challenge: Student, Teacher

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* disclaimer #1 – this is meant to be humorous and sarcastic. I do not tell my students that sex is disgusting and depraved. I tell them it is wonderful and life affirming and they should all go home after school and engage in it immediately.

* disclaimer #2 –  disclaimer #1 was meant to be humorous and sarcastic too.

* disclaimer #3 – I actually do like flowers, even though they are monuments to sinful fornication, and kinda stinky.

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