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I'm working on catching up with all the missed weekly posts - I just have a hard time figuring out this camera!

Non-attachment

From the beginning, this has been an exercise in non-attachment.  It started when we found that the plastic figure of Hanuman (which we had fished out of the canal, and, on a whim, placed on one of the mutitudinous unintentional niches on the wall) had disappeared into the unknown.   We put things up, we release them to whatever happens next, we come by a week later and find them still there, or gone, or smashed in pieces on the ground.

Actually we've only found smashed pieces a few times, and not recently.  For many weeks now we've just found last week's figures vanished.

So I was a little bit bummed when after first seeing that the wall, once again, was bare (not unexpected), upon further exploration, I found about a dozen small shards of last week's angel on the ground off to the side.

My friend was more philosophical, as we have been letting these symbols go every week even as we have been putting them up on display.  But I must admit, I was a little dismayed.  I was kind of hoping the disappeared figurines were finding new homes, or keeping company with the fishes at the bottom of the canal.  Smashed shards of pottery seem so - well, so violent a response.

Ah well.  Blessings to you too, poor soul so scarred from who-knows-what experiences that you would feel the need to smash to bits a silly little piece of kitschy pottery such as last week's angel.

I gathered up the few shards I found lying on the ground and placed them in front of the original shards on the same niche we've been using all this time (smack in the middle of the graffitti that started this whole thing off).

Then we put up a new angel, and accompanying cherub.

   

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We also noticed some tiny shards of green glass on a niche lower down and to the right.

It was the remains of a wine bottle.  We found lots more green glass shards, plus the cork, on the ground next to the wall.

So much unsolved mystery here.

Were the wine bottle shards in the niche placed there deliberately, as a commentary on our angel niches?  Did the same party who smashed the wine bottle also smash last week's angel? 

Or maybe one person placed the unbroken wine bottle in a nearby niche as a witty contribution, and then a second person came along and smashed everything, showing rather lack of wit, and some grumpiness to boot. 

Did the smasher paint the grafitti?  Or was that someone else entirely?

What happened to the rest of last week's angel?  The shards we found only constitute about 20%, at most, of the total pottery piece.   

What happened to the swan?  All of the shards clearly came from the angel: none were from the swan.

So many unaswerable questions!

It's a weekly mystery!

Drizzly morning

It was drizzling when we came out this morning, so we didn't stay long.  St. Nikolaus was gone.  My friend had stopped out earlier in the week and found that someone had moved him from the center of the wall to the far edge, almost hidden in the bushes, and with his back turned to the boat landing, but he was completely gone this morning.

We put up a sweetly silly angel and a graceful swan:

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These things still haven't bloomed:

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But this one has:

Beautiful, isn't it?  I have no idea what it is. It's very tall.

Unflooded

We put up something fun for August..

It's St. Nikolaus, the Bavarian version.  We can all use some unexpected gifts,

any time of year, can't we?

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This week's nature shots:

The boat landing, unflooded.

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The canal.

The dark smudges are a combination of leftover flood mud, together with goose and duck poop.  Charming!

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Wondering what this will bloom into next week.

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Chicory blooming amidst some unidentified wild relative of the carrot family.

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All in all, it was a lovely day.

Flood

We got 7 inches of rain Friday night.  When we arrived at the wall, the path and the boat landing were still a foot deep in floodwater.

We could see from where we stood that our trio of figurines from last week had vanished.  But not having had the foresight to bring our galoshes, we just took photos, watched a big snapping turtle swim leisurely over the boat landing (neither of us were quick enough with our cameras to get a photo of that), communed with Nature, and left. 

From the traces of mud left on the tall wildflowers, it appeared that the canal had risen an incredible 4 or 5 feet over its usual level.  It was down quite a bit from the high-water mark by the time we got there Sunday morning, but you can see from the line of driftwood across the path how high the water had risen.

It was amazing!

Three

This week we went on Monday instead of Sunday due to scheduling conflicts.  The Queen Anne's Lace is blooming everywhere.

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The Guardian Angel figurine from last week was gone, and once again the wall was bare.  We put up three little blessing figures today.

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The elephant is a little worse for wear, but aren't we all?  He's there in memory of my dear aunt who passed away last month.  She collected elephants. 

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The turtle is in thought of the marine life affected by the Gulf oil spill. 

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And the angel is an angel.

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I don't know what these purple flowers are, but they weren't in bloom last week.  I'm calling them "Rocket Flowers" until I find out otherwise.

Peace, love, light and blessings to all.

Welcome

This is a lovely quiet spot by a small man-made canal.

Lots of wildflowers, insects, birds and small wildlife.

One day my friend and I came by for our weekly visit and found that the retaining wall had been defaced by a silly-loooking blotch of graffiti.

 

We decided to bless the wall.

We've been doing this for weeks now.  Every week we bring a new symbol of our blessing spirits.  Sometimes we find that last week's offering is still there.  A few times people have made their own additions:  an empty beer bottle, a symmetrical arrangement of sparkly crushed beer cans, once even a trio of burned-out votive candles. 

Other times we find the wall bare except for the graffiti.  We don't know where the figures disappear to.  Maybe they went off to a good home.  Maybe they lie in peace at the bottom of the canal.  A few times we found last week's symbol shattered in pieces on the ground.  We took the tiny shards of glass and porcelain, put them back on the wall again, and placed a new figure to stand in blessing over the broken pieces.   The city hasn't painted out the graffiti, so we decorate it.

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As for the broken or vanished symbols - well, there's lots more where those came from.