Photo Hogs

or The Tourist Experience

I've begun to feel like a tourist in my own garden.  Spring can be thanked for that, as can the extensive replanting done last fall and the new-to-me perennials now putting on fledgling growth.  Every day as I amble around the circle path or walk the length of the patio or sit on the kitchen doorstep, some wonder is waiting to be discovered.  Each venture into the garden is a voyage "for pleasure, instruction, or culture."

Even familiar things are basking in the glow of fresh light these days and looking new and wondrous.  I've been trying to foster that frame of mind in myself in any case with the Thirteen (or Fewer) Ways of Looking at a Crocus (or Some Equivalent) Challenge.  I have become a tourist of crocuses over the past few weeks, exploring their shadings and shapes, their translucence in sunlight, their gleaming iridescence.  But as is the case all too often when you're a tourist and taking a never-to-be-replicated photo of a sight you won't see again soon,

some schmoe

always has to get

in the way.

Grand Canyon, Mona Lisa, Taj Mahal, or tiny garden flower, it doesn't matter.  At some point when you're a tourist, whatever you're trying to photograph will be "bombed" by someone who just has to get his (or her—I'm not really up on my aphid sexing) licks in first.

An inset of the above.  Who knew that aphids had such big, brown eyes?

Looking at these little photo hogs, I find myself disconcerted to realize how much I have come to see the garden as a cultural experience.  I've come to realize that aphids, too, have their place in the world, with their own customs to be studied and respected and photographed in situ, and that crocuses, no matter how much I love them, are also the rightful food of the hungry—even of hungry pests—at the lean end of winter.  Then again, the word "culture" does come from "cultivate," and the verb "to culture" means "to maintain in conditions suitable for growth."   How could a garden be anything but a cultural experience?

Such a nice thought.  And yet, an even nicer one—

Whatever fate may befall other photo bombers, the aphids will turn into mantis food later this spring.

One of four mantis egg sacs that I know of in my tiny garden, which I am
endeavoring to maintain in conditions suitable for growth

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The "Thirteen Ways Challenge" also invites others to join in if they like.  Donna at Garden's Eye View has written a wonderful meditation on time, in which crocuses play a part, in the post Wishing For...

Other lovely crocus posts have been written by b-a-g at Experiments with Plants and HolleyGarden at Roses and Other Gardening Joys.  Jean of Jean's Garden has written on five ways of viewing forsythia.  My thanks to all of you for chiming in!