Tag Archives: prose

Micro-Garbage or Micro-Trash Urban Dictionary

Thanks to my daughter’s use of “micro-garbage”, I made a submission to Urban Dictionary. Even if they don’t approve it, here’s the definition!

Micro-garbage, micro-trash in urban dictionary

Micro-garbage, aka micro-trash: Small pieces of plastic and other non-biodegradable litter and garbage that annoyingly show up even in forests, beaches, parks, and gardens. Examples include cig butts; bottle tops; plastic tape from cardboard boxes; gum wrappers; broken glass; fast food anything (wrappers, cups, lids, straws, styrofoam containers, condiment packages).  Take a deep look at any nature setting and see how many small pieces of garbage litter the ground and plants. (Then, pick it up!)

Examples of micro-garbage in a sentence:

The wildflower patch was so full of micro-garbage that we couldn’t enjoy the beauty until we’d picked up the junk.

My walk on the park trail was disturbed by the micro-trash littering the bushes.

By the end of our walk in the woods, our pockets and backpacks were stuff with micro-garbage.

She laughed at my nature-loving attitude, saying: “Your yard is full of micro-garbage!”

Getting Outside Often: Nature Prose

I was catching up on posting past writing, and didn’t know I’d already posted this piece on Getting Outside in www.NaturesGuy.com.

We need to get outside, to breathe fresh air, to see the sun, to feel Nature.

There was a time, when I worked at Microsoft near Seattle, where I never saw the sun. Even now, memories of sitting in a closet-like room with no windows, where I had to walk out a door and look down a long, narrow hallway to the small window a hundred feet away, to even see a peek outside, causes my stomach to twist in knots, my heart to clamp down, my throat to tighten and my head to hurt. To be kept away from the outdoors, to not FEEL Nature on a regular basis, can’t be good!

I knew it back then, in my gut, and it turns out that my desire to feel nature was right! Recent studies are showing that activities such as taking walks outside, sitting in the sun, forest bathing, can all significantly reduce stress, anxiety, hypertension, and many other modern ailments.

My current “office” lets me sit in front of a window and look out over wildflowers, many types of trees, out onto a field of corn, wheat, elderberries, squash, more wildflowers, and more. Past the rolling rills and hills, over the West Chickamauga Creek, are the stately trees of a 5,300 acre Chickamauga National Military Park. Beyond that, Lookout Mountain rises up in the distance. Birds, butterflies and other bugs flit about. Squirrels, rabbits and the occasional deer scamper past my view. The sky changes colors throughout the day, providing a new scene every time I look up from my computer screen (which is fairly frequently!) In short, from my office, I can view nature in all its Northwest Georgia glory.
But that’s still not enough. Why? I don’t completely FEEL Nature.

Feel Nature = Be IN the Outdoors!

The studies I’ve read, and the way I sense, verify that, to feel nature, to get the benefits of being in nature, you have to get outdoors. These studies say that as little as 15 minutes outside, or exposing yourself to nature, has a calming, relaxing, healing impact that can last up to two hours!
Here on Spirit Tree Farms, we try to grow a lot of our own food. We try to eat healthy. We make our own elderberry juice. We forage and make teas and salads out of native plants. Yet, too often, we stay inside for long periods of time, content with just looking out the windows at the natural beauty that surrounds us.
That doesn’t seem to be enough.
I can feel my soul, my spirit, my body start to clamp down, start to feel the angst I felt in those days at Microsoft. So I’ve resolved to feel nature more, to get outside, breathe fresh air, feel the breeze, hear the rustling of the leaves, the far-away murmuring roar of the West Chickamauga Creek rushing over the rocks of the prehistoric fishing weir, to smell the musty autumn leaves or the summer’s passion flower blooms, to feel the sun (or the rain or the mist or the humors of the night) on my face, to connect to the Earth by taking my shoes off and getting grounded.
Even when it’s cold, I can take a few moments to step outside, hold my hands out, yawp at the setting sun, wave to Orion high in the night sky, welcome the dawn of a new day, discover a new plant, bird or bug I’ve never noticed before. I can take that time to really feel Nature.

Feel Nature To Get Connected

When I take the time to really feel Nature, I can tell I’m connecting with the Universe. And it’s not just reconnecting with the land I’m on here on the Catoosa / Walker County line in Northwest Georgia, USA. It’s reconnecting with my purpose, with what God wants me to do. It’s getting back in tune, back in synch, tuning in to a universal harmonic that permeates all because it is in all and through all. To feel Nature aligns my heart, head and soul not only with me, myself, but with the greater All.
What benefits will you find
when you take the time
to feel Nature?

How To Bring Birds Back From Silent Spring: Prose

I have a solution on how to bring birds back. In today’s “Native Pollinators and Wildflowers” Facebook page, someone said: “The bird population is declining rapidly. What you grow in your yard can make all the difference. You can hear the difference.”

I agree. There is a way to bring birds back. I’ve experienced it! So I wrote this response:

Four years ago I purchased six acres of property next to the Chickamauga National Military Park in Northwest Georgia. As I stood out on my porch that autumn, I immediately noticed — amidst a lawn and the grasses and the hickory and oak and black walnut trees and massive overgrowth of Chinese privet — the amazing and frightening lack of birds.

I had been raised by my father, my grandmother, and dozens of friends, neighbors and relatives in Wisconsin to do everything I could to attract birds. Not having birds around in a city or suburb is not surprising. Not hearing any birdsongs, nor seeing any birds in flight, in the middle of woodlands and pastures was shocking.

So I started ripping up the privet, ripping up the lawn, planting wildflowers, putting up bird feeders, putting up bird houses. Unlike previous owners, I didn’t spray for bugs or mosquitoes. I suffered through chiggers and ticks. I planted, planted, ripped out invasives and non-natives, and planted some more.

Bring Birds Back

These days, when I go out on my front porch in the morning, often a dozen or more goldfinch will explode from where they have been eating the wildflower seedheads in our front yard. The other day, my 89 year old father-in-law and I sat on the porch, rocking at sunset. There was a cacophony of sound; I asked him how many bird songs he could hear. As we listened, we heard over a dozen different varieties. Those songs weren’t from several birds of the same species. They were from over a dozen different species! In fact, several of the songs had multiple singers, coming in from different directions.

Cardinal on the back deck bird feeder, March 2020

*Or they could have been one massive Mockingbird I suppose. But I don’t think that’s true :-).

I tell this story because it shows how Nature will bounce back, if given the opportunity and a little help. My property is proof: The land not only has different birds, but now there are frogs, crickets, bees, bugs, fireflies galore, all joining in a joyful chorus.

Nature has returned to my Hickory Hill House and leaves me smiling every day!

My advice? Just Start Now, Where You Are, Today.

Reset In The Forest, Back To Your Roots: IMprov Prose

On our property, the Old Woman of the Woods is the Matriarch. A mighty oak tree, she was in her late teens when the Civil War’s Battle of Chickamauga raged less than a mile away. She often imparts wisdom, especially as I’m working in the undergrowth, clearing out things that don’t belong near her. This is a message I got recently as I was pulling up invasive Chinese Privet from around her roots and base.
Up the trunk into the branches of the Old Woman of the Woods oak tree
Any time there is a shock to your system, any time something changes radically, you go back to your roots. You go back to you, for you. Withdraw. Reset at your base.

Some of the ancillary branches, things in your life that aren’t at your core, at your roots, may whither, shed, drop off and die.

That is okay. Once you get back to your core, back to your roots, you will reset. Your upper part, the upper branches, will come back fuller, stronger, and more in line with what you should be, what you are at your core.

—Message from the Old Woman as I cleared around her base.

Accepting Old People Where They Are: Revolutionary Prose

A Facebook friend posted this thought: “You don’t need to “orient” the elderly, even if they have dementia. Spend time with them where they are at … even if it’s 1959. Ask them about what they do remember.” To which I responded:
“When my grandmother was going through that phase, where she couldn’t remember things even a few minutes after they happened, I had this thought: Old people get to that phase so they can pass their knowledge and wisdom and stories from long long ago onto to the next generation. She could remember the name of her four-year-old best friend, but she couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast that morning. So I asked her about her four-year-old neighbor and her childhood and the first time she saw an airplane. I learned how to fillet a fish. I played endless hours of cribbage and listened to stories and got to ask questions and watch her face light up as she remembered things she hadn’t thought of in decades. I spent months going through the years of 1920 to 1990 with her, looking at old photo albums, making video and audio recordings. She talked about those memories and photos as if the events captured had happened yesterday. Because to her, they probably had. It was an amazing experience.
As a result my children have heard and know more “Grandma stories” than my father, her eldest son. I’m grateful I took the time to listen about yesterday, instead of trying to force her into today.”

Who Rescued Who: Prose Self-Analysis

People will see a good situation and either praise and glorify it or, like Iago in Othello, find fault and try to tear it down by small and manipulative ways.

So it is with my wife and my relationship. People tell me that they’ve never seen my wife so happy. They tell me she deserves me, that it’s about time a man came into her life who is worthy of her. They think I’ve inspired her to create her patriotic blog, and to grow her book publishing and consulting business. Yet others find reason to cast doubt on our relationship. They claim that we manipulate each other, that we’re just dishonest in our reasons that we got together.

Often when this happens, I question her, asking why they would say such things. I ask her again (and again and again) if she loves me for me, or if she just loved me and married me for the idea of me, to get someone to work with her, to get the house and the property back.

When I doubt like that, I cast my mind back on what Heavenly Father told me to do, and I immediately feel bad because I know Who led me to her. I know who inspired me to come to Chattanooga, to date her, to make the offer on her former house, to court her, and to marry her. I know who drives me daily to clean up the property, to write, to create, to build the kind of Inspired Life we are growing together.

But still sometimes the doubting words come out and I can tell I hurt her. Yesterday was one of those self-doubting conversations. Early this morning she responded. And I think her words are inspired and insightful. She said:

“People who think you rescued me have no clue who I am. I am the woman who, for over two decades, made up the difference with a husband who racked up debt and couldn’t hold a job that made half of what we needed financially to survive and raise six children. I’m the innovator who created the first online mall, the first article directory, who with God’s help built a six-figure business and still managed to keep a roof over my kids heads when Google killed it. I’m the woman who can monetize a dozen ways from Sunday.

I’m the woman who made it through another divorce and her mother’s death and never lost her faith in God, who was able to forgive and come out with a pure faith that my life was about to get amazing. I’m the woman who is satisfied with simplicity … I was happy with a little apartment I could keep clean and a supervisor to fix things. I’m the woman who lost all the monetary niceties and realizes that they don’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s all just stuff.

Some people think you rescued me. Others might think I rescued you. They think I rescued you from your loneliness, from scouring the Western states for a woman who had depth and strength and wisdom and spirituality and a passion for life that matched your own. They might say I’m the one who introduced you and brought you to a piece of property you love so much you can’t resist working on it every day. They might feel that I brought you to something better than you ever hoped or dreamed of — something to channel all your energy and passion and your love of nature into.

Many might also say that I’m the one who rescued you from lonely nights and days and who loves you like you’ve never been loved before. That I’m the one who builds you up and helps you see the beauty in your uniqueness and who helps you find your tribe. That I’m the one who helps you see that you’re a sexy Greek god and a super model.

In my community of personal growth and self help, many who know both of us may think I’m the one who rescued you from your limited view of yourself, and many of your self doubts and insecurities. They might see that I’m the one who believes in you and believes in us and the miracle that God did in bringing us together.

Who Rescued Us?

The truth is that I’m the one who doubts not, fears not, worries not, questions not, because I know that it really was not you that rescued me. It was not me that rescued you. I see the Finger of the Lord in it all.

Let others say what they will. I know God, and I know what He did. And He is the one who rescued us both and gave us each other. And when you pause, when you stop listening to others, when you dive deep into your heart and soul the way you do, you know it is He who is creating this amazing life for both of us.

It’s time we stop doubting, rehashing and second guessing the past. It’s time we get busy with faith. It’s time we focus on being what God brought us together to be.

She’s right. I know the truth. I know who drives this relationship, why we often get simultaneous inspiration. I know who rescued both of us, even after we’d done all the self work (alone) to get ourselves into good places. When we were ready, He brought us together. I know Who is guiding us, Who is helping us discover, create and deliver our God-given purpose (which, ironically, is to help others discover, create and deliver their inspired messages). I know Who rescued us from being ordinary, Who reveals His Will to us individually and collectively on the daily, and Who is helping us do His will to help His children.

And now I have written a piece that, when people doubt, when people question, when people criticize who we are and why we are together, I can simply say:

I’ve written a blog post on that very topic.

What Channel Are You On To Be Happy? Prose

Can we be on the joy Channel, the happiness Channel, the enthusiasticly passionate Channel, the God is good Channel, the nature is amazing Channel, and have the same good vibrations? I believe YES!

No matter how much I like Motown and soul music, any of those channels is better than being on the sad, depressed or funk Channel. And when you talk to people on those channels, they won’t hear or see the same wonderful things and feelings that you’re experiencing.
#givethanks

Butterfly Welcome Mat From Nature’s Resiliency: Prose

Originally as a Facebook post in the Pollinator Friendly Yards Facebook group, Oct. 12, 2019
I hope what I say here gives people hope. In August, 2017, I moved into a home on over 6 acres near the Chickamauga Battlefield in Northwest Georgia. I was stunned at the LACK of birds, butterflies, bees, dragonflies and other pollinators. The property was surrounded by fields and woods, including the 5600 acre Chickamauga national military park, so I couldn’t quite figure out why there was such a silent autumn.
Turns out I was also surrounded by a sod farm. Nice people, but they do A LOT of spraying. A one-time beekeeper near me said “I stopped trying to keep hives because they’d all die after the fields near here were sprayed.”
Nevertheless, I did what I could in my own hilltop yard. I let the lawn go wild, I ripped up some of it, I didn’t cut down the crownbeard and other wildflowers as the bank / real estate company had, I trimmed the invasive privet back and created huge brushpiles. I planted mints, wildflowers, an organic garden. I dug up a square here, a round spot there, and planted native wildflowers. Not all at once, just a little at a time. I convinced my wife that it was okay to rip up the lawn and let it grow wild, and to not mow every other week like the neighbors do. You get the idea. (My wife was surprised when all the poppies sprung up in our yard, as some photo shows.)
Two years later my property has TONS of birds of all shapes and sizes. Hummingbirds buzz around constantly, coming right up to us as we sit on our front porch. The frogs are croaking and singing like crazy. I’m seeing A LOT of butterflies and moths, there have been several types of dragonflies, AND probably 3-4 different types of wasps. I haven’t seen many bees around (but I have seen some!) so I still have hope. And someone reminded me: From May to August more and more fireflies flicker every evening … probably 90% more than when I first moved here.
My point is that nature is resilient. It only takes a little work, a spot here, a point there, and the birds and bugs will notice the welcome mat you’re throwing out for them, and come flocking and swarming to your yard!
I appreciate the Pollinator Friendly Yards Facebook group — y’all inspire me! (As requested, I added more photos) — the one with the house is a field of white crownbeard — can you spot the orange butterfly?) — feeling inspired at Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

Seattle Sounders – A New Flag To Fly

Seattle Sounders have enthusiastic backers, known for flying Sounders supporters flags, especially in the Emerald City Supporters’ (ECS) section. I’ve been to dozens of games at the Seattle stadium (CLink or whatever it might be called) and with ECS in Salt Lake City, Philly, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere. #EBFG #SoundersTilIDie.

Recently, there has been a big discussion about if the “Iron Front” flag, from the Weimar Republic (pre-World War II) era in Germany, can be waved during the Sounders’ game. Although some say it is a symbol of anti-fascism, others — including Major League Soccer and the Seattle Sounders front office — are trying to keep politics and sport separated. When an ECS member flew the Iron Front flag recently in the general admission section at a Sounders’ game — in definance of MLS and the Seattle Sounders — they were asked to take it down. When the person responsible didn’t comply, they were removed from the game. As a show of solidarity, hundreds of ECS members left the game. Www.WeAreECS.com has a discussion about the event on their website.

You can read a conservative view of it from Jason Rantz, a Seattle-area radio talk show host and #SoundersFan. Yesterday, I wrote and posted a sonnet expressing my feelings about the flags I fly at my house.

As you can read, MLS and the Sounders basically gave in to demands and are letting the #IronFront flag fly at Sounders games. It will be interesting to see if everyone can now fly political flags. For example, #RSL (Real Salt Lake) supporters recently had to take down a “Betsy Ross” (13 Stars Revolutionary War) flag. #PortlandTimbers fans had to take down a “Trump 2020” banner. But if the Iron Front flag can fly, can’t those?

I’ve said all along that Seattle Sounders fans are among the most creative in the #MLS, and that they certainly can find other ways to say “Anti-Fascist. Anti-Racist. Always Seattle.” (Which I think is a great slogan.) Personally, I think they should stick 100% to supporting the #SeattleSounders #SSFC.

Trump Minnesota non-political Seattle Sounders banner.
Double Trump: Beat Minnesota Oct. 6th, secure 2nd place.

With that in mind, I created a new slogan and banner that combines a winning (All In) poker hand with the admonition to beat the opponent, and is 100% Non-Political!
(Note: The bottom part of the banner can be changed, depending on the opponent.)

#ComeOnSeattle #EBFG #NoPoliticsInSoccer #SoundersTilIDie #CFCOwner

Come On, Seattle! TRUMP your opponent!
Non-Political Seattle Sounders Banner #EBFG