When worlds collide peacefully


(Robin) #1

This quote from @Shinita
“ At least I did walks. Just 2 villages away through the forest so a small one, 6km.”
Got me to thinking about how many different cultures and countries are represented here. Like @FrankoBear with his poetic descriptions and photos of the beach, the dog, the Missus. I m quite sure we tick all the boxes when it comes to politics, religion, philosophy etc…

It’s connections like this that keep me optimistic about our world.
Thanks!


(Shawn Patrick Malone) #2

Just a plain old, boring American of Irish decent.


(Robin) #3

Same here, Native Kansan but Scotland and Wales decent.
The main thing my part of Kansas can offer is that it is so flat, you can see for miles.
Sunsets can be spectacular. And we have fabulous thunderstorms and fully experience all 4 seasons.


#4


#5

Okay I can’t resist then, I just came from a tiny bit bigger walk (6.5km but with higher elevation than normal as we went from our hilltop to another hilltop :D). There was a great view but I only made photos about these beauties, the time for them has come!

I live “in the middle of nowhere” (other people’s words, not mine. we have forests, little and big rivers, little and big ponds and zillion pines, even a gas station only ~3.6km away. it’s a good place, not many people, I like it. we even have a pasque flower hill, I only had that in Budapest before) in Hungary.
Very Hungarian anchestors, they were peasants with some high quality lands (not big ones but very good, no one sold them, you had to inherit it or marry into a family with them. of course everything was taken away after WW2 and socialism came or something that they called so, IDK. it was “given back” after 1989 so I have a worthless strip of land and another I rent out for a tiny money) so they stay put. My SO has a way more interesting anchestry and other countries were involved just a few generations ago.

I lived on the Hungarian Great Plain before but now I live 20km from it, in a mountain range (on a hilltop and still at 200m so yeah, the real hills are a bit farther. but the scenery is still nice and not flat at all. it’s not about the actual height but the steepness of the slopes :D).
We regularly have rain, it’s cool as it was different where I was from. We have super hot times and snow too so yep, 4 seasons here too though sometimes spring is super short, I don’t like that.

We have pretty much forest compared to an European country not in the North as far as I know and it does good to the fauna. And I am surrounded with forests here :smiley: Sometimes I try to imagine the countries with zillions of people in a tiny area. They must have almost no Nature…


(Robin) #6

Some day, I hope you take some photos of your bigger view. Sounds ideal to me!


(Robin) #7

Exactly!!!


(Robin) #8

Just outside our door… even small rivers can seem majestic at sunrise/sunset.


#9

Is this small to you? :smiley: But indeed, it looks great! Hmmm, I should make sunrise/sunset photos, I am just afraid they won’t be nearly as spectacular as irl… But I didn’t make many such photos in my life, maybe they could turn out good…?

I found some photos… This is what the pasque flower hill does in autumn. It has many smoketrees, yay, I love them:

And this is a view in the wildlife park, I only had my phone at the moment but it turned out surprisingly okay from a little phone, I never expect much from them, I use a proper, old, back then half-professional camera with the best objective among the few we own. The pond and the tiny hills nearby are visible. The one just left from the middle is where the pasque flowers and some of the smoketrees are:


(Robin) #10

Wow… that’s a view. I would love to have that lush expanse around me. Although I’m near the river, I am right in the middle of town. We inherited a Smoketree at our new duplex. It’s beautiful even after/during a hard winter. Can’t wait for it to bloom.


#11

I don’t have any. Just 2 very beautiful silver birches, 3 pines (and another but it’s stunted because of the too close thujas, not our fault, we only planted trees with enough space around them), a tulip magnolia tree (a bit too close to other thujas) and zillion other decorative plants :slight_smile: And all the different fruits I could get. I like my garden and it will be so great to focus on it again. I don’t particularly like garden work but we don’t have much. I mean watching my plants to grow and bloom…

And we have a field across the… let’s call it very generously road… It can be pretty sometimes too. Just because I don’t like to eat grains, I can enjoy them visually :wink:

There is always a sunflower field in this street as well, they are a big thing in Hungary. I didn’t know it isn’t elsewhere but makes sense as the supermarkets have basically one cooking oil in big amounts and that is sunflower oil. And the seeds are a popular snack too, I never liked the taste. But they are pretty. I remember when we had 100 in the garden at Grandma and she decided on the hottest late summer day that we MUST get them all out. From the hardened, cracked soil after 2 months without rain, it felt like rocks. Even my Mom wasn’t amused and she was loads more diligent and less hedonistic than me… That was a memorable day. I welcomed the evening when it was cooler and I merely had to chop up all the stems, it’s fine to start a fire when dry…
Grandma was a proper peasant with land and everything. Mom was a peasant kid but got her doctorate and become a judge while my Aunt become a physician (I still have a healthy doctor and hospital phobia). They were good. And Grandma raised them alone, without her land as it was taken away as those were such time… She was a huge hero.
I remember such things when seeing sunflowers sometimes. Other times I just enjoy the view.
(And it isn’t true that they always follow the sun. I was told that as a kid. They tend to follow it but some are rebellious and look at the other way.)


(Robin) #12

What a coincidence! The official state flower for Kansas is the sunflower. I love them. Some are those huge monster size flowers on stalks as big as your arm. others are normal size and fill an entire field. So cheery! This field is in the middle of the state.


#13

Wow!

I personally like the tiny late bloomers, not even on current sunflower fields… They come out the next year and harvesting don’t affect them at the edge of the field… They are tiny with useless little seeds and no one would miss them so I grab one and put it into a vase weeks after the last big one nearby wilted…

I only have this not so great photo but it shows a tiny one considering the little amount of seed part… :slight_smile:


(Robin) #14

Tiny looks just as perfect and happy as larger ones!


#15

image

Summer is still hangin’ around.


(Allie) #16

I have to join in… :heart:


(Robin) #17

Oh lovely. We used to live on a very small lake (apartment complex) that had hundreds of geese coming and going and creating a ruckus and a full time resident swan couple. I always wondered if they had been clipped or something to make them stay. But kinda was afraid to learn the answer. They seem regal to me.


(Allie) #18

Mute swans? They tend to stay put once they’ve found a good territory. The ones that travel around are usually homeless and / or looking for a mate, or if they’re with their young they will be trying to find them a home to move into so they can leave them and start on the next brood. It’s not an easy life as there aren’t many good territories.


#19

Collide? a strange choice of words in a way cause even on our ‘extreme lc and keto type’ eating carbs plans and debate we are ‘debating sciences’ and ‘what if sciences’ and more…but let me tell ya, lets put politics and religion and more into this mix of our different locations and we got a sh**show going down HAHA

but yea alot of great friends from near and far IF WE keep the chat to sciency based facts and our changes in our lives with eating but I also think we do find real friends and so much common ground on thoughts, til ya put in other topics, which thankfully can not and will not be discussed here…so we all got a mutual controlled friendship from our worlds. I like that.

it is nice to know we got a safe zone to chat a topic without it being taken further and further into cultural and political and whatever other issue dimension.

Great country of USA…NOT a darn boring part of my life with my country and my values at all living where I live and how I was raised in my country…proud as can be :slight_smile: but love making hardcore friend connections in other countries too :slight_smile:


(Robin) #20

Yes! I remember hearing the term Mute Swans. Hmmm… learn something new every day