u/PlantyHamchuk

keeps the ladies away.
Pretty good 6b harvest this year

Since everyone is sharing Dolly stories, I’ll share mine.

My class was promised $500 from Dolly if we graduated high school. We had an awards ceremony at Dollywood to celebrate.

After the dinner, we took turns receiving our check from Dolly and getting our pictures made.

As you can see in the pic, I wear glasses. The photographer asked me to tilt my chin up. I knew it was to avoid lens flare, but Dolly must have thought it hurt my feelings. She started complimenting me on my “beautiful chin.” It was a little surreal. Here I was, totally starstruck, listening to Dolly wax on about my chin.

There you have it. That’s my favorite memory of Dolly.

The Smokies have long been my favorite National Park. After the 2016 wildfire that devastated many of the trails I adored, Dolly wasted no time in raising money to help the people of East Tennessee. That was one of many things that she did for the world. We've truly lost one of the best people to ever walk this planet.

I took this photo on Friday on a hike to LeConte via the Rainbow Falls trail. You can see the wildfire damage in the background. I got the llama from the LeConte Lodge in 2017, and she always goes in my backpack when I'm hiking in the Smokies.

My girlfriend and I go freediving for trash in the Aare River in Interlaken, Switzerland. Equipped with goggles, gloves, fins and a net, we search the riverbed for trash, collect it, arrange our finds afterwards (inspired by some of the posts I've seen here), and hand everything over to the local municipality for proper disposal.

This week we had a day with exceptionally clear water, so we spent quite a long time in the river and found a lot of stuff.

I blurred a few items that could contain identifying information or might have been stolen. We'll hand those over to the police. And before anyone worries: the gun is only a toy gun.

It's crazy how many things we keep finding that absolutely don't belong in a river.

We only started doing this fairly recently, but it has quickly become one of our favorite ways to spend a day in the water.

...slowly, and when the office was closed so I couldn't be seen actively planting. ;)

It's at the far end of the property so management rarely goes by it. But my neighbors walk by it all the time.

I was very nervous about planting because I didn't want to get in trouble and knew it could be ripped out at any moment, but I explained to the new Groundskeeper that I was just trying to buy time for the pineapple mint to take over. (It's in a concrete island, so couldn't escape) Thyme also survived the winter, surprisingly.

I started filing in the empty space with old potatoes and onions and tomatoes from my cabinets. Eventually I expanded into planting old seeds I had been carrying around for years... a sort of Hail Mary "if it grows it grows".

Purple green beans came up. As did a row of zinnia. When plants got clearanced at a local nursery I planted snapdragons and pansies. Then purple sage, dianthus, kale, pok choi, and a purple mini pepper. (Slugs destroyed the pepper). It was important to me that things be edible (but 'disguised' as ornamental)

I was AMAZED at how the garden helped me connect with my neighbors. So many neighbors passed me working in the garden (at times no one was in the office) and told me how they looked forward to seeing what was growing and blooming. One neighbor said it reminded her of her home in Jordan, where they call snapdragons "fish mouths".

I gave tours and invited people to harvest what they wanted. Several took me up on it. It has been super satisfying.

The apartment is filling it in on Monday as part of a rework of the property design.

I'm sad to see it go, but I knew the day would come. I'm so glad I went ahead and did it anyway. It really was magical while it lasted, especially against a backdrop of despair, and I'll hold those moments in my heart forever.

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." - Audrey Hepburn

Yesterday morning sunrise. Absolutely beautiful watching the storm roll in. No AI was used.