A Tree Growing In A Strange Place.

I was once told that the official description of a weed was, “Any plant growing in a place where it is not wanted. Well this incident reported in The Melbourne Herald Sun on April 16, definitely classifies as a WEED with capital letters.
Doctors in Russia removed a 5 cm fir tree growing in a man’s lung when they were operating on him for suspected lung cancer. It would appear that he must have inhaled a seed, which germinated and started to grow inside his lung and started causing him complications similar to Lung cancer.
Very strange indeed, I think! What is the strangest object that you have found where it was not ever expected to be?
P.S. According to the TV News, this is now being suspected of being a Hoax as a tree should not be able to grow without sunlight. I guess that this is further proof that you should not always believe what you read in the paper or in a Blog, Hey?

“You can get it if you Really want”.

“You can get it if you really want, if you try try, try.” This advice, which was sung by the father of Reggae, Desmond Decker (& the Aces) still holds true today, as much as it did nearly 4 decades ago when it was a big international hit for him on the Hit Parades of the world.

While it is true that it is only a generalization and there are some things in life that you can never achieve no matter how hard you try, there are many things that are available if we are prepared to try hard enough for them. But like “Karl Linnaeus” in an earlier blog, one has to decide how badly you want it, to begin with and then try, try, try, until success comes your way or you die. Sometimes to achieve what you set out to do, you have to be so committed that everything else is irrelevant and huge sacrifices, either financially or personally has to be made. The question then arises, How committed are you really? Perhaps you will need to set more realistic goals and targets and be happy with that. Like me with my desire to have my garden, kids & pets, all at the same time. (See blog, ”Garden; Kids; Pets?”)

Which are you more like? Linnaeus or me? Or more beneficially still, are you just You! Unique & successful in your own right? Over to you: Walter

Garden; Kids; or Pets?

It has often been said that, “You can’t have a good garden and Kids and/or pets too!”

Well I guess that it is true that you can’t have a great garden with kids and pets, but you can still have a good one if you are garden minded to start with and plan your garden around those so-called inhibiting problems.

I have done it many times with different gardens and pets; but always with the same three kids, plus their many friends.

It just takes a little bit of planning and sometimes some extra fencing and even sometimes some different plants to your original choices. But even there, different climates and locations will often modify this last situation anyway. With or without kids and Pets!

The thing is that, if you are committed to all the desired requirements (In my case garden, kids & pets) and are prepared to plan (the layout of the garden and yard) and go to the extra expenses (fences/ screens/ Borders) and the extra trouble (choosing appropriate plants and materials) you can still have a good garden. A garden that will still be the envy of most token gardeners, even if it never reaches the echelons of greatness like the gardens of the fanatics.

Half the secret is in knowing what you want before hand and then working towards it.

It will perhaps be difficult to achieve the heights of say “Karl Linnaeus”, but even there it has to be acknowledged that he had five kids himself.

I guess all I am trying to say here is that you may never have perfection but you can still have a lot if you are prepared to make the extra effort. Are you prepared to put that little bit of extra effort into your life or just fall back on the word of others that it is impossible? Over to You: Walter

Doing what you can do, Verses What you would wish to do.

In a previous blog, I was complying about being Busy, busy, busy without actually seeming to achieve much. The fact is that actually I shouldn’t complain too much, I did upon reflection; achieve more than I first thought.

On top of my actual work achievements I did too actually achieve a free day last week and the weather was such that I was able to get out into the garden and get a fair bit done there. Again, not as much as I felt needed to be done, but enough to keep me happy and the place looking tidy again. Even if only from a distance.

Thinking on all this I came to the conclusion that sometimes we get so “Bogged” down in the peripherals of life that often we don’t really appreciate life to its full. And often the beauty and joy of some of the finer things are lost to us. Sometimes forever! Sometimes we let things that should be on the peripheral of our lives, like our gardens or hobbies, or even the trivia of work, dominate our every moment of free time and control our lives.

Instead of letting these hobbies, these trivial ‘things’, being opportunities for enjoyment and even rest, we oft times let them become dominant in our lives and instead of relief, they bring unnecessarily burdens and stress to our lives. (Unless we are professional gardeners, of course!)

Now I'm not saying we shouldn’t have a garden, or even the best garden we can, or any other hobby either, just that these things don’t have to be the best in the world, just good enough to bring real pleasure to you, no matter if the look so ordinary to others. Whether from a distance like my lawn, or even up close.

I have used my garden as an example here but this illustration really applies to every part of our lives when we try to do more than is really feasible. So what important things in your life are being left undone because you are worrying about the trivial in your Life? Again, what say you? Walter