By the derelict greenhouses

I love rooting around old abandoned places. I tend to photograph some of them because of the character involved. I got some great pics of old abandoned and run down stores and houses and barns. I love that kind of stuff. Well done! Respectfully, Rett: "Next time you think you're perfect, walk on water." If government is the answer, it's a stupid question!

Yum, this was a delicious picnic lunch of surprises & whimsicality... made me sigh with satisfaction & fond contentment.. I especially loved the theatre car in a patch of paprika &... "...and cast out flowers woods made of it a theatre with no people to act in only decay and the industry of insects and wild life it faces the world in a new role the oil can and woodland Ikebana a leaf on a twig nailed yellow a dandelion strives to show above the living room carpet the plastic horse beheaded by an exploded bottle." Well done Fjordland Ann, loved this! Anni I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

I want to see Norway, even more than ever. I love the beautiful, rotted, abandoned places. There is an old coast guard station, deserted in 1978 on the shore of Lake Erie. Beautiful lighthouse tower in it. I longed to find access to it for years, until finally I was able to make my way over a crumbling causeway to its front door. I giggled like an insane kitten when I got to go in, to see its crumbling beauty. I went back several times, each with fantasies of building it into a quaint inn, with a library bar etc. To climb up to the second floor was fooishness; the roof had collapsed and the whole floor seemed rotted. The authorities have since boarded it up, and fixed the causeway so that the public can now legally walk up to it, but not enter. Such is life. There is talk of making a museum out of it, which would be fine enough, but oh how I love those ruins! Mark W. "An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred, a barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing. " ~ David Wong

Oh what hillarious synchronicity dear Ann, I just now finished writing a response to Craig's last post & mentioned you, (& others) I titled my comment partly "secret garden"!!!! I love what you have written as always.. so rich & so much more, I always feel, to explore... We would be such fast friends (will be I am sure.. I feel are already becoming so) if we lived close, I would love afternoons with Fjordland Ann, my lovely living sculpture (I would love to carve your image in stone with your lovely knot ended locks & warm vibrant smile). Ta for your descriptions, how lovely to go there through you. I so want to tell you of my choir meeting today I know you would love it... I taught the song (I wrote yesterday & only created a tune for this morning before I went to teach it) that we must sing for the Bushfire concert benefit on Sunday... & there is more on my mermaid friend.. but I must go record what I taught them now - before I forget how it goes!!! I will be in touch though xx Anni May I wish to walk gracefully..... so as not to spill water.

the place you so richly describe makes me feel I have been, but I have not. As an army-brat I did get to live in Germany, and I thought its landscapes beautiful even then. And I remember the cottages and beautiful gardens in the countryside. thanks for posting this memorable piece... Richard

In the Wild Places I too love to forage in the places nature reclaimed, the formerly conquered patches now crumbling. It took me twenty – nine years to find Whiskey Island, and its beautiful old lighthouse once used by the coast guard. Walk unsteadily over a crumbling grey causeway, after hopping the fence with “Warning! Keep Out!” that no one pays attention to. It’s the secret places, in whom trees have sprung up right through the floor tiles, reaching up to a collapsed roof, and sunlight. I never made it up to the light tower, but the lobby, the filthy lobby with debris and dirt and broken glass, peeling paint is a scene from the most fantastic movie. I dreamt once of visiting Chernobyl; more specifically the towns around it, now a vast dead zone, immediately abandoned. Oh, if only that was safe. And I imagined visiting the many forsaken missile silos of the Midwest. I must do this quickly, as some are being bought and converted into luxury town homes. Criminals to do such things! The city tore down the old hospital near church; a shame, this. Still, there are rumors of an old asylum in Indiana. Where there are courtyards let them grow into wild gardens. Where there is glass, let it be broken and litter the ground. Where plaster is cast let it lay, crumbled. I wonder what the supermarket will look like in five – hundred years. Or better yet, my house in a millennium. Just over a hundred years ago my entire street was one farm. Just over a hundred years ago, so was the forest at Findley State Park, reclaimed green space now. “Yes give me the wild gardens where the flowers have decided where they want to grow” 1 Give me decay, greenery, moss and lichen and trees, the bramble, the thorn, and the poisonous berry. And I will smile when I see nature conquer man, again. 1. Ann Harvey. Oslo, Norway Mark W. "An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred, a barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing. " ~ David Wong

Loved this one. As a child, my best friend & I would go rooting around where other people dumped their old toasters etc & the stories we came up with defied description! Sincerely: one mans' rubbish was our treasure & clearly Missy concurs. Jo

I love it. Nothing more to say, this was simply exquisite.

I had to come back and walk in your garden again... my hat is off dear lady, Richard