Tuesday, March 31, 2009

on the sunny side

After my last post, my younger daughter said "People who read your blog will think our yard is so beautiful." She is a "the glass is half empty" sort of person. There are ugly bits for sure, but why would I concentrate on them? She sees mostly the mud and weeds.

But I love the lush greenness of spring. I love the weeds.

If you get down close, they are spectacular. (The picture below was taken from under the tree in the picture above.)

There is this ugly fence all around the front yard. I try to keep it out of my pictures most of the time. See that bush hanging from the wall on the right?

It grows there every year, right out of a crack in the wall.

The flowers are amazing. In 2 months it will look entirely dead, but it will grow back next spring, inshaAllah.

I have been trying to get a good shot of these blue flowers for years, but I have such a hard time convincing my cheap, point-and-shoot camera to focus on them.

One is almost in focus! These flowers are about the size of my little fingernail.

There are so many cool shapes. Look at the little heart shaped seed pods.

Weird and cool.

Some of the flowers are bigger, and it is hard to believe they are wild.

This definitely is a weed, it has vicious thorns on the tip of each point on the leaves, but the pattern is cool.

So I have to be careful of those while I am roaming around trying to get eye level shots of tiny flowers.

I have a horrible time with the yellow and white flowers. They are always over exposed.

So I have to darken the pictures a lot to get any detail in the flower.

And the majority of the flowers are yellow.

I have tried taking the pictures on a cloudy day, but the white still over exposes.

Like so....

See these big leaves? That's khubaysah. The leaves are cooked and eaten, a spring treat my husband loves. I usually wander around taking pictures while I am picking the leaves.

Umm Farouq mentioned khubaysah in a recent post, so I made a point of getting a picture for her. It grows all around the trunks of the olive trees. It doesn't seem to like growing in the open as much. I wish you could come pick some with me Umm Farouq. There is more than I can use.

MashaAllah,

wa alhamdulillah.



21 comments:

UmmFarouq said...

Love khobeizeh! Love it. Tasty. The only thing is that it's a whole lot of cleaning and chopping, only to be reduced to a small plateful. But tasty nonetheless.

I have a fondness for weeds, too. That's what happens when one has been far removed from azalea land, as I have.

alajnabiya said...

I get so homesick for GREEN, so I love spring here. By the middle of summer, everything is dust and rocks, and even the trees are dusty.

None of my kids will eat the khubaysah, so I don't have to make too much. It would be good for them if they did.

fjb said...

I so glad you're back! There's nothing wrong with withdrawing and recharging once in a while.

There's nothing wrong with weeds. Nearly every annual flower available in the spring here in Canada started out its career as a weed in another country. Perhaps you could tell your daughter that they are nature's flower beds, with no need to be tended by human hands.:)

Anne Selden Annab said...

beautiful!!!

Such a pleasure to meander through you garden- thanks :)

Sakina Al-Amin said...

Looks beautiful. :)

Anonymous said...

Sallams--beautiful photos! Thank you for posting, and blogging! :)

Anonymous said...

Assalaamu alaikum,

Great to see you back! I noticed your absence from blogging some time ago but since I have also not been blogging lately I didn't see that you are 'back'. :)

Love all the photos... don't know what your daughter is on about; your garden just looks beautiful, even the dusty brown bits!

Love Umm Ibrahim x

nina said...

Still waiting for your newest pictures :)
I wrote a post about your blog. And I borrowed a photo from here too. I hope you don't mind.
God bless you!

Take care

Altitude said...

MashAllah I sincerely wish I can come see the Palestinians at least once.I keep complaining about how difficult the sirat ul mustaqeem is but what I go thru is nothing compared to what these go thru(obviously). It would abase me.

nina said...

Happy fasting, sister. May you and everyone there have a happy and blessed Ramadan...

alajnabiya said...

You too sister. Kul 'aam wa entum bukhair!

Rainbow In The Grey Sky said...

well i love it and i love to see your pictures you share !

Zaynab said...

Mmmmm Khobeizeh, just had some yesterday! Please continue to keep writing your blog, it's lovely!

Brooke S. said...

I'm not sure if you'll get follow up comments from my blog, but THANK YOU for your comments. It's always nice to learn something new and have the record set straight by someone who knows.

Thanks for taking the time and feel free to correct/contact me in the future :)

Reading through your blog this morning has been an eye opening, if heart breaking experience. Thanks for sharing and best wishes.

Brooke

alajnabiya said...

Thanks for visiting my poor, neglected blog Brooke! I thoroughly enjoyed yours and your photos are wonderful. I wanted to steal all the ones from Ramadan. Even though I live a few hundred meters from the Jerusalem city limits, I haven't been there in years and years, and I miss it! I am looking forward to more of your posts.

learn quran online said...

You are doing a great job I liked reading you blog and I loved keep on the good work on I don’t know if I have said it already or not but great wok tack care thank you

Albert Lázaro-Tinaut said...

You have a very interesting blog, with good images: congratulations, with my solidariety!
Best regards from Barcelona (Spain).

Pammy Sue said...

Thank you for the song link!

www.scottys-place.blogspot.com

nina said...

it's june already, the flowers must be beautiful there.
i miss your writing.
take care, sister.

alajnabiya said...

Thanks Nina for the comment, but there aren't many flowers in June. There is no rain and the temperature is in the mid to upper 30s everyday, and the wild flowers are all dead. My poor garden looks pretty bad too, since I hurt my knee (about the time I stopped blogging regularly) and couldn't take care of the garden all last year.

I am amazed that anyone still checks this blog, so thank you once again for stopping by. I have been thinking I ought to start writing it again.

Anonymous said...

Your blog is fascinating-beautiful photos as well. I got hung up in it on my way to bed.
I want to read more but it's late, so will have to wait. I hope you're doing well