By the way she asked it, I felt like she expected me to have a damn good answer ready, which I did not. I love Nancy Zafris, but anyone who knows her will tell you she has a way of putting you on the spot. You've heard the expression "like a deer in the headlights," well, when Nancy Zafris asks you a question, you feel like a deer with a troubled conscience being asked by a particularly insinuating headlight to recall where you were on the evening of January the 21st. I felt the implied corollary to her question was, "Why would anyone live in Georgia?" and that on my response hung not only the validation of my life so far, but perhaps the dignity and worth of an entire state. My response was a muttered justification having to do with the principle of inertia: I was raised in Georgia, went to school and college in Georgia, fell in love and got married in Georgia, got a job and bought a house in Georgia. If you keep that sort of thing up, pretty soon you're bound to look around and discover you live in Georgia.
It was only when I got home, I realized what the answer was.
Here's my answer.
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| These are Cone Flowers, a native plant |
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| Hyrdrangeas - they go crazy this time of year. This plant is taller than I am |
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| In the foreground is my chicken, Sorche. My other chicken, Loretta is in the bacckground |
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| These are eggs Loretta and Sorche left me. |
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| Tomato plants |
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| The yellow flowers are lantana. They have a not-unpleasant waxy smell inexplicably attractive to butterflies (Butterflies not pictured) |
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| Knock-out roses. These rascals seem to bloom forever, and when the gardenia is in bloom, too, the combined fragrance almost makes you drunk. |
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| Cucumbers are camera-shy, and it's very hard to get a decent photo. You should feel flattered. |
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| Eggplant aren't as hard to photograph as cucumbers, but they ain't easy |
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| Crepe Myrtle. Some people say Crepe Myrtle is a no-account tree. Those people are wrong. |
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| Daffodils. Wordsworth once wrote a poem where "daffodil" was both title and last word. |
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| Sweet Basil. The yellow flowers are Goldenrod. |
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| A basket of goodies from the garden and chicken coop. |
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| If you think cucumbers and eggplants are hard to photograph, you should try catching a warbler at the feeder. |
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| The woman reading in the pool is my sweet wife Nancy. She did not know I took this picture. |
