Rural Life - Tumblr Posts

Scarecrow’s Watch 🌾

I'm an autistic amateur photographer. Follow me on Tumblr and Instagram 📷

Immediate follow up on my previous post with some non-exhaustive reference images for my passion project - got all of these off google by simply searching ‘Zimbabwean rural compound/interior’

Taken while listening to Preacher’s Daughter.

There's one shop in town that's a farm supply store. It's where I bought my scythe and other farming tools. They sell substitute milk for animals, especially this time of year.

My wife and I went there today for more substitute milk for the rescue pups. (We are calling them, collectively, "the snacks" because they are very small and we have given them food names. Also because Pitchfork Guy referred to them as "patatas fritas"/French fries when he saw them.)

Additionally, we got tomato and eggplant sprouts. The eggplants are for us. The tomatoes are also for us, but possibly will feed the hummingbird moth caterpillars instead. We aren't picky.

Anyhow, the shopkeep was extremely invested in learning more about the snacks. It turns out that she had seen them on the road, assumed they were dead, and drove on. It wounded her to find out that they were alive and she'd driven past. It brightened her day to learn that all of them were still alive in our care.

We had to reassure her several times that, yes, all of them lived.

She was blown away. Delighted.

We asked how much she wanted for the milk and the plants.

"Do aiyuro." Two euros.

"For all of that?" I said in English.

She said something to my wife, who smiled and said: "... she's giving us the milk powder for free."

I was like, no, she runs a business and should be paid, that's a whole dang kilo of milk powder and it must be worth something. But once an Andalusian has decided to give you something for free, not even Hashem can get them to take the money.

Once I saw a local shopkeep deliver food to an elderly lady around about Christmastime. The elderly lady asked how much for the delivery. The shopkeep went "No, no, es la Navidad," and the elderly lady insisted on getting her wallet to pay... and while her back was turned, the shopkeep (not much older than her) turned on her heels and fled the scene as though she were committing a crime.

So I give up and pay two euros for our seedlings.

The shopkeep gave to the puppies, anyhow, not to me. Just like I will give my tomato plants to the hummingbird moth caterpillars, should we get any.

Portrait of a woman with a hood (1878) by Peter Michal Bohúň. Bielsko-Biała Museum.

A narrowboat traverses the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Wales.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Arpingstone

Wilseder Berg on the on the Lüneburg Heath by Valentin Ruths (1825-1905).

Visuals by Nariman Darbandi