#FOTD: Coke can flower

Picture of a flower made from a Coke can, along with a bird feeder made from a rusty can and wind chimes made with keys.
Scene from the Barrio Garden at the Tucson Botanical Garden, December 29, 2020.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge.

We live only a mile or so from the Tucson Botanical Garden, and we decided to check it out during Winter Break. We had to cancel our Winter Break travel plans due to the Microbe that Must not be Named, so we are exploring our new city instead (outside only, masked and socially distanced). According to the audio tour:

This shady barrio (neighborhood) garden came to life with the help of local Mexican-American gardeners and honors the distinctive gardens and yards found in Tucson’s Mexican-American neighborhoods…  the distinctive decorative style featur[es] ‘found objects,’ family mementos and whimsical use of  recycled materials. 

https://tucsonbotanical.org/tours/nuestro-jardin-audio-tour/

The barrio garden is a wonderful example of human creativity and the human impulse to create beauty with whatever is on hand. I’m not Mexican-American, but I grew up in a family that made due with what we had. My parents lived through the Depression, so making due and avoiding waste was ingrained in them, and we didn’t have much money when I was a kid. My dad didn’t seem to care much about beauty, but my mother did, and she found ways to create it no matter how bad things were. I think she would have appreciated the Coke can flower and the other handmade items in this picture for their beauty and ingenuity and the spirit of determination behind them, the stubborn refusal to knuckle under to scarcity and hardship. I know I do.

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