“Hello, Two Green Thumbs, Janit speaking.”

“My name is Martha, I have to send you this picture, but it won’t go through!” was the very first thing I heard from her.

I quickly gave her another email address to use, and eventually got the whole story. Her excitement was contagious, it oozed through the phone, and I instantly wanted to hear more.

“I spent six or seven hours on my mini garden yesterday, taking plants from different places from my garden and I had a lot of miniature things around the house too. When I started to build it, I got all these ideas and spent the whole day making it.”

The thought went through my head, she really can’t tell me fast enough!

“So when I was done, I asked the fairies to come. I said, ‘Ok, this is your place! Come and stay!’”

I note, Martha is a fairy gardener, too ~ the story unravels.

“I photographed it and played around with it some more, but it was getting dark. I had an idea to make a fire pit, so I got a tea light and put it in the center of the garden and put tiny rocks around it.”

I was laughing at this point - I was laughing at me – I do that, too!

“But it was getting too dark to photograph, so I took it inside. But, let me back up a minute. I have taken photographs all my life. I take pictures of everything - and I have tons of pictures - but I never have had this happen before.”

Did I say she couldn’t tell me fast enough? I can’t listen fast enough now!

“So I took some photographs of it and, you’ll never guess what happened. I have to show you. Let me send you the pictures.”

Oh man! I gotta wait even longer now! We got off the phone and I waited eagerly for the email.

There were four pictures in her email. I loved her garden as soon as I saw it – but then again I guess I’m partial to it, eh? - I quickly scrolled down to the last one to see what all the excitement was about.

Ok, I said to myself, I’ve seen this before… it’s a spark from the fire. Um, but it’s a tea light - and tea lights don’t spark... And the path of the “light” (for lack of a better term) doesn’t exactly mimic the would-be path of a spark, speaking from an entirely amateur point to view that is.

I looked at it again. Then promptly emailed Martha back, and the conversation continued: Martha has shown the photo to just about everybody she knows, and no one can put a definitive explanation to it. I noted the rock in the garden that said, “Believe.” Martha has this word on her cell phone, and in a bunch of other places around her home. It’s her trademark word.

Later that day, I called up the pictures in my email program on my laptop to show husband Steve what I was on about. It’s the same email program, the same email address – just a different computer - albeit a newer one. I scrolled down to the fourth photo with the strange light show and…

…It wouldn’t load, the picture was all grey.