N: You are always in an effort to create and beautify something. The world you created here is so worth seeing. Where do you find this power, this strength? What feeds you?

F: We live in a very beautiful place. This planet is an amazing place. Every day, every second, every season I come across, see, learn something new. Here in nature I truly feel that I live on this planet, living with joy and excitement I feel the energy inside me. With pure joy and excitement, there’s nothing that one can’t accomplish if the person uses the dynamo of their self-life energy. There’s nowhere that they can’t go. Sometimes I even say “I wish I was dead and this was my heaven”. I can live here under these conditions until eternity. Some day If something happened to us, even if we were left penniless, if this or that happened, I could survive anyway. I feel that in me because I was raised that way and that's what I believe. It is what I want. I feel strong. We all have that strength actually.

  

I want a forest, I want greenery, I want fewer people, I want less conversation but I still talk too much anyway. I’m so pleased that I’m in early retirement, but I'm still working with soil. I call this creating my own heaven. Evolving to something, trying something new in my garden every year...

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First year, I came and planted all of my indoor plants in Istanbul. Then I said it’s a shame spending all these resources on indoor plants. Just to see a few flowers, we are wasting that much water. They may as well be edible, right? I moved them to another place, and filled it with tomatoes instead. The following year I said “I was born into this world, I’m a part of this world, this planet. Will I always see tomatoes in the garden?  I’d like to see beautiful things", and  gathered the beautiful and edible ones together. So you can also see magnolias next to tomatoes. With time I’ve started getting to know the local species also. Actually at some point you design your own world here. You allow one to be born, and decrease the other , you equalize it.

 

N:  Most of us are not middle Asian Turks. Some of us are Phrygian, some of us are Hittites, some of us are Byzanthian. Actually we have many races in our DNAs. However; I feel Turkish as I was born and raised on this land. What is the stand out specification that makes a Turkish person feel Turkish? 

F: I'd say hospitality from the heart. I truly see this part as a very nice gesture taking you to their own homes, sharing their tables and cherishing you.

 

N: What will be your next confrontation?

F: Doing the gardening work here. This occupation of mine will turn from becoming a simple action into something which will serve for a different purpose. My target, growing our own clean food, sharing with other creatures, without pesticide (medicine), turning it into a garden which is self-sufficient and making a garden with the plants in the region.

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