Soooo… I’m looking for challenges or prompts to inspire me.
You understand, right? I wantto post on a regular basis, but the question is what to post!
Dawn, a blogger that I follow, posted a photo that she called Triptych Crop. Her photo reminded me of a photo I have on my desk (someday I’ll post a picture of it) that is from Varde, Denmark, circa 1900. It’s the kind of photo that pulls you in. I followed Dawn’s rabbit trail which led me to a photography challenge called Unusual Crop.
Well, after looking at 60+ year old photos of my brothers playing chess, I went back to that album and cropped photos of each of my siblings (and me) from that same time period. I don’t know if the crops are unusual, but here’s what’s left of the photos I cropped:
Basswood tree with holes drilled by a yellow-bellied sapsucker
Detailed? Abstract? Both?
I was searching for blogging challenges this morning. Having a challenge keeps me posting. The challenge of Detailed or Abstract — or both came from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC) which, it appears, has been taken over by Dan Antion. Cee Neuner started the long-running challenge. She encouraged blogger/photographers to take photos or go through photo archives and post photograph(s) based on the prompt. Mostly, she said, to have fun.
This was a photo I took in the Adirondacks. I was there with a friend who is very knowledgable about nature. If you’ve never walked in the woods with someone who knows them well, make it a bucket list item. My Adirondack-loving friend knows the common names and Latin names of all the trees. He know the birds. He knows the stories and the lore. I love hearing it all.
The yellow-bellied sapsucker pecks holes in horizontal lines in basswood trees because they like the soft bark. Apparently they also like apple trees, birch trees, maples and more. They drill their rows of holes then leave them for the sap to ooze out. Later, they return to eat both the sap and the insects trapped in it.
To me, I just liked the look of the tree with its vertical bark lines and the horizontal sapsucker lines.
In my quest for blogging inspiration, I found a poetry challenge: frozen water that called for using synonyms for the famous “frozen water” in Minneapolis without using the word for immigration enforcement. I’m way over the word count for the challenge, but I’ll put it here FWIW
Winter walk Snow and cold Past a tree Many holed
Does sap freeze? (Water will) Sap won’t run In this chill
What do birds Who eat sap Dine on now Sap’s the trap
People use Something worse [sideways move in this verse]
Intimidation Immigration We are lost As a nation
Take away Legal status Now they are Called non-gratis
They are NOT All worst-of-worst [unintentional outburst]
I sigh a sigh ‘Cause I don’t know How to help Or where to go
At the feeder There’s a jay “BULLY, BULLY GO AWAY!”
It even says it on their license plates, Beautiful British Columbia, as if our eyes are deceiving us. Yes, this is a beautiful place.
I had to fight the urge of pulling over on my drive up from Seattle to take some pictures. The mountains are breathtaking. The trees stand tall, erect, pointy and somehow brave.
It’s so very different from the Northeastern US, where the mountains are lovely, but older. The trees are also lovely, but more are deciduous; they seem to go with the flow of life instead of the unmoving strength of those giant pines.
Ah, I know, I’m probably way off base. The oaks and maples have deeper roots, right? And I’ve seen tall pines toppled with their root system, shallow and broad, turned on edge like a wall.
But this is my submission for Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday — a day late — and I’m not going to go back and correct what may need correction. When I saw that the prompt was “Photograph,” I thought, Yup, I’ve taken a few photographs over the past few days.
We’ve gone walking every day. Two days ago, my son and his wife wanted to take me to see some glorious vista — which I’m sure would have led to not a few photographs. However, we started up the logging road and it got steeper and steeper and steeper.
“Are we there yet?” I quipped two minutes into the hike.
Twenty minutes in, after a couple of rests, I asked them to guesstimate if we had gone a quarter of the way yet. He studied the map on his phone. “Umm…. maybe just under a quarter,” he said.
We turned back at my request. I walk A LOT, just not straight uphill.
Instead we walked along the Fraser River which was lovely. The only photograph from that walk was of an immature eagle who stared down on us as we passed.
Yesterday, we walked along the Vedder River, a river which changes its name to Chilliwack once it passes under a bridge, so I saw the Chilliwack River, too. In fact, I only photographed the Chilliwack.
Chilliwack River
But my favorite picture of the day was one I took immediately as we started on the path. It made me laugh — and it still makes me laugh.
I love when people have a sense of humor.
I really want to know who thought of the poop fairy.
In 2024, I want to exercise my creativity. In searching for ideas of how to do that, I stumbled across a creativity challenge from the UK that included 31 prompts. (64 Million Artists)
Here is today’s: From My Window
I read the prompt while I was at work this morning, and it was still dark out. I took this photograph:
I was quite taken with the lights of tree inside reflecting out, and the lampposts in our parking lot, still lit, shining in.
Half an hour later, I took this shot:
The lights in the lampposts are out. The Christmas trees still reflect, but not as brilliantly.
Somewhere in all this is a poem. It’s about darkness and light and reflecting.
Beautiful. I took you From the cat — Still you flew.
I’m awed at Your mettle. You shimmer, You settle,
And then you Fly away — The nothing That you weigh
That fluttered In my hand Lingers — so Fragile, grand
This is my second attempt at a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire, an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.
A lifelong blessing for children is to fill them with warm memories of times together.
Charlotte Kasl
All my children (at Helen’s wedding – 2022)All my children to this point (1999)All my children — except the oldest who was away at college (2003)All my children — plus a daughter-in-law (2015)Half of my children (2015)Two of my children (2010?)All my children (again) kicking up their heels (sort of) (2022)
Trying to find photographs of all my children proved tougher than I thought! However, I’m pretty sure they would all agree that they have plenty of happy memories together!
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 