The Road Goes Ever On
Rain dogged us for most of our trip and as we start out again tomorrow to drive to Cheyenne, it looks like more rain. Unpleasant driving, but makes for some fabulous skies and often the vistas with the road curling into the distance seem almost mythical, creating an anticipation, as though we are driving into a mysterious future. (more)
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/06/03/cees-which-way-challenge-2015-week-22/
I absolutey love Lydia’s answer to today’s prompt so I must reblog.
Almost a decade ago, one of my children wanted a pet hedgehog. (Don’t try this at home.) I don’t know where the idea originated, but she did all the research online, and presented her opening statement. I countered with a list of previous pets, all of which ended up in my care, and I didn’t want anymore responsibilities. She was relentless, my eight year old genius. I dismissed the case to be reopened at a later date hoping she’d forget. She didn’t forget. She saved her birthday and Christmas money. I capitulated, surrendering to her resolve. I regretted it every day for the three years that poor beast lived.
We had two giant breed dogs at the time, and the hedgehog could smell them. Hedgehogs do not typically bite, (that still doesn’t make them good pets), but fear made Otis a biter. Once he’d sink his long sharp fangs into…
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Happily
Nothing in this world can exist happily ever after.
A house is built of lows and highs: foundation before rafter.
Up and down’s the truth of it, the brilliant and the dark.
No week is composed totally of Sunday in the park.
Existence is a pendulum that sweeps across our lives.
Worker bees die every day in service to their hives.
Good seems finely balanced by a constant lurking evil.
Roses have their aphids. Cotton has its weevil.
There is so much that’s wonderful in the world we live in,
but no one wins at every game. Sometimes we have to give in,
playing with the cards we’re given–flush or straight or fold–
sometimes in the heat of luck, sometimes out in the cold.
Ups and downs create the whole of our amazing world,
its surface formed by contrast of the knitted and the purled.
Sometimes we’re given what is sweet, at other times the bile
as we choose moment by moment to live happily for a while.
The Prompt:“And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/happily-ever-after/
Centerfold
Grumpy
Waiting for Mom
These pictures of all three fellows were taken yesterday. Good timing, Cee! The pugs were the guardians of a nursery we went to. Yesterday’s post showed some of our “finds.” The third little dog was our friend Jackie’s little guy, at the window, watching his Mom walk away down the front walk.
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/06/04/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-animals/
Stink Think
Scotch broom makes me nauseous. Roses make me sneeze.
I abhor the scent of jasmine on an evening breeze.
Room deodorants should be banned, as should scented candles.
I’d rather smell my brother’s sneakers or a vagrant’s sandals.
Now that we want each thing to smell like something it is not,
there’s a different odor on everything we’ve got.
There’s perfume in detergent, in dryer tabs and soap.
Scented toilet paper makes we want to mope.
Unscented’s getting almost impossible to find
It leaves allergic folks like me in a real tight bind.
Gardenia in my hand lotion or chamomile or peach.
Hairsprays smell as fresh as air or like a summer beach.
Floor cleaners smell like forests of freshly gathered pine,
as though without this pungent scent our floors would smell like swine!
These odors leave me gasping and running for some air.
Their vapors make my eyes run, causing much despair.
I do not want my table waxed with lemon or “fresh scent.”
I believe that everything should smell as nature meant.
I’ve done a lot of research, and I’m fairly sure
that perfumes out-stink everything they’re meant to obscure!
The Prompt: Smell You Later–Humans have very strong scent memory. Tell us about a smell that transports you.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/smell-you-later/
I woke up early this morning and while I was waiting for the prompt, a dolphin swam into my consciousness and prompted this tale. While you are waiting for me to write a poem about the sense of smell, (today’s prompt), please be content with this one written about another sense:
Ocean Koan
Ocean Koan
The dolphins ride in on the music,
but why did they come here?
Did they seek to lend their harmonies
to a music new and queer?
Did they soar in on its melody,
come in on a riff,
drawn by its dissonant whistle—
a mere beckoning whiff?
Whatever the dolphins are hearing,
whatever they’re trying to reach,
we don’t understand their language
as they lie stranded on our beach.
Perhaps we divert them with towers
that speak in a tongue their own,
and though it’s not our intention,
our messages form a koan
that they are driven to answer
as we’re drawn to outer space,
pulled to find our others
in an alien clime and place.
We believe we are harmless and loving,
at peace with their watered dreams;
when in truth we are drying their world up—
ripping it at the seams.
We send out the signals to pull them
to where they should not be,
like fairytales told to children
that draw them to our knee—
We turn our backs to the seaward window,
seal our ears to their keening tones
as the dolphins swimming landward
pave our beaches with their bones.
I am not an expert on sonar or other communication technology. If you want to hear more on the subject, go here: http://www.earthportals.com/beachedwhales.html
I’ve been looking for an excuse to share this cartoon so guess I’ll just use it as a recruitment device. In spite of all the bad publicity, Mexico is a great place to live, not to mention the price of beer!
Nested in a giant tree on Little Goose Creek in Sheridan, Wyoming, we found these amazing Great Blue Herons, complete with chicks. I was using a X30 optical zoom and still some of the cropped ones are fuzzy. I’ll try to get back there before I leave, but with no tripod, I probably won’t get any better results. Still figuring out my new camera.
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/on-the-way/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 