If you can, please help the people of the Philippines – see link below:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/haiyan-leaves-trail-of-grief–and-despair-in-its-wake-20131113-2xgvc.html
Tag Archives: nature
Weekly Photo Challenge: Horizon
Smoke Eclipse
This is a snapshot of the skies towards the Blue Mountains, which were ablaze with raging bush-fires last week – and there is more of the same on the horizon for Australia. Today, a week later, Sydney is blanketed in smoke once again, and Summer is not yet upon us 😯
——
Didn’t get time to do my usual 5 favourites, but love these two entries to the Horizon WPC
Weekly Photo Challenge: Saturated
On a grey, saturated day in May,
the trees at a local nursery delight
with their saturated colour display
As does a sunset in the Blue Mountains
Little moments of the right kind of shock and awe
For more entries to this week’s challenge, see The Daily Post.
My 5 favourites:
A Meditative Journey with Saldage
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea
I’ve dived and snorkelled in different parts of the world and so, for me, the sea is about the many strange and wonderful things that live in it – I think of it as liquid art.
For more takes on the Sea theme, see The Daily Post.
My top five:
Creosote
Is the scent
of an ancestor’s skull kicked
down a bush runway –
an elephant remembers
bones and dust,
the echo of hyena
comedy nights, jaws
on buffalo bones
chalk and dust,
a tall silhouette beyond the runway –
a blind man – inhales the dusk
for ghost-lions
before crossing to light
the camp fire
blood and dust
in the dark, leopards
gaze at embers
of an ancient story
fate throws the bones,
a plane flies
into a hillside
flesh and blood,
bones and dust,
and creosote.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreshadow
In a Pruning Mood
Whenever I go outside to garden (cue sounds of my mother laughing in disbelief, at this point), I’m reminded of Roald Dahl’s story ‘The Sound Machine‘, which is why I got rid of all the previous owner’s lovingly tended roses when we bought this townhouse.
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. 😉
For more entries from this last the week before last’s weekly photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh
I greatly admire people who reinvent ordinary everyday things as something revolutionary or breathtakingly wonderful. Parisian architect Jean Nouvel, French artist and botanist Patrick Blanc, and Australian landscape architect Keith Stead are three such people.Without their wonderful ideas and collaboration, One Central Park in Sydney might be just another (albeit luxury) residential apartment building. However, when finished, OCP will don the world’s tallest vertical garden.
Now, that’s fresh!
(A bit of nominative determinism in the case of Mr Nouvel, perhaps? ;-))
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
My five favourites so far:
Chronicles of Illusions
(getting up early does have its rewards, Nancy ;-))
Stories of the Wandering Feet and Mind
Sea of Creepy Monsters (Warning: Not Suitable for Tillys)
I don’t believe in god or Intelligent D, But if I did, it would seem to me, While creating things wot live under the sea, He was high on coke or LSD.
Weekly Photo Challenge: My Neighbourhood
I am hopeless at taking photos with my iPhone. I’m one of those Luddites who prefers to use my phone as only that, so make no apology for the quality of my entry to this week’s (actually, last week’s) photo challenge, which required us to do some phoneography.
I live in the ‘burbs, and a cacophony of cultivation culling machines pretty much characterizes my neighbourhood on a Saturday morning.
Power of poetry penned by survivors of 3/11 is showcased by ASIJ project | The Japan Times
Power of poetry penned by survivors of 3/11 is showcased by ASIJ project | The Japan Times.
Voices from Japan – PDF of Japanese Tanka from survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details
Cicada – Melbourne Museum
Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique
Reconstruction of an Archaeopteryx – Melbourne Museum
The staff at the Melbourne Museum have done a wonderful job of reconstructing this strange creature.
For more entries in this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post
Five favourites from this week:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Love
“Old and rare books!”, we gasped in reverent unison,
as we swerved off course, making a bee-line for the shop window.
“Don’t open ’til ten”, a chap behind us on the pavement drawled, the smoke from his early morning cigarette curling around his smile. He’d obviously seen our type before.
My niece and I were in Melbourne, relishing some girl-time. The day before we had spent a wonderful day at the Melbourne Museum, where we immersed ourselves in a shared love of all things scientific –
the wild,
the weird,
OK then, the weird…
..and the seriously mind-boggling.
This day we would spend the morning traversing Melbourne’s laneways, indulging our love of shopping, architecture and art,
and the afternoon marvelling at the mysterious workings of commercial harbours (Melbourne’s has quite a colourful history but I doubt that any internet resource can provide an as wry and amusing and account as our ferry driver did :lol:).
But about that bookshop – we made a mad dash back before closing time
and what a treasure trove it is – an extraordinary collection of enthralling books,
watched over
by the largest collection of owls I’ve ever seen –
they are everywhere, roosting in glass cases,
on pelmets, in windows and on bookshelves,
and have been mysteriously multiplying for the 47 years that Kay Craddock, the bookshop’s owner, has been in business.
But Old and Rare Books was nearing closing time and we were fading fast – a love of chocolate chocolate addiction is in our genes and we hadn’t had our Koko Black fix for the day,
so, after a quick purchase for the love of my life, we exited this wonderful place.
My niece and her husband were with us for three weeks over the 2012/2013 Festive Season: a wonderful and extremely precious time. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again; we live on different continents. But a myriad of shared interests and the deepest bonds of love keep us connected.
😀 😀 😀
More about Melbourne
Food recommendations from our trip:
Koko Black (of course!)
City Wine Shop (don’t let the name fool you – this establishment is not all about wine: their food is quite delicious – and their desserts are sublime!)
Longrain – the duck salad (which we shared) was superb, as was the banana and lime sorbet- yum, yum.
And for excellent photos of Melbourne, head over to Leanne Cole’s blog – mine can never do Melbourne justice the way that Leanne’s most certainly do.
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
Search Engine Poetry: Sweet Planet Poems
She was the first blogger to make me laugh out loud, by asking me, on my About page, whether I was a man or a woman – the question astounded me and was the beginning of my appreciation of the mind-altering value of blogging: the way others perceive us is often so different from the way we see ourselves.
Image via http://www.sxc.hu
Insightful and multi-talented, Monica of Sweet Planet Poems is one of my oldest blogging friends – and how grateful I am that she has stayed the distance! 🙂 She has a delightful sense of humour, a rare generosity of spirit and a passion for the natural world that infuses her enchanting blog and publications.
She is a tireless campaigner for the protection of wolves in their natural habitat and shares their mystique in her wonderful poems, videos and photos many of which she creates on her frequent trips to Yellowstone National Park.
Monica has woven this delightful found poem in response to my Search Engine Poetry Challenge – I see it as a mirror of all the good in her heart (even the “picking up dog poop” line. :-D)
xxx
And here are a few of my favourite posts on Sweet Planet Poems:
Wild Wolf Encounters – this post is a free download of Monica’s wonderful collection of poetry on wolves.
Thanks for participating, dear Monica
😀
Taking a break
Due to work and university commitments, I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a while.
Waratah – Blue Mountains
Floral Emblem of New South Wales
©beeblu
Happy Blogging
See you on the other side
🙂
A view from above
Thinking of the people of America as they recover from this devastating event.
Search Engine Poetry: dadirridreaming
Do your blog’s search engine terms reflect the soul of your blog?
This sprang to mind when I read this found poem by Christine Whitelaw, which she wrote in response to my Search Engine Poetry challenge.
Image via http://www.sxc.hu
Christine lives in a beautiful corner of Australia with artist husband Stuart,
and her blog, dadirridreaming, is predominantly Christine’s exquisite photographic contemplation
of the natural beauty that surrounds their home –
birds, insects, flowers, ocean, kangaroos and wallabies, sky and much more.
She also posts wonderful travelogues (that make me green with envy) about their trips to places further afield,
such as Lord Howe Island, Singapore and Europe (getting greener by the minute!).
Here are a few of my favourite posts from Christine’s latest globetrotting adventure:
Christine also occasionally hosts yoga retreats (and I’m hoping to attend one in the coming year)
So, what do you think?
Is the soul of dadirridreaming reflected in Christine’s found poem?
Thanks for participating, Christine!
😀
Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post at WordPress.com
Tendrils
Think
of the marvellous
mechanism
by which
Nature
conquers walls,
one inch
at a time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll be gone for a while – Happy Blogging 😀
Feeding Time on the Golf Course
“I think I spy a worm…
“Got it!”Â
“Pssst, Horace, I think we’re being watched.”
“Oh for goodness sake, Edith, stop imagining things and eat your dinner…”Â
“Mmm…I think I spy a plumper morsel over there…”
“nom, nom”
Click here for the Animal Olympics
Not So Sweet…
Look, a little butcherbird!
He’s so tame.
Aww, isn’t he sweet?
mmmm…perhaps not…
You can listen to the grey butcherbird’s song at Birdlife Australia
and the pied butcherbird’s song at the Listening Earth Blog
beeblu blog 
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