Poetry Monday :: Writing

My old partner in crime

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Jenny has given us Writing. 
   Normally Mimi is also participating. 

I started to write some time before school,
Writing poems of sons and stories of cats.
A decrepit typewriter, as ancient as time
Was my friend and my partner in crime.

I once had as homework a story to write
Of ghosts and of scaries today
I wrote of a troll and a church and a hill
Oh, the tale ... I remember it still.

As an end to the story I wrote - as was true
If I didn't have no books at all
I would write me some books, at a terrible speed.
Just for to have something to read.

Next week, Diane had said, we'll talk of Things that Scare Us now

Words for Wednesday -- 24 March -- Winter morning.

  This Wednesdays words by Mark Koopmans, was posted at Elephant's Child's blog as every Wednesday in March. 
   Again we meet Susan and the people from the Unicorn Farm, We're back to the first winter after Susan discovered The Farm. 
  I did not use all the words. This is not normal for me, but some of them just did not speak to me. 

Ghostlike            and/or           Magnanimous
 Holly                                       Needles
Incidents                                  Outboard
Joking                                      Particle
Kilogram                                  Quiz
Lactate                                      Rancor

  Lis and Tage ran off before Heidi and Susan were done dressing, as both Susan and Heidi were looking for, but not finding, their hairbands.
  "Bugger it!" Susan said with rancor. "We're not supposed to have our hair tied up at The Farm anyway, let's get going already." She un-braided her hair, brushed it cursorily, and wound the shawl around her head. Heidi followed her example and they hurried out into the semidark winter morning. They followed the dark asphalt road down to its end, and turned onto the path, now covered in snow, where only the ghostlike footprints of Tage and Lis showed the two girls where to go. It took forever they soon found out, making a path in the fluffy, still falling snow. And they had to hurry, they were late. And today was the first day in the Christmas holiday. The first day of formal education at The Farm. But they could see the line of trees separating The arm's grounds from the rest of the isle, They hurried under the snow laden branches, they started several branch-loads of snow tumbling down, but passed the fence without incidents.
   When Susan and Heidi finally arrived and hurriedly shed several layers of clothes to dress in their apprentice uniforms, they noticed that the barn was decorated with holly and spruce.
When everybody was seated behind small tables, Torben arose and began talking. "Welcome to this Christmas' educational period. We have decided to begin this term, if this is the right word, with a quiz to see how much you remember from the Autumn holidays. "What did I say!" Heidi whispered to Susan, who smiled. They had been practicing, and reading and writing letters to one another since Susan's visit at The Magician's House in November and felt quite well prepared for a testing of their skills.
But with a sinking feeling in her stomach Susan read through the quiz. She had no idea how many phials of love serum you could produce from one kilogram of sequins, she sorely doubted sequins were an ingredient she had ever read about anywhere. And the colour of a lactating unicorn's eyes? Or how many fir needles should optimally be used for the binding of evasive kelpies? Whoever made a quiz like this? Susan looked at Heidi who also shook her head in resignation.
  "Sorry, we were only joking. At least now we have your undivided attention!" That was golden haired Martine. "Just a second," she continued. "Let me see. This should do it." She drew her wand from somewhere inside her kimono and waved it in the air. "Now the questions should be more to your liking."
  Susan looked at the paper once again. Yes this looked like what she and Heidi had been preparing for. Questions like: "Do you need a glass or a metal stirring rod for a growth potion, and what would happen if you used the wrong kind?" Susan smiled at Heidi, who smiled back, and they both began writing the answers to the diverse questions.

TUSAL - 24 March

Yesterday was the new moon day. I took a photo of my ORTs jar, but forgot to post it. Here it is. If you wonder what this is all about, you can go to Daffycat's blog for an explanation.

Poetry Monday :: Pets

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Diane is giving us Pets, we've known and loved.
   Normally Mimi is also participating. 
   I did not have many pets as a child. Our parents did not think that a dog or even a cat was a good idea, as we lived in a city. And as a grown up I first lived in small apartments, and loved my traveling summer holidays too much, then we had many children (and still we traveled), and now I dream of traveling once again, so no pets incoming. 
  I actually never was keen on  keeping pets. Apart from those listed in the poem I once had a white mouse that died after only a few days, a crazy, inbred cat, which went blind and even more crazy with each passing day. And then my sister had a couple of  Guinea pigs, a giant, multicoloured male, and a tiny white female called Snowwhite. We had lots of drama keeping the male from squishing poor Snowwhite. I don't remember what happened to them.

In the vine that once grew in my backyard
Lived both spiders and bugs and some bees.
To keep them alive was a small start
I also kept earthworms, not fleas.

We began our career with some ladybugs
They were pretty and shiny - a blight
But they all ended up in a hole we dug
Goodness gracious those critters could bite.

In the backyard we had an old fishtank
Which was home to both spiders and worm
We named them and fed them and got spanked
When an earthworm escaped with a squirm.

As I later went on to keep wild bees
 - I was not very wise at that age -
I caught all of the bees in our pear trees
But they did not stay long in my cage.

As the last in the line was a red cat
Just like Garfield, so lazy and fat
He ate cucumbers, mice and a single rat.
And he died on the mat where he sat.

The 'tune' comes from John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes, suiting for this apocalyptic time:

Oh I'm burning my brains in the back room
Almost setting my cortex alight
To find a new thing to go crack-boom
And blow up a xenobathite

Sorry, dear John, to have maltreated your fine poetry.😉

Next week we'll speak of Writing.

A til Å ? -- A to Z ?

     April er måneden hvor bloggere verden over skriver blogs med ord fra A-Z, Jeg deltog sidste år, men er langt fra sikker på, at jeg har lyst i år.
      Man kan læse mere og melde sig til her på engelsk. Jeg melder mig ikke til, og hvis jeg hopper på udfordringen, så skal det på en eller anden måde bringe fortællingen om Susan og Enhjørningegården videre.
     Lad os se, hvad der sker i de kommende dage.
     Hvis der er nogen, der har ideer til ord fra A-Å - alle, et par stykker eller kun et enkelt - der kunne blive til en kortere eller længere historie om Susan, så må I endelig skrive. Jeg lover ikke andet end at prøve.

-- -- -- 🦄 -- -- --

  April is the month where bloggers all over the world accept the A-Z challenge. I am not going to sign up, because I'm not really sure whether I want to join this year or not. And if I do it, I am going to write small chapters or even parts of chapters about Susan and Unicorn Farm.
  Let's see what the coming days will bring.
  If you have any ideas for word - all from A-Z, many, a few, just one - that could belong to Susan's universe, feel free to post. I do not promise to use the words, but I promise to do my best. 

Verdenspoesidagen

World Poetry Day

  I dag er der verndenspoesidagen, og som medlem af det danske haikunetværk bliver jeg nok nødt til at fejre dagen med et haiku. Det er ikke hverken særligt dybsindigt eller filosofisk. Jeg har vist set for meget UgleTV.

Uglemor ruger,
vi er med på en kigger.
Hvor er uglefar?

--  -- 🦉 - 🦉 --  --

  Today is World Poetry Day and as I am a member of the Danish Haiku Society I just have to celebrate the day with a haiku. Not very deep or surprising, but suiting this photo. I have been watching (too much) OwlTV.

Brooding MotherOwl
we're all having a peek.
Where is DaddyOwl?

Nattebillede fra UgleTV  -- Night photo from OwlTV

Forårsjævndøgn og frødag

Spring Equinox and World Frog Day

I dag er der god grund til at fejre. Det er forårsjævndøgn - det betyder at forår, varme og solskin vender tilbage 🌞 Og så er der international frødag 🐸 Begge dele er noget at være taknemmelig for i disse dage. Her i Uglebo fortsætter vi med at passe på hinanden, nyde solskinnet trods den lovede nattefrost, og så skal vi vist plante nogle frø.

-- 🌞 - 🐸 --

Today is a day to celebrate. It is Spring equinox, and this means that spring, summer and sunshine is returning. 🌞 And it is World Frog Day.🐸
 

 -- 🌞 - 🐸 --

Måske mere senere ... maybe to be continued.  🌞

Next Morning - WfW 18 March

  I repeat myself once again: This Wednesdays words by Mark Koopmans, was posted at Elephant's Child's blog as every Wednesday in March. 
   The story continues from last Wednesday. Again we meet Susan from Unicorn Farm, but there's no magic in this. Mark's words are not vehicles of magic for me.   
  I did not use all the words. It's not that they are challenging, but they are too modern, too heavy and grown-up for a story about a girl and her life - magic and mundane - in the late 70es. I painted red the words, I do not intend to use. and crossed out the ones I used. Maybe more story will follow. 
  I'm afraid these small pieces of Susan's mundane life are boring, but it is what I can come up with. 

Toilet               and/or               Ashen
Sunlight                                     Brexit
Dogma                                       Colgate
Spurs                                          Distillery
Vine                                           Elegance
Wilting                                       Flighty

  Next morning Susan awoke, as she always did, the moment their father left the house. She quickly dressed and went to the toilet where she looked out of the window. She did that every morning. Across the yard, on the wall separating their backyard from the backyards of the people in the next street, a vine was growing. It was very old, the stem near the ground was thicker around than Susan's leg. And always something happened in the vine, many birds lived there, and ladybirds, bumblebees, and earwigs. In autumn the leaves went red, and the man living on the other side of the wall peeled all the growing branches off his workshop windows, and let the branches hang dangling and wilting down Susan's backyard wall. Then Susan's father hurried out with a ladder and shears and snipped off all the hanging branches before they pulled down the rest of the vine. Susan's father said a lot of angry words while snipping and hauling down the vine branches, but as the man with the workshop did this every Autumn because his workshop had a flat top roof with skylights and the vine slowly covered these, Susan's father could do nothing but cut off the thrown over branches and swear to cut them earlier next year; which he always forgot. But this morning the vine was shining green and thriving, stretching its green tendrils up towards the sunlight and the workshop windows.
  She brushed her teeth more thoroughly than the evening before, reminding herself to write a tube of her favourite brand of toothpaste on the shopping list. Unlike Linda and their Dad she did not like the taste of Colgate, it was too strong.
  She hurried downstairs, put the kettle over for tea and crammed her schoolbooks into her satchel. Mum arrived bleary-eyed and began making tea and preparing their lunch-packets and breakfast.
  Linda arrived too, and ate a bowl of oatmeal with milk and sugar. Susan preferred toast with butter and honey. While putting on socks and shoes and braiding her hair in front of the mirror in the hall she kept an eye on Mum. Honey and toast with a note of liver pate was awful, indescribably awful. But today Susan avoided that fate, ate her toast and gulped the hot tea. Then she and Linda grabbed their school satchels and ran out of the door. School would begin in only four minutes. 


Maybe to be continued ... And oh yes, I'm still faithfully copying everything to my Unicorn Farm Blog. 

Poetry Monday :: Money

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Jenny is giving us Money!
  Normally Mimi is also participating. 
  Am I the only one hearing ABBA singing "Money, money, money Must be funny ..." inside my head?

All the good rhymes on money
was taken by ABBA and Sonny
First they rhymed with "funny"
And then they used "sunny".
And Elvis grabbed "honey".

All they left me is "runny"
And runny's not funny,
Unless it's runny honey.

Next week we'll tackle Pets, we've known and loved!
Given to us by Diane.

In the Attic 2 - WfW 11 March

  This Wednesdays words by Mark Koopmans, was posted at Elephant's Child's blog as every Wednesday in March. 
   The story continues from last Wednesday, again we meet Susan from Unicorn Farm, but there's only hints of magic in this. Mark's words are not vehicles of magic for me.   
  I did not use all the words.

Nuclear
Foxtrot
Klan
Rollover
Utilities
Xeroxed

And/Or

Audacious
Zinc
Plastered
Identification
Wheeling
Fixated

Susan looked despondently at the papers on her tables. Even though they had been xeroxed, and thus were a huge improvement over the old hand cranked, smelly ones produced by the spirit duplicator, they could have been written in Chinese for all Susan understood of them. Statistics were her least favourite subject in school, closely followed by PE, where Miss Hansson were trying to teach them to Foxtrot. Susan read through the questions once more. "Identification of respondent groups." Their teacher in Social studies Mr. Smidt was fixated on grouping people according to income or salary or other to Susan equally useless variables. But this questionnaire, made by Susan and her class mates only contained information on whether the respondents had been to the cinema for the last two months. And if they had, had they seen the movies The Klan, or Freewheelin' Franklin, or Nuclear Apocalypse? And then a bevel of questions on candy. Not a word on income levels or social classes. But wait, only rich kids went to the movies, she could make three distinct groups, non- movie goers, one time movie goers, and repeating movie goers. And then correlate to their candy consumption. There might not be a correlation, or there might be, and Mr. Smidt would not be happy anyway. There actually was a not surprising positive correlation between movie going and candy consumption. Susan quickly wrote some paragraphs on this and packed the papers into her school satchel.
As she brushed her teeth rather quickly - mum and dad were still in the attic partying. Her eyes fell on a tube of zinc liniment for babies' bums. This reminded her of her experience with babysitting. She had plastered the smallest child's bum with lots of said liniment, to the great amusement of her bigger sister, who liked the white colour. Their mother had been less than amused as the liniment was everywhere on baby's clothes and on the carpet in the living room. When Susan had had the audacity to ask for her money she was only given half the amount, the rest was going to pay for the cleaning of the carpet. And that had been the end of Susan's baby-sitting days.

Poetry Monday :: Sports

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Diane is once again teasing our brains with Sports!
  Normally Mimi is also participating. 
  I am really not the sporty type. I like biking through my peaceful forest, but not in a race, balls make me want to hide, and running, well ... to catch a bus is all. 
An elfje was what I could manage. 

Sports,
Strange things
Leave me flushed
and out of breath.
Watching

Next Monday we have to rhyme with: Money.

En radise - One Radish

     I dag lugede Uglemor i domen, og ud over en masse ukrudt kom hun til at luge en stor radise op. Den skulle måske være blevet stående og give blomster til radisesalte, skulper til at spise og måske også et par radisefrø, men den blev altså luget op. Nu får vi se, om den kan spises.

-- 🥕 --

To day MotherOwl weede the dome in the wonderful sunshine. She pulled up lots and lots of weed and one giant radish. It was an accident, it should have been left standing, giving lots of flowers for herbal salts, siliques (radish seed pods 😉 ) for eating and seeds to plant later. Now we'll have to see if it is edible.

... men vi blomstrer alligevel!

Defiantly flowering!

Det ser ud til at der skal komme en "... men vi blomstrer alligevel"-post på Uglemors blog hvert forår. I år er der en af vore med-landsbyboere, der er blevet træt af vand i kælderen og derfor er i gang med et større udgravningsprojekt. Jordbunkerne hober sig op, og i dag kom Uglemor og Ugleungerne til at kigge nærmere på dem.

-- ❁ --

On our way to the bus stop this morning we came past a house where the inhabitants finally had had enough of water filled cellars. They have started digging, and a big mound of earth has lain outside for weeks. Today we looked closer and saw ...

 Defiantly flowering!

In the Attic - Words for Wednesday

  These Words for Wednesday were the strangest words ever, and those requiring most use of a dictionary. For possible Danish readers I kept the translations of all the words I had to look up to be certain of their meaning. Even now I'm not sure, I used 'vindicate' right. 
  The one responsible for these words is Mark Koopmans, and his words is posted at Elephant's Child's blog every Wednesday in March. 
  We know the persons from Unicorn Farm, but there's only hints of magic in this. Mark's words are not vehicles of magic for me. 

Granulate (smuldre)
Trial (test, retssag)
Serenade
Billiards (billiardspil)
Cuss (Bande, bandeord)
Avuncular (onkel-, onkelagtig)

And/Or

Vindicate (give oprejsning, bekræfte)
Hotelier (hotelejer)
Junkie
Metronome
Questionnaire (spørgeskema)
Exemplify

Susan sat in the small room in the attic, she was impatient, Linda sat at the other chair in the room, alternately granulating an old biscuit and playing with the mocha cups on the table. The small cups belonged to Susan, but they were kept up here to keep Persephone the ghost in good temper, and everybody had forgotten that the cups were really Susan's. They were given to her by the old aunt, Cleo, who told people's fortunes and had a gigantic cat. She had been visiting her aunt together with one of her cousins, whose aunt it also was. And they had drunk coffee - more milk than coffee and lots of sugar - from those beautiful, semi translucent cups, stroking the cat, and generally putting on their best manners. Aunt Cleo was a rather avuncular woman, big-boned with coarse hair, cheroot-smoking and apt to cuss over happenings and people not to her liking. She loved having the cousins visiting her and on some occasions she gifted them with the cups from which they had drunk. She regularly gave away things, she said that she loved to see people's joy over receiving the gift, and she would not see this when she had died. Susan was a bit afraid of aunt Cleo, but at the same time she was fascinated by her. She was self reliant in the extreme, fed her cat chocolate from a chipped plate, held her husband, sons and nephews - Susan was not quite clear on who of the gangling young men were her sons and who were other relatives, but aunt Cleo could handle them all, even at family gatherings, where everybody were boisterous and loud, Aunt Cleo could make them stop their prancing and sit down and eat. She was a great, if a tad intimidating, lady, Susan thought to herself.

Susan awoke from her reverie by an outcry from inside the big room, where her father and some guests played billiards. A pair of the guests were a local hotelier and his exotic wife, they were both good at billiards, and used to winning.
Susan gave up: "Come on, Linda, let's go down again. They're not going to leave that billiards table before it's too late for us to see anything up there."
They got up and left the small room, and went down two flights of stairs, first the narrow, steep attic one, then through the old door, then down the winding stairs to the living rooms. They went into the spacious living room, Susan turned on the Television, but the programme was boring. A German murder mystery, with lots of people talking, interrupting and coming and leaving the court room, and in the end an angry junkie interrupting the trial, and vindicating the detective. She turned off the television again, and Linda sat down at the piano. She began playing, and Susan grabbed a guitar and accompanied her. "I always wanted a metronome for this piece," Linda said, it's hard keeping time, and even if you're good at it, it's still not good enough."
"No, I agree," Susan said 3/8 are hard to play. We need more practice. Let's try the serenade instead. It is in sensible 3/4 time."
They played for some time until it was getting late and Susan remembered that she had some homework for the next day. "Oh, man!" she exclaimed, I still miss that stupid homework. We have to look through a questionnaire, and exemplify different groups of respondents. I just hate statistics!"

Forårsrengøring -- Spring Cleaning

     Uglemor er igang med forårsrengøring. Ikke af Uglehulen eller hele huset og slet ikke i haven endnu. Nej det foregår her på bloggen. 

     Susans historie var blevet så lang, at jeg besluttede at flytte den til sin egen blog: The Unicorn Farm / Enhjørningegården. Fanebladet "Unicorn Farm" oppe i toppen bringer dig dertil på magisk vis, og derfra vil det tilsvarende faneblad: "MotherOwl's Musings" på samme måde bringe dig tilbage hertil igen. 

     Også mine haverelaterede indlæg har fået deres egen blog: Haveuglen. Der samler jeg alt, jeg har skrevet her, på Havelyst og andre steder rundt omkring, på en ny blog. De haveindlæg, der ligger her på bloggen forbliver her.Fanen "Haveuglen" bringer dig herfra og dertil, og derfra bringer fanebladet "Uglemor" dig hertil igen.

--  🧹 --

MotherOwl is Spring cleaning. No not in the Owlery, not yet in the garden either, but on this blog.

The story of Susan and the Unicorn Farm has grown to such a length that I decided to move it to a blog of its own: The Unicorn Farm / Enhjørningegården. The tab on top will take you there, and once there a tab called MotherOwl's Musings will bring you back here.

In the same vein Haveuglen - The GardenOwl now contains all blog-posts on gardening, seeds and so on. This is in Danish only, as many of the posts were brought in from other gardening sites where I have been posting for long. But photos abound, and they are outside the borders of language and nationality. And all garden related blog posts on this blog remains where they are. I am is copying, not moving.

Poetry Monday :: Gnomes, Foam & Combs

Blue Flower
Poetry incarnate

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Diane has returned home
and gives us gnomes. Or combs. Or foam.
  Normally Mimi is also participating. 
  I don't know what happened, I awoke early, and gnomes, combs and foam danced through my semi-awakened brain.

All the sea gnomes
who live by the sea foams
Do not use sea combs
For sea weeds or sand.

Woodland gnomes
Who dwell where the brook foams
Do not use wood combs
For branches and leaves.

Earth gnomes
Who delve in the dark loam
Do not use earth combs
When digging for stones.

But the air gnomes
Who play in the light dome
They surely use air combs
For unicorn tails. 

Next weeks theme is Sports.

Årets første frø og fremspiring

First Seeds of the Year.

Den 11. februar såede Uglemor radiser og salat ude i domen.
February 11. Radishes and salad sown in the dome.

14. februar blev der så forspiret indendørs. Uglemor såede auberginer og chili.
February 14. Sowing indoors. MoterOwl sowed eggplants and chilis.

Piraten såede artiskokker og citronchili.
The Pirate sowed artichokes and lemon chilies.

28. februar - fremspiring - germinating! February 28.

Piratens artiskokker gør opmærksom på sig selv.
Pirate's artichoke are big already.

Uglemors auberginer kan også . bakken er vendt om her. 
MotherOwl's eggplants sprouted as well. The tray is upside down here.

Og ude i domen pibler de første radiser frem. Det er ikke uventet 18 dages sorten, der er først.

And in the Dome the first radishes can be seen. Not unexpected the 18 jours - means 18 days - living up to its name. It is a 'speed radish'.