Poetry Monday :: Ice Cream

If you want to read some better  poetry,  Diane - who has taken over the hosting of  this challenge - and Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings - who also supplies us with topics - are writing wonderful, funny, thought-provoking, ingenious and honestly well written verse. Go and read.

  Karen of Baking in a Tornado has joined us in this crazy pursuit, and promises us at least a poem a month - may  we hope for more!
  SpikesBestMate often publishes a nice verse in the comments.

  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey who has been a faithful participant, is slowly returning to blogging after her husband's passing from this world. Let's continue to send warm thoughts, good energy, and lots of prayers her way. And dare we hope that she will join Poetry Monday again.

- - 🍨 - -

Ice Cream? What a topic :) Today is Saint Lucy's day. (Santa Lucia) Today we celebrate with hot saffron buns, hot tea or cocoa, singing and candles. Ice cream is a thing very far from my mind in the deep of winter.

Ice cream is a thing of summer

Ice cream is a thing of fun
We enjoy it at the sea side
When from lapping waves we run.

Strawberry or mint or puffo
- that one tastes like bubble gum.
Oh we like them all and eat them
to the very lastest crumb.

Well, now winter's winds are blowing
Ice creams are but in my mind.
But when summer comes to us, then,
Time for ice cream we will find!

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Coming up:

Music (December 20)
Fruitcake (December 27)
Sleep (January 3)
Peculiar People (January 10)
Ditch Your New Year's Resolutions
(January 17)
Opposite Day (January 24)
Typo Day (January 31) Celebrate those funny (autocorrect) mistakes.

Sunday Selection -- Snow and Colours

We had snow:

A bit like Narnia; don't you think?

And those three ice cold beings came visiting - they have already left again.

Inspired by HeyJude at Life in Colour, I found my kaleidoscope.

And a bunch of multicoloured tea bags for folding baubles.

Words for Wednesday -- December 8

  Please! all reading this go to Elephant's Child's place to find the prompts, read some good stories, and be inspired to write your own.
  This is a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true, therefore: Please, remember to go back, read other peoples' stories there or follow their links back. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction.

I continue my rewriting and supplementing of the Tales from the Unicorn Farm. Today I continue from here, and I took up the additionale challenge of using the words in the order, they were given to us by Elephant's Child.
 
Todays Words are:
Pounded
Pearl
Secret
Tense
Challenge
Human
     And/or
Middle
Taken
Button
Rare
Intelligence
Praise

Taavi is Taavi Kuusisaari, the male Finnish twin professor. He's the one not believing in Lis, Heidi, Tage and Susan's observations of David.

Susan looked at the golden, spidery scrawl on the blackboard, then she meticulously pounded the pearl into a fine dust. After a while Taavi went on adding oral instructions: "The secret to the perfect potion is not being tense while brewing it."

Susan guiltily relaxed her shoulders, they were almost up to her ears with tension.
"This is certainly a challenge for you," Taavi continued, and Susan felt he spoke directly to her. "and a part of being human. Now you all find a middle sized spatula and a jar of clean water. Don't speak a word. Then quietly return to your place."

Susan had taken the right size spatula and was filling up her jar at the water stoup, when she noticed the button on the floor. She bent to pick it up. It was a rare button, made from mother of pearl with an iridescent blue hue. She had seen buttons like this before, but where?

"Now you add the water a few drops at a time," Taavi ordered. "No, Kalle! A few drops I said, not a whole glug of water." He swished his wand and drained the water off of Kalle's bowl. "This time I'll help you out, but next time, you have to start all over." Kalle thanked the professor and carefully added only a few drops of water to the shimmering dust in the bowl. Anna almost tipped over her bowl, and Susan inadvertently stirred the wrong way around. The green team was not too keen on potions, and today Taavi was in a bad mood, and everything went wrong.

Taavi breathed deeply and bade them pause for a minute. "Thoughtfulness, diligence and intelligence," he said loudly, "is what's needed for potion brewing, and what some of you sorely lack. Or may I mend my words. You do not lack said attributes, none of you do. But you do not use that what you have in your heads.  Please now all of you back up two steps and do some limbering exercises."
All apprentices followed his lead, stretching and swaying like reeds. After the short break everything went smoother, not without minor mishaps and glitches, but distinctly better.

At the end of the lesson, Taavi checked the contents of their bowls. "You all deserve praise," he said. "despite adversity and scorn, you continued to the end. Now down your potion, since what you brewed is a tonick, for better health and steadier hands. You'll need this in the afternoon, when you'll all be given the first in a row of tests on teleportations."

Tirsdagstips: Fuglekugler - Bird Feeding

     Fuglekugler med net er bare nemmere for fuglene - de "rigtige" fugle altså: mejser, musvitter og sådan - at spise af. De hænger i nettet og hakker løs. Men nettet er et problem, vel at mærke, hvis det får lov til at flyve væk og lægge sig sære steder i haven. Det sker ikke her!

-- 🟢 --

     Netted fat balls are just easier for the birds - the "good" birds: blue tit and friends - to eat. They cling to the net and peck away. But the nets can be a problem, if they're allowed to fly away and settle in odd corners of the garden, that is. Won't happen here!

Et stykke rød og hvid pakkesnor bindes til en løkke, der trækkes igennem hullerne i nettet. Så har man noget at hænge den op i og den blæser IKKE væk.

-- 🟢 --

A piece of red and white string is tied into a loop and pulled through the holes of the net. It serves a dual purpose. Something to hang it from, and an insurance it does NOT blow away

Her hænger kuglerne på vores valnøddetræ. Dekorativt og sikkert og til gavn for mejsefuglene.

-- 🟢 --

Here the nets are hanging on our walnut tree. Decorative and safe and for the benefit of the tits.

Poetry Monday :: Hanukkah -- Updated

If you want to read some better  poetry,  Diane - who has taken over the hosting of  this challenge - and Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings - who also supplies us with topics - are writing wonderful, funny, thought-provoking, ingenious and honestly well written verse. Go and read.

  Karen of Baking in a Tornado has joined us in this crazy pursuit, and promises us at least a poem a month - may  we hope for more!
  SpikesBestMate often publishes a nice verse in the comments.

  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey who has been a faithful participant, is slowly returning to blogging after her husband's passing from this world. Let's continue to send warm thoughts, good energy, and lots of prayers her way. And dare we hope that she will join Poetry Monday again.

-- 🕯 --

  As it's not yet Christmas, I decided to tackle Hanukkah. I knew next to nothing, so reading the relevant articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere was necessary to compose this short poem. I hope I succeeded in showing a bit of what Hanukkah is.
  I said in the comments, that I do not know any Jews, because I do not live in a big city (Copenhagen). That requires an explanation, I think.
  From the reformation until 1849 all Danes were by law Lutheran. The law required all non-Lutherans to leave the country. The exceptions were foreign diplomats, a Jewish community in Copenhagen, a township for the Moravian Brethren in Jutland, and the town Fredericia (in Jutland) a free city, where everyone could stay.
  After the 1849 religion freedom by law. Jews still stayed in Copenhagen (and Fredericia), I think because of the walking to the synagogue thing, whereas Catholics, Methodists, Muslims, and other spread out - and today it's still this way. 

Come let’s celebrate.
A miracle in Jerusalem!
An end to deprivation,
lack and woe.

Hannukah - fest of faith and light 
Menorah’s oil was burning bright
For longer than it ought to
One candle first then two, then three,
Until all 8 are burning free.
For every day the wonder grew.

- - - - -

Coming up:

Ice Cream (December 13)
Music (December 20)
Fruitcake (December 27)
Sleep (January 3)
Peculiar People (January 10)
Ditch Your New Year's Resolutions(January 17)
Opposite Day (January 24)
Typo Day (January 31) Celebrate those funny (autocorrect) mistakes.