All the colours of 2024

All the colours of 2024. What did I do with them?

January - Clay brown: Frosty leaves, mostly beech

February: Our Graphite Black earth is bringing forth colour - and is a terrific backdrop.

The colour of March, Olive green, is found in these catkins.

I'm sure you can find loads of April's Water blue in GardenOwl if you look close.

And a Bright orange flower for the Colour of the month, May. Growing on my Moon Hill, a survivor from last summer's sowing of all my flower seeds I have no idea what it is, and orange is probably the colour it is hardest to find in the Owlery.

The very best mint is Signal green for June.

Look! some of the nasturtium I picked for jellies and herbal salts have just the right colour for July's Pale ivory.

August is in need of two photos: 

August is THE summer month of Denmark, but ususally it looked like this - lots of Mouse grey around.

But it is not a bad colour when others come along to brighten up things.

In September we ate the very first bite of the very first ripe jalapeño.
It was the deep Orient red of September

In October I was lucky. The camera was in my bag and the cormorant had returned to the pond in town. The stone, which is the base for the water-spouting frog, is naturally Pebble grey.

November saw a lot of plant dyeing, eco printing, contact printing or what ever it is called.
And the colour of the month, Pearl opal green, was eaily found here.

In December this mug turned out just the right Light blue.

With this colourful cavalcade through 2024, MotherOwl is ready to jump into 2025.

The first colour of 2025
the year of the
snake

is:

New Year ~ Challenges ~ A Review

As usual, as I look back on my blogging year, I look at the Challenges I have participated in or set myself

I can repeat much of what I said a year ago:

The turning of the year as always have me thinking ~ Challenges? Why? How many? Which ones? And so on.

For the last many years, challenges have come and gone on this blog and in my life in general. Some I liked, some not so much. Some were fun, some were not.

This past year has been an ungentle year ... I once heard the saying "waiting for the other shoe to drop", well for me 2023 was a centipede. Much - among those my family, this blog, all kinds of fun challenges, my garden, oh so many things - have been suffering from my lack of energy and joy in anything ...

Like 2023, 2024 has been an ungentle year of the millipede variety. The less said the better. But as for the blog challenges this last day of the year is a fine day to reflect a bit. Which ones are keepers, which ones are not?

Keepers
Words for Wednesday - Link - hosted by Elephant's Child, and a perfectly enjoyable writing Challenge.

Poetry Monday - Normally hosted by Diane -  Mimi and I have taken over while Diane enjoys some family time and travels the world.  Link to Diane and Link to Mimi - Poetic fun.

IWSG (Insecure Writer's Support Group) - Link - A question to answer every first Wednesday - can do!

Sunday Selections - Link - good photo fun. I will participate in the coming year, but maybe not every Sunday

Colour of the Month- Link - A new year with a new idea. It did not work out as intended, but it has grown into something different. It's a keeper.

365 days of drawing prompts - A new drawing challenge. It has a Facebook group, that's neither very supportive, nor very talkative, but on the other hand quite active. The prompts are different enough to be mostly inspiring, and not too woke. And it is not streak-oriented, which is a huge positive for me. You won' see much of this on this blog, but on my dedicated drawing blog, something might happen.

Birthdays - of people known and not so known, mostly poets and writers. I like to cite and celebrate.

Maybe-keepers
 A to Z Challenge* - very stressing but also very fun. For the first year ever, I finished the challenge in 2924. I suppose. I might do a light version without signing up in 2025. I bit off a great deal more than intended with Susan's co-apprentices, but it was fun.

InkTober - InkTober has turned too much into an Instagram event - and the drawings are very professional, people putting in hours a day. This scares me off. I incorporated the prompts in October when it fit, but I did not post anywhere but on my own blog

Sleepers
Fredagsfrustrationer / Friday Frustrations - A way to vent my grumpy so that it does not pervade the whole blog. This too has been suffering - and the grumpiness is spreading as a result -  but it's going to stay.

Tirsdagstips / Tuesday Tips - Suffering, but not totally abandoned.

Duolingo* - Link - studying Japanese, Italian, and a couple of other languages this way is good fun. I'll return, as this has been suffering, and try to keep it up.

Wordle* - and other games of the same kind. I  like this kind of games. They have also been suffering


Not keepers
InkTober52 - InkTober 52 has sadly been discontinued, after lacking for a long time.

        I found two new drawing challenges in 2024:
Doodlewash* - Link It seemed old and well established, but I just never really grasped the Doodlewash concept.

        Then I tested out
Sketch Your Day* - Use one random drawing prompts to record something from you day. From Artists Network. The recurring nature of the prompts did not suit me, I tried adding an element of randomness, but it was not fun after the first three weeks or so. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* Many of these Challenges are centered around maintaining a streak (participating on a consecutive series of days) the longer, the better.

For such Challenges I regularly skip a day on purpose so as not to accumulate long streaks. I do this because keeping a streak in any streak-oriented activity is a big stress-factor for me. I  know I'm strange this way and that this streak-business keeps many people focussed, but I really, really hate it and wish that I could opt out of it being counted.

Poetry Monday :: All Done

Every Monday is Poetry Monday. Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and I have taken over the hosting duties, mostly the supplying of the prompts - only temporarily we hope - while Diane at On the Border is taking a break for health and relaxation. We hope to hear from Diane soonish.

  I have something to ask of you: If you read this and the poetry of others via the links, would you please leave a comment.
  Half - if not more - the fun of these challenges is receiving the responses of others.

Today's prompt is All done. This perfectly expresses my sentiments towards the year we're about to leave behind. I cannot write a long, or even medium-sized poem without turning bitter or sad, so a very short one will have to do.

All done
I'm all done with 2024
each day was like a heavy chore
My hopes for 25 are low
just do it better, let hope grow.

- - - - - - -

Up and coming:
December 30: All Done (today)
January 6: Seed / Epiphany
January 13: Fiction  
January 20: Sheep
January 27: Silver

Colour24 :: Sunday Selection

For the last time this year a colourful Sunday post.
The Colour of the Month for December is

Sidste Månedens farve for i år. Her er decembers farve.

Og her nogle billeder -- And some photos

Oops, those chopsticks are light BLUE not green in real life.

Altså, de spisepinde er lyseblå i virkeligheden!

This mug turned out just right.

Men det her krus er mere fotogent.

.

JUBELÅRET 2025 - HÅBETS PILGRIMME.
I dag var der jubelårsåbningsmesse i domkirken.

Today we attended the inauguration mass of the Holy year
JUBILEE 2025 - PILGRIMS OF HOPE.

Colour25 - January Colour

As promised I continue my a colour a month challenge in 2025 - now logically named Colour25.

2024 is a year, I'm happy to leave behind, both on a personal, national and international plan there's not much good to be said about it.

On Katherina's blog Σκέψεις, λέξεις, ιστορίες, Thoughts, words, stories in October she spoke of new beginnuings and showed us the beauties of her little corner of the world, Aridaia in northern Greece, among these those beautiful, golden yellow flowers, tentatively identified as sunflowers.

As said, we need a new start. The colour of January is New start yellow.

-- 💛 --

Som jeg lovede, fortsætter jeg min Månedens farve-udfordring her på bloggen i det kommende år. Nu hedder den naturligt nok Colour25.
     2024 er et år, jeg er glad for at sige farvel til. Hverken personligt, nationalt eller internationalt har der været meget godt at sige om det.
På Katerinas blog Σκέψεις, λέξεις, ιστορίες, Thoughts, words, stories fra oktober fortæller hun om nye begyndelser og viser billeder af skønheden i og omkring hendes lille hjørne af verden, Aridaia i det nordlige Grækenland. Der er også de her skønne blomster, som jeg nok tror er staudesolsikker.
     Vi har brug for en ny start, derfor er januars farve Ny start gyldengul.

I challenge you to find something containing this colour, photograph it, and post the photo on your blog one of the Sundays in January.

If you want to incorporate the colour into another challenge - for instance the Words for Wednesday - this is also fine.

If you have other ideas for the use, this is fine as well - and as usual with these challenges, most anything goes, only nothing rude or vulgar, please.

-- 💛 --

Egentlig går udfordringen ud på at finde og fotografere en eller flere ting med månedens farve og så lægge billederne op på sin blog, men efterhånden har det udviklet sig, så man må gøre stort set som man lyster, så længe det hverken er uforskammet eller vulgært.