mandag den 5. januar 2026

Poetry Monday :: Favourite Animal

Poetry Monday - what's that? It is a blogging game, that 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, travelling the world with her husband as far as we can tell.  We just hope she's going to take back over once she returns home.

The prompts now come from 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group. This is a Facebook group with a prompt for each day of the year, but no worries, the prompts will still be here and at Mimi's blog.

Today's prompt is
Favourite Animal.

My favourite animal is no secret. Owls of course. Here's a ramling poem on owls.


I am fond of owls,
An angry owl that scowls
And  gentle owls in cowls,
A crabby owl that howls
A sneaky owl that prowls
I'm fond of every owl,
as long as they're not foul.

- -  A  - -  - - - -

Hvad er Mandagsdigtet? Det er en blogleg, som Mimi fra Messymimi's Meanderings og jeg har overtaget - midlertidigt! - fra Diane, der slapper af og rejser verden rundt med sin mand. Vi håber hun er parat til at tage over igen, når hun kommer hjem.
     Stikordene kommer nu  fra
365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts. Det er en Facebook-gruppe, der udgiver et stikord til hver dag i året, men bare rolig, stikordene vil stadig være at finde både her og på Mimis blog.

Dagens stikord er:
Yndlingsdyr.

Det kommer næppe son en overraskelse for nogen, at mit yndlingsdyr er ugler.
Her er et ikke spor fantastisk vrøvledigt i dagens anledning med yndlingsdyr og sne.


Ugler der skuler
til ugler i huler,
er ikke spor rart.
Men se,
vi har sne.
Så sker det snart,
at uglerne smiler
til månen og iler
ud for at se
og lege med sne.

- - - - - -  - Coming Themes  - - - - - - - -

taken from the 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group.

Jan 12 Glacier
Jan 19 Piece of clothing
Jan 26 That one time
Feb 2 Bamboo
Feb 9 Carousel


søndag den 4. januar 2026

Sunday Selection ~ Søndagsbilleder :: Colour26

The colour of January is      ~      Januars farve er

Now, finally, we have snow. We went for a walk, and lo and behold the roadsigns are perfct for January.
 -- 🎉   --
Endelig har vi fået sne, så vi gik en tur og nød det - og se, vejskiltene har lige den rigtige farve.

JAnuary, new start, new (or old) habits. Once again I pick up draving. For January I add something red, and a Japanese Kanji (letter) every day. Only my stock of red coloured pencils is somewhat lacking, one of these is even pink.
 -- 📌   --
Januar er en ny start, og en chance til at få nye vaner eller genoptage gamle. Jeg har sat mig for at tegne igen. I januar tilføjer jeg så noget rødt og et japansk skrifttegn (kanji) hver dag. Desværre lader min beholdning af gode, røde farveblyanter noget tilbage at ønske, den ene er lyserød, altså.

And a last, red thing from the past weeks. We've seen the one to the right before, but the one to the left is a new one. Sorry for the fuzzy look, I fumbled with my new camera and made an ultra-short movie, from which this is a screenshot.
   But now I can prove that both Mr. and Mrs. Woodpecker are visiting our garden. The only difference is the red spot on the neck of Mr.
--   🐦  --
Og en sidste, rød ting fra de seneste dage. Den til højre har vi set før, men den til venstre er en ny. Jeg undskylder den dårlige kvalitet, men jeg kom til at kludre med min nye kamera og tog en mini-film i stedet for et billede, så dette er et stillbillede fra filmen.
     Nu kan jeg så bevise at både hr. og fru spætte aflægger besøg i vores fuglekugler. Den eneste forskel er at hr. spætte har en rød plet i nakken.

Fødselsdage ~ Birthdays

På min blog fejrer jeg normalt fødselsdage for kendte mennesker, forfattere og den slags, som har betydet noget for mig.
    Derfor er det med triste miner at jeg opdagede at i går, 3. januar, var J.R.R. Tolkiens fødselsdag. 134 år er immervæk noget at fejre.
    Af den grund, og fordi det aldrig er lykkedes for mig at finde et digt af Tolkien, der fortæller om frost og sne, legede jeg med underlige tegnsæt i tekstbehandling, og fandt ud af at Open Office faktisk kan skrive Fëanors runer.
-- ❅ --

On my blog I normally celebrate birthdays by thoe meaning something to me. Therefor it saddened me to see that I forgot J.R.R: Tolkien's 134th birthday yesterday.

As I was unable to find any poem by him celebrating either snow or frost - if you know of one, do tell! - I played around with strange lettering, and discovered that Open Office is up to the challenge of writing using the Tengwar of Fëanor.
Det læses: nostarë manaitë og betyder efter mine ringe evner udi Quenya, det gamle elversprog fra Silmarilion, velsignet fødselsdag.
-- ❅ --

To be read nostarë manaitë and hopefully meaning, as I think it does,  Blessed birthday.


-- 🎂 -- 

I dag er det så Louis Brailles 217. fødselsdag.  -- --   Today is the 217th birthday of Louis Braille. 
⠞ ⠊ ⠇ ⠇ ⠽ ⠅ ⠑    ⠏ ⠡   ⠋ ⠪ ⠙ ⠎ ⠑ ⠎ ⠙ ⠁ ⠛ ⠑ ⠝
Der står Tillykke på fødselsdagen is what it says, meaning Happy Birthday

lørdag den 3. januar 2026

10 minutter mere ~ 10 Minutes More

I dag er dagen tiltaget med hele ti minutter, det er fuldmåne i aften, det er frostvejr og det sner!
Grund til at fejre.

Vejr fra / Weather from: yr.no

Today the day is longer by ten whole minutes, and we have a full moon tonight.
and it's frost and snow ... reasons to celebrate.

torsdag den 1. januar 2026

Words for Wednesday ~ December 31

A year late - or just a day. Today it amounts to the same. We had (still have) guests and grown kids visiting, but now in a quiet hour I suddenly felt like giving the Words a try.

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over as a moveable feast with many participants supplying the Words.
    When Delores closed her blog forever due to other problems, Elephant's Child (Sue) took over the role of coordinator.
    Now, after Sue's demise it is still to be discerned who will take over this role, River is doing it for the rest of 2025, but maybe Lissa will eventually be our new coordinator.

No matter what, how, where or who the aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to our mind.

This month the words are supplied byWiseWebWoman and can be found at River's blog.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please leave a comment on River's blog, then we can come along and read it and add a few encouraging words.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

We were given these words:
Larch  
Trifle  
Multiple  
Poteen (Irish Moonshine I Think)
                      And/Or:
Surprise  
Quiche  
Flag  
Crossword

Poteen ... I just could not fit this one in. This chapter ends - maybe - the story of the hoopoe bird, it stems from the second year at the Farm, summer holidays, where the Farm had grown enough in magic to accommodate those of the apprentices not living near by. Susan of course stayed with Heidi and her family, who by then was more family than friends.

Susan kept on watching the nest of the Oop-bird, which she by now knew was called a hoopoe, but she did not always see it. Occasionally she saw a woodpecker in the larch tree nearby, occasionally a blackbirds or some sparrows. She had never before noticed for how many birds the woods and grasslands around Unicorn Farm were home, but it was way more than she could have guessed. She did not always know the official names of the birds she met, but she did not let such trifle stand in her way and simply invented names for the ones she did not know.

The hoopoe had had ten eggs in the nest, and one sunny day, Susan saw lots of dirty blue eggshell shards near the foot of the tree. The stench left not a trace of doubt. The hoopoe's eggs had hatched. She pulled her wand and soared upwards, and was greeted by the sight of multiple small but very long beaks peeping out from underneath mama hoopoe. This looked very funny, but Susan did not laugh until he was well away from the nest.
  The stench was overpowering now at close quarters, and she hoped that the small hoopoes would be left alone by any bird-eaters in the vicinity.

Back at the Farm she was met with a surprise birthday party, they had asked the Nisser to bake her favourite quiche with chicken and mushrooms, a flag stood at her place at the table, and she was given small gifts, a birding book and a crossword magazine and some candy. Susan went to bed perfectly happy.