Tag: pic-and-a-word-challenge

haiga, haiku, humor, photography

Not in Nature

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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Cattle breed with swine,
just in someone’s playful mind.
Belted Galloway pigs!

 
 

Nature~ Pic and a Word Challenge #390

The farm near my house does raise Belted Galloway cattle; it does not raise any pigs.  My guess is that someone wanted to decorate the farm’s entrance with an outdoor sculpture of a Belted Galloway cow, then found one of a Hampshire pig at a flea market or garage sale.  Close enough: black-white-black (but  with white forelegs).  BTW, I found an image of a pig with black-white-black arranged just as on the cattle.  Nature can sometimes be playful, too.

 
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growing old, haiga, humor, life hacks, photography

Two Workarounds

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon

§1: Tree to Stone to Tree to Stone

“I must grow.”
“I can’t move.  Sorry.”
“No problem.”

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§2: Me to Knee and Up Again

Kneeling on one knee to capture the image for §1 was no problem for me, but my old legs stiffened in the time it took to get a few photos of the tree’s workaround for the stone.  To get up again, I depended on my own workaround.

After a few scares with stiffness from kneeling and balance on slopes earlier this year, I had bought a monopod and then replaced the monopod’s wrist lanyard with a clip that was intended for attaching a key ring to a belt loop.

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Having taken the monopod on the walk leading to §1, I extended two of its four sections and used it to get up w/o drama.  When collapsed and clipped to a belt loop, the monopod leaves my hands free for wiping sweat or taking photos.  Like a good assistant, it’s there when I need it and unobtrusive when I don’t.  Remembering to take it when I go for a walk is the hard part.

 
 

Stone ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #387

 
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growing old, photography, seasons

True-Blue Mailbox Blues

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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Fresh from the store, I was medium blue
with a touch of gray and a ton of confidence
that the mail would be safe from the weather.
 
I shrugged off decades of sun, rain, and wind.
I never flinched when the snow thrower hurled
slush laden with road salt and grit.
 
My pitted outside is the palest of blues, but
my door still swings wide and shuts tight.
My inside is still me, still medium blue
with a touch of gray and a ton of confidence
that the mail is still safe from the weather.

Blues ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #368

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haiga, haiku, photography

Turning toward Sounds of Motion

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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The sound of cyclists
comes from somewhere behind me.
Just wind in dry leaves.

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It really did sound like 1 or 2 cyclists were behind me on this rail trail.  I stood off to the right so they could pass, but they kept coming.  I turned around, saw that nobody was coming, and then saw/heard dry leaves make the noise as the wind made them move.

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photography, riff, seasons

Riff on a Quote from a Song

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
From a cloudless far horizon …

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Photo © Patrick Jennings

to a gap in dense fall foliage …

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to an old window covering …

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« There is a crack in everything. »
« That’s how the light gets in. »
~ Anthem by Leonard Cohen ~

I quoted from the song the way I and some others remember it.  The phrase “a crack” is repeated in some transcriptions of the first quoted line, but the line scans better w/o the repetition.

Cracks ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #341

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haiga, haiku, philosophy, photography, science

Mortality and Defiance

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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~ Mortality #1 ~
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
~ Mortality #2 ~
I live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.

Defiance ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #328

An earlier version of this post responded to a challenge inspired by Basho’s last haiku, written when he knew he was dying.  Contributors were asked to imagine Basho writing a haiku for his closest followers from his deathbed.  While I admired the resulting excellent sad poems, I defied the expectation of sadness and imagined Basho rallying briefly to encourage his companions with a pair of short haiku in 3-5-3.

My response to the previous challenge bungled the initial line of Mortality #2.  My first thought was that Basho might tell his followers to

Live your lives / with defiant joy, / …

Telling people like me how to live is a reliable way to elicit angry defiance, so I rejected my first thought, neglected to defy my own fondness for alliteration, and settled on

Let’s live life / with defiant joy, / …

despite some misgivings.  Hmmm.  Wish I had used

I lived life / with defiant joy, / …

as what Basho might say on his deathbed.  Hmmm.  I can use it now in the present tense because I am still fairly healthy for my age, in defiance of the odds against those who bungle things more consequential than a line of poetry.  So I use it in the revised Mortality #2 here, with defiant joy.

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