A-Z Challenge 2021 - Photo Shoot: O - Oscar

Oscar is a bit of a lad. The notes at his vet describe him as a dog that gets into everything.

He has had an operation to remove a corncob from his stomach; locks have had to be fitted to the kitchen cupboard where the refuse bid is kept; he regularly opens the other cupboards below the worktop. He has chewed up the remote control for the lounge ceiling fan and a wireless mouse has somehow appeared in the garden.

The other dogs get unexpected treats when he empties the dog food bin in the garage even when it is on a high shelf with the lid weighed down with a large stone.

He is also known as 'guilty ears' - they give the game away when he knows he has been in mischief when his owners are not at home.

After he and the other dogs once caught a squirrel it's common for him to sit or stand beneath a tree for one to come down.

Oscar - The Squirrel Hunter

When he gets you like this you just wonder what he has been up to this time.

There is one thing he has still to work out - 

How to catch shadows

- especially his own.

He is always in the driving seat.

 

A-Z Challenge 2021 - Photo Shoot: F - Finn, Ferryside, Frog

 If you had met Finn you would enjoy taking him for a walk - 

You might need stronger arms however.

If you visit Cornwall, Fowey is the place to visit and there you can see the house in which Dapne du Maurier wrote her first novel - The Loving Spirit.

Ferryside

The house next door to us has a pond and I just wonder whether what I find in our garden migrates from there.

It's not shy at all.

Sunday Stamps II - New Year

I have no stamps that celebrate the lunar New Year. However Maria sent me a stamp last year for the Rooster - 

I then discovered this mini-sheet from the USA - 

USA 29 January 2006

And tucked away in the centre of the bottom row is a stamp for the Year of the Dog,

Until I unearthed that I thought I would just have to show - 

Oscar in 2017 waiting for his first New Year in my daughter's home.

For more New Year Dogs carry your lead across to Sunday-Stamps-II -165.

It's a dog's life

Finn just doesn't care where he's going or how fast.

He will never ask,

"Are we nearly there yet?

Favourite Photos of the Year - Thematic Photography

I have found it difficult to pick just one favourite for Carmi's theme. So here's a selection of the ones I, and my wife, have chosen. 

Please tell me which one you like the best.

Bullfinch recovering from an encounter with a window.

Michigan - fall almost over

Fuchsia - often overlooked at the side of our drive

Grey squirrel on grass verge (North Yorkshire)

There has to be a favourite dog, but my wife is not keen on this picture - she loves the dog.

A close encounter with Scout

For favourites chosen by others cross over to, and follow the links at, Thematic-photographic-322.

I saw another sign - Thematic Photography

It's not often that I have a second try at one of Carmi's themes.

But if I were a dog ...

I'd want my money back.

Check out Carmi's Thematic-photographic-297-i-saw-sign.

Pets on Sunday Stamps

I bought two sets of stamps this week from my local market trader. One was the set of George Stubbs paintings featuring dogs - but I will save that for another time. The other set was just right for this week's theme of 'Pets.'

Great Britain

The set commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1990.

Here are the other three that make up the set.

Great Britain

Pick your favourite and guess which one is mine before you check out other pets, including one of the dogs painted by Stubbs, at Viridian's Sunday-Stamps-154.

Sadness - Thematic Photography

I've found it hard to match Carmi's sadness theme, but thanks to a memory stick this is what I've found.

First my obligatory dog.

Sam with his head down - hissed off the lake

I've seen a lot of animals, the victims of road kill but this one I saw being hit by a car.

With its toes turned up (or down)

I even picked it up to study its plumage.

Male Chaffinch

I hope my granddaughter will forgive me for showing here dressed as

A witch

For other tales of sadness visit the links at Thematic-photographic-259.

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'S' -Snowdrops

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

S – Snowdrops, Shed, Spider, Sweet Pea, Snails

For Snowdrops are the harbingers of Spring,

A sort of link between dumb life and light

Freshness preserved amid all withering

Bloom in the midst of grey and frosts blight.

Pale Stars that gladden Nature’s night!

Snowdrops

When I was young, Dad’s garden shed

Had lots of things to turn one’s head.

Chisels, mallets, pots of nails,

Windscreen wipers, cricket bails.

\

Now I’m old, my garden shed

Is merely functional instead.

Garden Shed

 But one thing in there is just the same, even if of a younger generation

Shed Spider

 Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

That verse was written by the author of Charlotte’s Web but Charlotte would not have woven this:

 

Spider's Web

Some say that it was John Keats who gave this flower its name.

 

Sweet Pea

Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:

With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,

And taper fingers catching at all things,

To bind them all about with tiny rings

This is not the time of year to find a one of these inhabited:

 

Snail Shells

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,

Carries his house with him where’er he goes;

Peeps out,, - and if there comes a shower of rain.

Retreats to his small domicile again.

This one on the nettles in warmer times is much more decorative.

Snail on nettle leaves

 Meanwhile Sam was quite prepared to stay outdoors and contemplate the snow

Sam (1997 - 2010)

  Poems:

• Harbingers of Spring – Caroline Elizabeth Norton
• Dad’s Garden Shed - Pete Golding
• The Spider’s Web – E B White
• I stood on tip-toe upon a little hill – John Keats
• The Housekeeper - Charles Lamb - snail

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'M'

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – a sort of wish they were here.

M – Mahonia, Michaelmas Daisy, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen

The mahonia bush we inherited in the front garden when we moved into our house over 20 years ago stands about three feet tall. At this time of year it shows a flower head like this:

Mahonia

Those buds develop into berries later in the year. Which bird takes a liking to them we do not know; something must because a second shrub has appeared in the garden at the back of the house.

Later in the year some daisies grow,

Michaelmas Daisies

Lilac and blue, the daisies nurse now
Quiet suns in a centre of petals.

You always know when there is mischief afoot when you hear these birds; their raucous noise sounds just like the House of Commons at PM’s Question Time – no wonder the collective name for a group of them is a parliament. We see a pair regularly now but it has not reached the stage when they are mobbed by other birds frightened for their young.

Magpie

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

And four for death

This rhyme, first recorded around 1780, has its origins in superstitions connected with magpies. The magpie was considered a bird of ill omen in some cultures, and in Britain, at least as far back as the early sixteenth century

A bird that overflies us often is the  mallard. We even see them in the corner of a waterlogged field

Mallard Ducks

It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines it sups,
It bottoms ups.

Mallards occur on my golf course at Billingham. There is a pond on the 11^th hole to which this verse could well apply:

In Spring in pond in grove by the old streamlet amongst the reeds the moorhen built her nest

A bulky mass just above the water level of flags and long dried grass the material she liked best

Moorhen

 But when it comes to dogs some take exception to being given a bath after rolling in deer droppings. Just to show who is in charge she dries off in the dirtiest spot she can find.

Maxie sulking

Poems:

• The Moorhen Pond – Francis Dugan
• Michaelmas Daisies – Ronald ‘Chalky’ White
• Mallard Duck – Albert Aunchman

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'L'

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – a sort of wish they were here.

L – Linnet, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Lupin, Lily

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

It would have been easy to find a verse for a skylark but I haven’t seen this bird for years. However a species that appeared in the garden this winter is another that inspired Wordsworth to write:

Linnet

Thou, Linnet! In thy green array,

Presiding Spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May;

And this is thy dominion.

Bird strikes are quite common on the windows of our home. 

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

This fellow was a bit worse for wear as a result. At the time I had been surprised to see what I thought was a female lesser spotted woodpecker clinging to a sturdy foxglove in the garden. Unfortunately it flew as soon as it sensed my movement at our lounge window. Then I saw the male bird, stunned on the path beneath the window, which it had apparently struck leaving a small contact outline. Initially its head was hunched in its shoulders, its eyes were closed and its beak gaping open. Over the next three-quarters of an hour it slowly recovered. During this time I managed to get a number of photos including the one above. However when it became more lively and I tried to get one more shot, it clung to the adjacent garden wall and within a few seconds it had gone. Its flight path was straight in the same direction as the earlier female bird.

I still see woodpeckers from time to time in adjacent sycamore trees and even attacking the peanuts not put out for them. You will have to wait for ‘W’ to one of those.

Lupins

My corner thronging with lupins bloom

Today I slouch here, with the dispelled gloom.

Colourful nostalgic thoughts fresh as morning dew

Lupins-- my first love its no one but you!

With the lupins, a single flower competes:

Lily

 The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

OK! OK! I’ll acknowledge that my lily is not white so please accept this one instead

Lily

 Poems:

• To a Skylark – Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The Green Linnet – William Wordsworth
• The Lupins Corner – Supratim
• The Lily – William Blake

Photo attribution:

• Linnet - Mindaugas Urbonas; CC BY-SA 2.5