Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2023/07/20/carnival-doors-2/

The two pictures above are of a group of hippos snoozing on the bank of the estuary.

This is my short of the hippos snoozing on the bank:

The hippos started to wake up and head for the water:

Matriarch

Matriarch lumbers

Down the graded embankment

Evacuates dung

To mark her territory

Don’t impede her free passage

This is my short that goes with this poem of a hippo spraying dung:

My video of a hippo entering the water in the estuary:

I nearly forgot the Nile croc

Lastly, here is my recital of my poem, Handbags and Shoes from Lion Scream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjiJ0RmL58Q&t=2s

This week for Tanka Tuesday, Colleen has introduced a new syllabic poetry form called imayo.

The imayo is comprised of four 12-syllable lines. Each line is divided into a 7-syllable and a 5-syllable section, with a hard pause (or caesura) in between. The pause will generally be represented by a comma, semi-colon, or similar punctuation.

• 4 lines (8 lines permissible)
• 12 syllables per line divided as 7-5
• make a pause space between the 7 and 5 syllables
• use comma, caesura or kireji (cutting word) as the pause
• no rhymes
• no meter
• no end of line pauses – the whole should flow together as though one long sentence
• The Imayo is a literal poem so do not use symbolism, allegory etc.

I used a caesura. According to Wikipedia: “A caesura (/siˈzjʊərə/, pl. caesuras or caesurae; Latin for “cutting“), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. It may be expressed by a comma (,), a tick (✓), or two lines, either slashed (//) or upright (||). In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full pause.^“

Her challenge is to write an imayo poem using the theme of bird.

I couldn’t download her picture so I got this free use picture by Joshua J. Cotten from Unsplash here https://unsplash.com/photos/_DZWT5crlOo

The Speck

“What is that fast moving speck? // Could it be a plane?”

“Hmmm! I don’t think it can be // It’s not all shiny.”

“It seems to be dropping down // It’s coming quickly.”

“It’s got feathers and a beak // Help! Hide! It’s a hawk.”

Snacks

What’s that movement in the tree // I can see … something.

Let me fly a bit closer // Could it be a bird?

Ah, it looks like more than one // I think it’s three birds.

Oh my, they are nice and fat // A delicious snack.

You can join in Colleen’s challenge here: https://wordcraftpoetry.com/2023/07/18/tankatuesday-weekly-poetry-challenge-no-329-7-18-23-specific-form/

Terri’s Sunday Stills challenge this week is anything small. While we were again in St Lucia, we went on a 2 hour early morning bird walk. These are a few of the bird pictures I took.

More bird pictures taken in the Babanango Game Reserve

You can join in Terri’s challenge here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2023/07/16/sunday-stills-lets-get-small/

Thank you to Prof Charles French for this wonderful review of A Ghost and His Gold.

A Ghost And His Gold by Roberta Eaton Cheadle–A Review

St Lucia was the third stop on our recent wildlife viewing vacation. I am featuring it as my first Thursday Doors post because I want to share some wonderful orchids I discovered growing in the garden of the Lodge Afrique. We had two rooms at the lodge and they were lovely and comfortable. The beautiful garden setting was an added bonus. You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2023/07/13/more-from-iowa/

The small town of St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal is a hub for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The park and estuary are home to 1,200 Nile crocodiles and 800 hippos. It is the best place in South Africa to view hippos in their natural habitat. You will have to wait until next week to see the croc and hippo pictures.

The garden of the lodge was lovely. These are a few of the orchids I discovered in the garden:

My blogging friend, Marilyn from Serendipity: Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth blog, shares beautiful pictures of her orchids and other flowers as well as pictures of the natural environment and birds. You can find her most recent nature post here: https://teepee12.com/2023/07/14/nature-in-black/

I am still away but we are now in a place that has better signal and wifi so I am able to write a post and read a few too. I didn’t want to miss Cee’s Back of one any item challenge and as I only have my work computer, I had to chose pictures from the current trip. I found a few good ones of animals from the back.

You can join in Cee’s CFFC challenge here: https://ceenphotography.com/2023/07/04/cffc-back-of-one-any-item/

Celtic tree astrology poems

Colleen’s challenge this week is to write a poem about your tree in Celtic tree astrology. I am an Ash, and so is my oldest son, Gregory. I wrote a poem for each of us. You can join in Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday challenge here: https://wordcraftpoetry.com/2023/07/04/tankatuesday-weekly-poetry-challenge-no-327-7-4-2023/

ASH – THE ENCHANTER

FEBRUARY 18 – MARCH 17

Ash signs are free thinkers. They are imaginative, intuitive, and naturally artistic. This sign has a tendency to be moody and withdrawn at times, but that’s only because your inner landscape is in constant motion. You are in touch with your muse and are easily inspired by nature. Likewise, you inspire all that you associate with and people seek you out for your enchanting personality. You have a strong interest in art, writing (especially poetry), science, and theology (spiritual matters). You are in a constant state of self-renewal and rarely place value on what others think of you. Ash signs partner well with Willow and Reed signs.

Word Weaver – for Robbie

Ideas form

As technicoloured gossamer threads

I weave them

Into floral word patterns

Designed to enchant

Technological Wizard – for Greg

His brain works

With computer code

Designing

Processing

Technological wizard

Creating magic

This week, I’ve rolled a few challenges together again as Thursday Doors and CFFC go well together. I have a slightly different agenda for Sunday Stills but it is flora and the other two are fauna so it goes in my head.

The doors below for Dan’s Thursday Doors challenge, are from our trip to Welgevonden Private Game Reserve in December. We stayed at a game lodge called Nedile and these are doors from the lodge. You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2023/06/29/independence-doors/

Cee’s CFFC challenge this week is the front of any item. It was a challenge find pictures of animals from the front. Most of mine see to be from the side. You can join in Cee’s challenge here: https://ceenphotography.com/2023/06/27/cffc-front-of-one-any-item/

Terri’s Sunday Stills challenge this week is Things that grow. I have included some of my fondant and cake art photographs for this challenge. You an join in Terri’s challenge here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2023/06/25/sunday-stills-the-glowing-life-of-plants/

My favourite poem in my poetry book, Lion Scream, is called The Romance of the Sunflowers. You can listen to it here:

Lastly, this is my final poem for Freya Pickard’s Pure Haiku challenge. The theme was white orchids on a black background:

6 – 29

I will be travelling next week so this is my last post until I return on 12 July.

I participated in the Dickens Novella Challenge which finished on 16 June 2023. I am completely delighted to share that I was the winner of one of the three $25 Amazon gift card prizes for the challenge.

A huge thank you to hosts Marsha Ingrao from Always Write blog (https://alwayswrite.blog/2023/06/09/2023-dickens-challenge-ending-soon/); Trent McDonald from Trent’s world (https://trentsworld.blog/2023/06/16/the-2023-dickens-challenge-closes-today/) and Yvette Prior (https://priorhouse.wordpress.com/2023/06/09/2023-dickenschallenge-please-post-from-june-9th-to-june-16th/). I really enjoyed participating in this challenge and reading other people’s interpretations of each Dickens novella and I appreciate the three hosts for their inspiration, encouragement and engagement.

CFFC: Whole of any one item

My blogging friend, John from A Northeast Ohio Garden blog posts marvelous pictures of daylilies. I am sure flower fairies live in his amazing garden and create this beautiful flowers. As a tribute to John, I am sharing a few pictures of my fondant flower fairies for Cee’s CFFC: Whole o one item challenge.

This is a picture of my fondant daylily:

This is a picture of a pair of gardening boots cake filled with flowers that I made for my sister’s 40th birthday. This was early in my baking career and before I started photographing my fondant work for sharing so the background is a bit messy, but it was a great cake.

This morning, I have a few poems and pictures to share with you.

Tanka Tuesday

Colleen’s prompt for this week is as follows:

This post from Rebecca captured my attention: The National Gallery 5 Minute Guided Meditation . (Please watch the short video below).

Your poetry writing invitation:

1. Read Rebecca’s post and watch the video.
2. Using the painting and the video as your inspiration, please write a Japanese poetry form: haiku, senryu, tanka, gogyohka, haibun, tanka prose, renga, or a chōka.
3. Be mindful of the rules of the particular forms. Find the forms on the cheat sheet HERE.

Bitter cup

This poem is a tanka (5/7/5/7/7)

How bitter the wine

That fills your personal cup

If you allow pain

And thoughts of what could have been

To grow darkly malignant

Photo Challenge #469 – Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

The challenge: Use the above image as inspiration for a poem or short story. You can join in the challenge here: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2023/06/20/photo-challenge-469/

Innovation repression

This poem is a shadorma (3/5/3/3/7/5)

Bright ideas

Multicoloured thoughts

Challenging

Unwelcome

To minds made inflexible

Through repetition

Flat Cat from Lion Scream

Sunday Stills – Furred and feathered friends

Terri’s prompt this week for Sunday Stills is furred and feathered friends. You can join in here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2023/06/18/sunday-stills-fun-with-furred-and-feathered-friends/ Here are my pictures:

The ostrich and the giraffe were very difficult to make.

Terri’s Sunday Still’s photograph challenge this week is pink. You can join in the challenge here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2023/06/11/sunday-stills-monthly-color-challenge-pink-in-the-great-outdoors/. Here are some photographs of pink fondant and cake art pieces:

Teagan designed all three of the Poetry Treasures series covers. The most recent, Poetry Treasures 3: Passions is an extraordinary work of art with a picture of a passion inserted into each bubble on the cover. You can purchase the Poetry Treasures books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kaye-Lynne-Booth/author/B071791Y9W

You can find Teagan here: https://teagansbooks.com/