Mondays Finish the Story!

Are you ready for a challenge? I wanted to announce a new blog site that I will be hosting.

It is called Mondays Finish the Story!

For quite a while now I have been enjoying writing for two flash fiction challenges. One is Rochelle Wisoff-Fields blog, Friday Fictioneers, and the other is Alastair Forbes’ blog, Sunday Photo Fiction.

Mondays Finish the Story is a blog where a photo is provided with the opening line of a story that you get to finish! Not including the opening line, the challenge is for you to finish the story with 100-150 words!

I might have some kinks to work out, even so, I hope that you will join me and others in this new writing challenge!

Thank you in advance for helping me to make this site a success! Be well! ^..^

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Symmetry in Nature 1

Sharla Shults of Catnip of Life sure does write some great poetry! She has once again sent me a poem and asked for photos to go with her poem. I love the way her words draw the images to mind, and I am amazed that with all the photos I have taken over the years, that I can find ones that match perfectly to her words! I hope that you will enjoy this collaboration! Thanks again Sharla and I am looking forward to doing this with you again! Hugs to you! – B

catnipoflife

Nature. What compels us to seek her wonders? She calls us forth when we least expect it, inspires us beyond words and changes her moods more often than any woman! Captivating is her charm, fiery is her anger, breathtaking is her beauty! She is the epitome of poetry, the effervescence of life!

Have you ever thought about what happens when left meets right in nature? Is the left wing of a butterfly different from the right? Did you know a snowflake is completely symmetrical within itself, while not matching any other snowflake? What about something as simple as leaf symmetry? Some leaves are flat and wide; others are spiky and thin but if you fold one in half, is one side larger, smaller, fatter, thinner than the other?

Such questions go on…and on…and on… Nature is Fascinating. Luxurious. Amazing. Miraculous. Extraordinary. Splendorous. It…

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Flora ’n’ Fauna

Sharla Shults of CatnipOfLife, once again asked me to collaborate with her. My photographs and her poetry! I hope that you will enjoy what we both put together again! Thanks again Sharla for this opportunity and big hugs!

catnipoflife

catnipoflife is honored to feature more of Barb Beacham’s photography from Life in the Foothills. Barb has been recognized as one of catnip’s featured photographers on You have but one life, LIVE it!and Twilight.

Thank you, Barb, for sharing your awesome photography!

Flora ’n’ Fauna

Splendiferous, copious forests
Mark territorial landscapes
Where impressive oaks and lofty pines
Show off their stout and woody shapes

Desert plants and wildflowers
Adapt to extreme heat and aridity
Fierce, wild, red-to-orange and white
Emerge the cactus and desert chicory

The ubiquitous howling coyote
Announces its presence at night
Truly a song out of the fierce Wild West
Instead of a cause for sheer fright

Deciduous trees and shrubs
Common to most habitats
Shed their dry leaves in autumn
Forming nature’s welcome mats

Crackling sticks, dry leaves underfoot
Announce squirrels, rabbits and such
Deep in the woods silence is broken
As gunshot…

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Twilight

The other day, Sharla again asked me if I would collaborate with her and another of her poems. Again, I felt very honored that she would choose me to add my photos! As I read her poem, images of photos that I have taken floated through my mind. I hope that you enjoy this wonderful poem, and the photos that go with it! Thank you again Sharla for this opportunity!

catnipoflife

Barb Beacham from Life in the Foothills has graciously provided some awesome photographs to accompany the catnipoflife poetry Twilight. Barb was one of catnip’s featured photographers last month. If you missed her great photographic match to You have but one life, LIVE it!then, I encourage you to check it out. NOW! Yes, right now…just click HERE!

Thank you, Barb! You truly outdid yourself on this one!

Twilight

Between dawn and sunrise
Where time seems to stand still
The sun not yet visible
Ascends in slow motion until…

Sunlight scatters along the horizon
Where clouds catch the first rays of dawn
Erupting into a blaze of color
Only heaven could possibly spawn

Standing on the edge of silence
A sense of calm penetrates the soul
Hovering between darkness and light
Sheer magnificence to behold

Between sunset and dusk
Day’s last light seems to stand still
The sun barely visible

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Happy Halloween!

Three Witches from Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Happy Halloween!

Now isn’t that scary?

Enjoy the day!

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I Spy With My Little Eye…..

I had just picked a few grapes to add to my fruit salad yesterday and noticed a bare branch on the apricot tree. I thought that it was just a dead branch, but it wasn’t! Here is what I found at first glance:

Look at what I spied!

“What the heck are these creatures?” I asked myself? I still had to take more photos to share with you all…

A closer look

Another view

Full length view

Redhumped Catepillar

I came back inside and looked this critter up on the internet. It is a redhumped caterpillar!  If you click on the photo above, you will see the little winky red hump!

A cluster on the cut branch

Red faces chewing, chewing, chewing.
Leaves disappearing, disappearing, disappearing.
Yellow bodies, stripped in white and red.
Bodies growing with each leaf shred,
Oh, to head on down the tree
What will I find that is for me?
A ground hard as could be,
For me to burrow in and make a cocoon in the winter dead.
And next year when the sun warms the earth,
In all proud glory I will emerge.
A brown moth that I will be,
To lay my eggs on the Apricot Tree!

 

Redhumped Moth – Photo by Peter J. Bryant

What lurks in your garden?

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