Weekly Challenge

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 – Countryside – That is Where I Belong

/ Leya / 81 kommentarer

To me, Magical goes well with Countryside – I am a country girl. Even if I love to visit big cities, I know where I belong. This week, Amy is our host, and as I often post about my own countryside, you will get some pieces of Icelandic countryside instead. Iceland is a bit more harsh and rough, and we remember – once Iceland was only for the tough guys.

I consider it the best part of an education to have been born and brought up in the country. – Amos Bronson Alcott

The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the perfect musical drama. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I long for the countryside. That’s where I get my calm and tranquility – from being able to come and find a spot of green. – Emilia Clarke

I really feel that my body craves to be in the mountains or by the ocean or in the countryside. – Miranda Kerr

I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. – Albert Einstein

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other. – William Penn

Thank you for all your Magical posts last week – they made every day into pure Magic!

 

 

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Fuzzy

/ Leya / 22 kommentarer

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Fuzzy

Frank asks us to go fuzzy this week – don’t know if this is fuzzy enough…but I hope so!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #63 – Magical – My Magical Garden

/ Leya / 259 kommentarer

Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I read The Secret Garden as a young woman, and over the years it has occupied an enchanted and magical place in my heart. Now Autumn has arrived here, where I live in Sweden, and that means There’s a magical tie to the land of our home, which the heart cannot break, though the footsteps may roam. – Eliza Cook.

But Magical can mean so many different things to everyone of us – At Lens-Artists, we have already had Magical Light as a theme, (last year) but this time it is all up to you! What is Magical to you? People, places, things, nature, adventures, moments… – this week we are looking forward to having some of Your magic!

As usual – click on the images to enlarge.

The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can’t even comprehend it. It’s such an illusion, it’s such a strange thing. – Anthony Hopkins

Picking plums today – waiting for the lovely Comma to finish basking on my ladder…

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

An oil painting can, maybe, make the magic last forever…

Garden as though you will live forever.  – William Kent

 

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it – Rumi

Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night. – Carl Sandburg

I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden 

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? – Douglas Adams

– But there are, Fairies dancing in my garden.  Contemplate the lovely writer Roald Dahl’s words:  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

 

Thank you for all the wonderful silhouettes for Patti last week! If you haven’t seen her beautiful post yet – please pay her a visit!

Have you seen these:

A lovely first time, Welcome Carolyn – of Carollynnlife.wordpress.com – by the waterside

Smruti gives us a true silhouetted philosopher

Oneletterup is ever so mysterious this week…

And a first time Welcome, for Pam of i choose this, with beautiful beach shots

 

As always, Amy, Tina, Patti and I hope you will join us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friendly Friday – Blue

/ Leya / 17 kommentarer

Amanda ask us for a portrait of Blue. Blue is not my favorite colour to wear, but in Nature it is Green and Blue for me. And the image had to come from Iceland this summer.

 

The ‘Friendly Friday Photo Challenge’ is launched every second Friday here at:

Something to Ponder About, and every other Friday at: The Snow Melts Somewhere.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Focus

/ Leya / 40 kommentarer

These early Autumn mornings often bring dew and grey skies. In my old apple tree I found triple spider webs behind each other – where was I to set the focus?

Frank from Dutch goes the Photo’s Tuesday Photo Challenge: Focus

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #62 Silhouettes

/ Leya / 59 kommentarer

This week Patti is our host, and she challenges us to find silhouettes. If you look for them – they are there, everywhere!

My recent visit to Szczecin, Poland, brought some really good opportunities for silhouettes as well. The harbour trip was one of them.  I also fell in love with an Angel…

Finally, we had to say goodbye to Swedish summer last week – until next year!

Thank you, Tina, for the lovely Precious Pets challenge. And thank you all participants for gorgeous – and sometimes quite hilarious – entries!

 

As always, Tina, Patti, Amy, and I hope you will join us.

Friendly Friday – Ignored

/ Leya / 8 kommentarer

Thought I would jump in here to Snow and Friendly Friday from my autumnal chores in the garden! I am not sure this is really ignored…but sometimes I wish…

Lens-Artists Challenge #61 – Precious Pets

/ Leya / 65 kommentarer

In the header, Mille (no longer with us) and Totti – dearly loved by my mother too. She still walks with me and the dogs every day. My last three dogs have all been of the breed Lagotto Romagnolo.

This week Tina is our host, and she has chosen a theme very accurate for many of us – Precious Pets. I have had many pets in my life, but I will post only my favorite choices. Otherwise I would fill your week!

If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are

better off than a lot of humans – James Herriot

In Homer’s Odyssey (c. 8th century BC), upon Odysseus’ return after 20 years, his beloved dog Argos is the only individual to recognize him.

 

Milo

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life – James Cromwell

A lovely young man and his dog, Westmannaeyar, Iceland

”Man’s best friend” is a common phrase about domestic dogs, referring to their millennia-long history of close relations, loyalty, and companionship with humans. The first recorded use of a related phrase is by Frederick the Great of Prussia, 18th century.

 

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read – Groucho Marx

Old Mr Marx might have a good point though…not everyone can have a dog…but there are alternatives!

Since I left home, more than 40 years ago, I have always had dogs, but when I grew up, we had cats. All of them were lost too soon, either run over by a car or just disappeared in the forest. The sorrow of losing them, and the fact that I wanted a companion on my walks, made me go for dogs instead. The two cats below both live in Heimaey, Vestmannaeyar. I believe their breed is Norwegian Forest cat.

Cats choose us; we don’t own them —Kristin Cast

Cats have it all – admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it – Rod McKuen

A horse is a thing of beauty… none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor – Xenophon

As a teenager, I was a horse addict and spent much time at the stable. Nowadays I only ride horses when we visit Iceland.

The Icelandic is a ”five-gaited” breed, known for its sure-footedness and ability to cross rough terrain.

The first additional gait is a four-beat lateral ambling gait known as the tölt. The breed also performs a pace called a skeið, flugskeið or ”flying pace”. It is used in pacing races, and is fast and smooth, with some horses able to reach up to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h)

The Icelandic horse comes in a wide variety of colours as well, and the Icelandic language includes more than 100 names for various colours and colour patterns of their horses. I find them all very beautiful……but the combination in the last photo is My favorite.

Thank you for all your inspiring Frames last week!  –  and thank you, Amy, for all the fun with this challenge!