Friendly Friday is hosted by Manja of Manja Mexi Moving this week – and Floral is the prompt. My contribution is from our summer house, garden and surroundings. Pink! Join in the fun, make us happy with more flowers!
Weekly Challenge
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Radiant
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Radiant
What could be more radiant than a frosty birch tree an early winter’s morning?
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #51 – Unique
Unique – ask a dictionary, and it says being the only existing one of its type or, more generally, unusual, or special in some way. The most unique place I have visited is the Galapagos Islands.
This Ecuadorian archipelago with 19 islands are all unique in their own way – both flora and fauna. They all have endemic species, and the animals let you come close without being startled or afraid. They do not consider humans their enemies. Unique.
Thank you, Charles Darwin!
Charles Darwins resa med HMS Beagle 1831-36, Galápagosdelen
Some of the strange and fascinating landscapes on the islands –
If you look closely, you might see the flamingo…-
We had a very unique opportunity to see the land iguanas eating from the giant cactii.
Not many visitors are that lucky – at least our guide told us so.
Unfortunately we came too late to meet Lonesome George. Every effort to help this last of his species failed, and he died 2012. But we met several other giant tortoises on the island Santa Cruz.
In the header, two marine iguanas – unique to these islands, but unfortunately on the road to getting even more unique. As the waters are warming due to climate change, their sea food is dying and their numbers are already decreasing.
Let us hope these islands will stay unique – in a positive way. Nature is good at mending – if we will just let it.
A special thanks to Amy for this week’s photo inspiration.
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Trail
For Frank this week – a hiking trail in Switzerland
Friendly Friday: Twins
Twins – or almost…Patiently waiting for breakfast. Always doing the same things at the same time…Although Totti is 11 and Milo only 1. This is for Snow and Amanda – and Friendly Friday. Congrats again to the real twins’ birthday!
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #50 – Trees
Most of you know how much I walk in the forest – all year around. So the theme this week comes natural (!) to me – Trees. I will stay in Sweden, except for the header – waiting for you to post trees from every corner of the world! Anything about trees is free for you to explore in this theme – leaves, forests, fruits, stumps or saplings…maybe tree houses? Looking forward to seeing you here!
In the header, a famous site – The Dark Hedges in Ireland. Famous because of the Game of Thrones. There are thousands of pictures from under those old giants…I guess it must be the most photographed tree avenue ever?
Mille posing
The tree I had in the garden as a child, my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky. – Jane Goodall
This is Mille, my first Lagotto, posing nicely… As a child I too spent many hours every day in the forest and in the trees – climbing, jumping, playing and wishing I could swing in lianas, like Tarzan. Sigh…
The old Sallow
A tree grows. If you’re staying the same, something is wrong. You’re not alive. – Hamza Yusuf
This grand old Sallow stands in our summer garden, and someone lives in this flat every year. This spring a Eurasian blue tit – but, the family left last week for new adventures!
Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish. ― Munia Khan
If a tree dies, plant another in its place. – Carolus Linnaeus
There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree. – Jaime Lerner
I’m just delighted to be living, to be able to have a simple conversation, to feel a ray of sunlight on my skin and listen to the breeze move through the leaves of a tree. – Ryuichi Sakamoto
My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane. – Robert Frost
Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. – Albert Schweitzer
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. – Martin Luther
I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives with you. I don’t think it’s true of people who’ve grown up in cities so much; you may love a building, but I don’t think that you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth; it’s a different kind of love. – Arundhati Roy
Hope I haven’t been ”too much” with many photos this week – but you who know me will understand – Trees have always been close to my heart and a big part of my life. Now I am really looking forward to seeing Your posts – hopefully you too will have a great time with this challenge! Thank you to Patti for last week’s abundance of Favorite Things –
Finally, wishing you all an inspiring week!
CFFC: 1 Item or the Number One
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Road
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #49 – Favorite Things
Our host this week, Patti, challenges us to show some of our own favorite things! They may be old or new – but all of us have favorites…
Many favorites have their own story, and some of my favorites are living things. In the header, a precious tulip I got from a collector, a friend of mine who sold his garden last year – he and his wife are now in their 80’s, and found it too hard to maintain it all.
Voltaire had Candide concluding, after all his travels around the world: Il faut cultiver notre jardin – ”We must cultivate our garden”.
And in my garden, I find the peace and magic I need when life gets too busy. I guess he was right, the old Voltaire…
Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. ― Anatole France
My best friends ( maybe not ”things”… but…) – Totti and Milo – belong to my family, and therefore they are also my favorites, together with my other children. I grew up with animals – so living without them would be impossible.
The orchid is Mother Nature’s masterpiece. – Robyn.
I have kept my grandmother’s geraniums for more than 30 years, and they are my favorites as well. I can see her loving smile whenever I tend to them. The same feeling is there for other flowers I once got from old friends and relatives, now gone. But the orchids are something extra when it comes to beauty – first and foremost this delicate Cattleya, which has lived here for quite some years now. A glorious treat when in flower, filling the rooms with a delicious scent.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
―
Not to forget – books and pencils, of course… Favorites for reading, writing and sketching. Preferably outside of a dog…
Welcome to join in the fun! Remember to link your post here and tag it ”Lens-Artists” to help us find your post in the WP Reader.
Next week, it’s my, Ann Christine’s, turn to host the challenge, so be sure to visit!
Friendly Friday – Shadows
Amanda has a prompt for us – Shadows – and you get Me at my best (;-D) in both pictures: In my forest and in the Sahara desert.
This photo challenge is alternately hosted each Friday by the bloggers:
Something to Ponder About and The Snow Melts Somewhere
Leya 
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