Colour25 ~ October

For at finde en farve til oktober, gik jeg på jagt i mine arkiver, og hvad kan dog være mere passende og orange end et græskar?

---  📙  ---

For the Colour of October, I repeat myself from a 4 year old blogpost, what could be better and more orange than a pumpkin?

Elephant's Child

Today I was unable to think of much else. In the end I browsed through Elephant's Child's blog.

Then I decided to steal one photo from each February from her blog - with links - as she and her blog both had their birthdays in February - she began blogging in February 2011.

-- 🐘 --

From her very first blogpost, February 7, 2011. A reply.

Like the Elephant's Child I still suffer from insatiable curiosity.

In February 2012 she visited a Japanese garden in the vicinity with her Skinny Portion (husband) - even though she knew that the visit would make her suffer, she brought beauty to all of us:

2013, her Skinny Portion was hospitalized, and she pilfered Toxic waste bags for her used cat litter


February 2014. Once again Skinny Portion is having surgery, but they visit museums anyway, and inside the National Library to see 'Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia.' her first find was a fridge magnet.


February 2015 seemed a bitch, but as always she had an eye for the beauty around - and shared her fishies with us:


Somewhen in 2015 (probably October) Elephant's Child took over the Words for Wednesday, This was how I stumbled over her blog.

February 2016 EC was hosting Words for Wednesday and supplied this wonder from her garden and mind

In her contribution she tells of her dual mind:

My mind is both a treacherous and a dangerous place. Crowded, but ambivalent (on a rare good day) about the directions it will let me go.
There is beauty there. Lots of it. Kaleidoscopes of colour and whimsy. If that side was given its head I could live in a terrific, exquisite and exciting world. I could be bold, take chances, and life would be an adventure.
Then there is the other side. A side which focuses on detail, and denies colour. The zombie side. Meticulous. Boring. Grey. Grim. The nitpicking, pedantic side. The side which smears grease over new ideas, over vibrancy, over anything worth having...
That side is strong. That side is fiendish and very, very successful. If the lighter side gives tongue to ideas which hint at furry, purry joy, at sunshine, at rainbows or at hope they are immediately stifled. Smothered in routine, in habit and in fear. Suffocated.
We are told that our minds are adaptive, that they can learn and grow. I wish. I am angriest at the realisation that my mind is stagnant. There will be no evolution. Grey and gloomy triumphs. Again.

We were lucky to have Elelphant's Child around, and no blog recapitulation of hers would be even close to perfect without a 'roo fix.

And as Elephant's Child did not post in February 2017 at all, but needed a 'roo fix, it's what we'll get too


Once again Elephant's Child had one of her blog breaks due to the summer heat in February 2018, but she visited the colourful Enlighten festival and told about it in March as she returned

Where she also enjoyed these quirky squids.


In February 2019 she found and bought Rainbow chrysanthemums, wondering if the colours were natural, I do too

But these were real:


February 2020, wildfires were raging, but even in those Elephant's Child found beauty


Elephant's Child's birthday was in February as well. In 2021 she celebrated by going to her 'roo fix lake and saw this funny pair. I loved that she showed photos of the - for me - exotic anmals in her surroundings, and once I posted a fox, she told me that it was an exotic animal for her. She showed me how big the world is.


In February 2022 during a visit to the National Museum of Australia and Elephant's Child celebrated her love for the  native fauna.


February 2023 Elephant's Child's One night wonder was flowering, and I was humbled and happy that she joined the Colour a monthly challenge, I had adapted after another blogger discontinued it.


In 2024 Elephant's Child took an extended summer break in February, but returned in March to show us the Balloon Spectacular  


In 2025 again Elephant's Child had a summer blog break in February, but in January she showed us this wonderful mural:

All Australian, all her.

-- 🐘 --

Now I miss two items, that can't be had in Australia in February. Frozen bubbles:


and the Walk Out of the Shadows, Into the Light

This is from her very last walk, September 10, 2025. She knew the end was near, and tried to tell us, but we would not listen, and she offered comfort and support.

Charlotte (MotherOwl) 11 September 2025 at 07:03

Heavy matter made even heavier by your words: "This may be my last year so of course I went." ... Words elude me ...

Elephant's Child 11 September 2025 at 08:24

Charlotte (MotherOwl): I am sorry to add to your emotional burden - and do hope that I can do this walk again next year... and the year after.

Never more will we be asked to Come walk with me, around the garden, into the dawn, or anywhere else.

Elephant's Child, I hope you are now in a place where beauty, flowers, wildlife and frozen bubbles abound.

From her kast Sunday Selelction - with the impressing number of 833.

No blogging today - Sue @ Elephant's Child has died.

Beauty Berry ~ Skønhedsbærlilla

Nu er det den sidste søndag i september, og mit kamera er vist ved at stå af, for lige meget hvad jeg tager billeder af, er det lidt ude af fokus og altså lidt sløret.
     Men ... lige siden vi boede et år i Tyskland har jeg prøvet at lave den perfekte Pflaumenmus - det kan man bare ikke. Så hver gang nogen, jeg kender, er i Tyskland, er der en tre-fire varer, jeg beder dem om at købe med hjem. En af dem er netop Pflaumenmus, og allerhelst af mærket Ja!
     Og det glas en af Ugleungerne have de med hjem, havde fået nyt låg. I stedet for de hvide, jeg huskede, havde det månedens farve. To fluer med et  - sløret - smæk

Now it's the last Sunday of September, and my camera seems to be on its last legs, because no matter what I take pictures of, the subject is out of focus, something isn't right.

But... ever since we lived in Germany for a year, I've been trying to make the perfect Pflaumenmus – it's just not possible. So every time someone I know is going to Germany, this is one of the three or four items I ask them to bring back. Preferably of the Ja! brand.

And the glass of Pflaumenmus that one of the Owlets brought home had a new lid. Instead of the lid being white as I remembered, it had the colour of the month. Two birds with one – blurred – stone.

Rawdogging ~ en gammel hunds bekendelserRawdogging ~ the Confessions of an Old Dog

No, no non-PG contents here. I know what rawdogging originally meant (thanks Urban Dictionary), but it seems to have taken on a whole new meaning recently. Read on below the screenshot.

 -- -- 🐶 -- 🐕 -- --

Hvornår har du sidst bare lavet én ting?

Kørt i bil uden at høre radio, gået en tur uden at ringe til nogen, cyklet uden at sætte musik på, set tv uden samtidig at scrolle, strikket uden at lytte til en podcast, gået på toilettet din telefon?

Det er dagens spørgsmål på Danmarks radios hjemmeside

Mit svar på næsten dem alle sammen er: I dag, og hver evig eneste dag i meget lang tid. Det eneste, jeg ikke rigtig ved, hvad jeg skal svare på, er det her: set tv uden samtidig at scrolle. Jeg har nemlig slet ikke tv, så jeg har ikke set tv, ikke i dag, og heller ikke i går eller i det hele taget. Men hvis jeg gjorde, ville jeg ikke scrolle imens, ikke mindst fordi jeg heller ikke har nogen smartphone at scrolle på ;)

Måske er jeg nu bare ved at blive moderne. Men jeg har længe følt, at det er skræmmende, at de fleste mennesker åbenbart ikke kan køre i bil, cykle eller gå en tur, uden enten at tale med nogen i telefonen eller have musik i ørerne.
     Jeg kan ikke lide at lytte til musik mens jeg foretager mig noget andet, eller kigge på min telefon, mens jeg er alle mulige steder - men det er også nemt, da jeg ikke har en smartphone, så hvis jeg kigger på min mobil er det for at se, hvad klokken er. Og hvis jeg strikker, så strikker jeg. Muligvis gør jeg det udenfor, så jeg kan nyde fuglesangen, eller mens vi drikker kaffe, så jeg kan tale med min familie imens.
     Måske beviser det bare, hvad jeg har sagt mange gange; nemlig at hvis man bliver ved med noget længe nok, ender man med at blive moderne igen 🙂

Læs resten her på Danmarks radios hjemmeside

 -- -- 🐶 -- 🐕 -- --

     When was the last time you did just one thing?
Drove without listening to the radio, went for a walk without calling anyone, cycled without playing music, watched television without scrolling, knitted without listening to a podcast, went to the toilet without your phone?

That's today's question on the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's website.

My answer to almost all of them is: today, and every single day for a very long time. The only question I don't really know how to answer is this one: watched television without scrolling at the same time. I don't have a television, so I haven't watched television, not today, not yesterday, not for a long, long time. But if I did, I wouldn't scroll at the same time, not least because I don't have a smart phone to scroll on either ;)

Maybe I'm just about to become modern. But I find it frightening that most people apparently can't go by car, by bike or for a walk in nature without either talking to someone on the phone or listening to music.

I don't like listening to music while doing something else, or looking at my phone while I'm out and about – but that's easy, as I don't have a smartphone, if I look at my mobile phone, it's to see what time it is. And if I'm knitting, I knit. I might do it outside so I can enjoy the birds singing, or while we're having coffee so I can talk to my family at the same time.


Well this maybe just goes to prove that if you keep on doing something, you end up being in fashion again 🙂