Tag: a photo a week challenge

Haiku: Treats

a black whippet walking along an an autumn forest trail

this forest
so many treats behind
nature’s door

© Xenia Tran

a black whippet walking along an autumn forest trail

Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday and a Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain to those of you who celebrate today.

With love and light,

Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/160 s – ISO 100 and f/2.8 – 1/125 s – ISO 100.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Atmospheric

Becca’s Nurturing Thursday: Shine Brightly

Rag Tag Daily Prompt: The Secret Door

Your Daily Word Prompt: Treat

Wordless Wednesday: Blessed Mountains

Cairngorms National Park

a blue and white whippet climbing a mountain trail followed by a black whippet
a blue and white whippet on a mountain trail in the Cairngorms

Thank you for all your good wishes before our short break! The weather has been very kind and it’s wonderful to see the colours slowly changing.

Wishing you all a magical Wednesday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 100, f/2.8 – 1/1250 s – ISO 100 and f/4 – 1/640 s – ISO 100.

Wordless Wednesday

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Changing Seasons

Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #65:Pick a Place

Haiku: Guiding the Way

a blue and white whippet walking down stone steps among green ferns, grass and wildflowers

green shoots
between the stones
a new journey

© Xenia Tran

a blue and white whippet walking down stone steps among green ferns, grass and wildflowers

We’re delighted that this haiku is featured in Haiku Dialogue: Poet’s Choice, pathway, Troutswirl, The Haiku Foundation Blog, 11 September 2019. A very big thank you to Kathy Munro for putting this edition together.

Wishing you all a very happy Thursday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/200 s – ISO 100.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Something New

Your Daily Word Prompt: Exceptional

Recent publications in journals, anthologies, video and full-length collections:

Haiku: Smile in Motion

two whippets on the beach beside old WWII defences

spilling stones
your smile leaps over
the old defences

© Xenia Tran

a smiling black whippet walking across the beach towards the camera

Many of the Second World War defences along the Moray Coast are sinking deeper into the shifting sands. You can see some images taken earlier this year where they are still upright in Edge of New Tomorrows.

We’re delighted that this haiku is featured in Haiku Dialogue: Poet’s Choice, ambiguity, Troutswirl, The Haiku Foundation Blog, 4 September 2019. A very big thank you to Craig Kittner for putting this edition together.

Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/800 s – ISO 100 and f/2.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 100.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Texture

Word of the Day Challenge: Spontaneous

Recent publications in journals, anthologies, video and full-length collections:

Wordless Wednesday: All in the Timing

a smiling blue and white whippet chasing a ball on the beach
a smiling blue and white whippet with a pink ball in her mouth

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/2000 s – ISO 100.

Wordless Wednesday

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Timing is Everything

Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Overhead

Haibun: A Special Encounter

Knockan Crag Nature Reserve

a stag peering over the rim of Knockan Crag above the Moyne Thrust

A passing shower brings welcome freshness, more greenness to the grass. Water cascades from the top into a thousand tiny pools. We hear the ‘plop’ of frogs leaping. Careful where we place our feet, we continue the climb. Eivor and Pearl grind to a halt, star-struck. We know what they’ve seen. They ask whether we can see it too. We blink and tell them we believe them.

stag on the hill
greeting us in peace
a kindred spirit

© Xenia Tran

two smiling whippets on a fern-covered hillside

If you look very closely, you can see the stag peering over the rim of the crag in the top right-hand corner of the second photograph.

Wishing you all a wonderful Tuesday,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Settings: f/2.8 – 1/400 s – ISO 160 and f/4 – 1/800 s – ISO 200.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Unexpected

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Animals

dVerse Poets Poetics: Hot Time in ye Ole Pub Tonight!

This poem features in Between Heather and Grass. If you haven’t read the book yet, feel free to take a peek inside:

look inside feature for Between Heather and Grass
Look inside …

Haibun: Deep Time

Knockan Crag Nature Reserve

a blue and white whippet at Knockan Crag on the trail beside the sculpture of a female geologist

The grass-covered roof of the Rock Room blends in with the ferns and heather of the hillside. Inside are display boards in English and Gaelic, explaining how parts of the earth’s crust have travelled long distances. The older mylonites on display at Knockan Crag had been forced up against and over the later Cambrian layer.

There’s a sculpture of two geologists, Ben Peach and John Horne, to celebrate these findings. Today the grass is growing around Horne’s feet, some of the seeds tickle his knees. The sun feels extra warm after the morning’s showers.

deep time
so many treasures
breathing the same air

© Xenia Tran

a blue and white whippet sniffing the ground by the sculpture of Peach and Horne at Knockan Crag

You can find more photographs with a triple haibun about this beautiful nature reserve in Moving Earth and a few photographs taken from inside the Rock Room in North West Highlands Geopark.

Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday and a happy weekend ahead,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/4 – 1/640 s – ISO 160, f/2.8 – 1/640 s – ISO 160 and f/2.8 – 1/1000 s – ISO 160.

Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Sculpture

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Unexpected

Becca’s Nurturing Thursday: Celebrate

dVerse Poets: Open Link Night #247

This poem features in Between Heather and Grass. If you haven’t read the book yet, feel free to take a peek inside:

look inside feature for Between Heather and Grass
Look inside …

Haibun: Nature’s Spirit

Cairngorms National Park

a blue and white whippet in a purple harness sniffing the bark of a pine tree on a forest trail

We’re walking through the forest at Easter, the sun is bright and warm. It’s the warmest Easter we’ve known since moving to the Highlands. Eivor walks beside us, touching my hand with his nose to let us know. To let us know, how good it feels to be here.

Pearl walks slightly ahead of us, sniffing the bark of a pine, touching a twig or leaf. Prints from paw and foot weave on behind us. Our eyes follow the movements between the trees across the water, where pairs of geese go quietly.

nature’s spirit
stars flicker through the temple
of this world

© Xenia Tran

a blue and white whippet in a purple harness beside a pine tree on a forest trail
two pairs of geese swimming across a lochan surrounded by trees and reeds

Wishing you all a beautiful Tuesday and a wonderful week,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Settings: f/3.2 – 1/400 s – ISO 100 and f/5 – 1/160 s – ISO 160.

Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Connections

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Beauty

Sunday Stills: Spirit

dVerse Poets Open Link Night: Journey With Me!

This poem features in Between Heather and Grass. If you haven’t read the book yet, feel free to take a peek inside:

look inside feature for Between Heather and Grass
Look inside …

Haiku: Mountain Song

close up of a blue and white whippet in a black jacket with a pink and write collar sniffing among spring heather

letting the light rest
between glen and mountainside
birds are singing

© Xenia Tran

close up profile shot of a blue and white whippet in a black jacket with a pink and write collar among spring heather

With love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/3.2 – 1/1250 s – ISO 100 and f/3.2 – 1/2000 s – ISO 100.

Frank J Tassone’s Weekly Haikai Challenge #79: Twittering

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Sunshine

Paula’s Thursday’s Special: Pick a Word in April Y4 (alluring, timeworn)

Tanka: Edge of New Tomorrows

two whippets in winter jackets on the dunes overlooking the beach, the WWII defences and the Moray Firth

the blue
of a fuller day
fills the sky
spirits from another time
edge dreams of new tomorrows

© Xenia Tran

a row of tumbling WWII defences along the shore of the Moray Firth
two whippets in winter jackets chasing a ball on the beach

For those of you who read last month’s post Helping the Hounds of Macau we are delighted that the last remaining greyhounds have left the Canidrome on 26th March and have safely arrived in their adoptive countries. We are especially happy to see that the older greyhounds, including 13-year old Astrid, have made it and are now settled in their forever homes.

It makes us very happy to know they have comfortable beds and are being loved and cared for in a way every dog deserves to be loved and cared for.

Our heart-felt thanks to Anima, GREY2K USA and Pet Levrieri for making this possible and to all the greyhound charities in Europe and the USA who have taken the greyhounds in and provided them with veterinary care, loving foster homes and forever homes.

A very big thank you to all of you who kindly shared the information and helped spread the word.

With love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/1250 s – ISO 160, f/2.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 160 and f/2.8 – 1/2000 s – ISO 100.

Nancy Merrill’s A Photo A Week Challenge: Getting Your Ducks in a Row