Check out other oddities at
Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: Week 36
Dead faces at Blarney Castle.
Tag Archives: photography
A Word A Week: Recline
This week’s word challenge from Sue is: RECLINE
See how everyone else has laid down the challenge at:
http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-recline/
Here are my shots at reclining:
Me reclining after walking up the “Rocky” stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Reclining in Delft
This is how we recline at Vacation Bible School
Share this:
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Bark Or Leaves
Howdy-Do! This week’s Fun Foto Challenge From Cee is: BARK OR LEAVES
http://ceenphotography.com/fun-foto-challenge/
Here’s a little leaft over from my trip to Ireland. Don’t worry the bark is worse than the bite.
A tree by the River Martin
The bark at Torc
Giant leaves in the rock close at Blarney
Share this:
Driving Into the Light
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. I John 1:5-7
When I get to Heaven I expect many surprises. I get more than most that there are things about Christianity that just don’t make sense within the current context of a fallen sinful world. We have never known anything but this so how could we expect ourselves to understand something that is totally other than this?
For instance: How do we work out the concept of eternity (the absence of time) in a universe that measures everything in time. How do we rationalize having complete free choice under the auspices of a completely sovereign God? How can innocence ever return when the knowledge of good and evil is so deeply ingrained within our race? AND how can Something or Someone be entirely light in a universe that is only able to measure light by the amount of darkness it dispels?
We cannot fully explain these things now but we Christians must firmly hold to them because God has taught them in His Word.
As Amanda and I mosied from Moher along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, we traveled into a place called the Burren.
The Bay Of Galway
A veritable moonscape splattered along the Western coast of Ireland, the Burren is the badlands between the green spaces of Kerry and Connemara. Amanda and I were struck to silent wonder as we twisted the corkscrew roads down into the nothingness and back up and out again towards the bay of Galway. Always in our travels there was this light in the midst of the lonely terrain that reminded us that magic and mystery can exist side by side with the natural man.
The sun was setting over the Bay of Galway as we pulled into the SaltHill Hotel along Ocean Dr. As it nestled itself to sleep under a haze of dark black cloud I was reminded that I may not know how time and eternity, sovereignty and free will, innocence and knowledge, or light and darkness can exist perfectly side by side, but there are a great many things I do not know or have not seen; My not knowing them or not seeing them does not make them any less so.
What parts of God’s Word do you struggle with because it doesn’t seem to match up with what you have experienced?
Share this:
Little I Things I Don’t Want To Forget
We left Killarney and headed towards the coast and the Cliffs of Moher. It was Wednesday. Once again our GPS directed us on some of the smallest roads I had ever seen through rocky countryside that makes my country town feel like a veritable city. It felt most times as thought we were miles from civilisation and that Ireland was all but empty of human life.
Solid as a rock
The Cliffs taken from a fisherman’s vantage.
The stone from “The Half-Blood Prince?”
We arrived at the visitor’s center at Moher around 11 A.M. and discovered that a boat tour of the cliffs was launching at three from the town of Doolin some twenty minutes down the road. Since we had the option of making our own way we decided to eat our lunch atop the cliffs and make our way to Doolin for the three hour wait.
The Village Of Doolin
I suppose while we saw many grand sights on the Emerald Isle it was the little things I will remember most, those things that made the trip truly unique: The smell of peat burning as we passed through villages in the countryside, the fact that pharmacies in Ireland are depicted by neon green crosses, the mirror at the hotel room in Galway that didn’t fog in the middle, the color of the buildings, the way the country roads all have a strip of the greenest grass growing down the center. It is the little memories that made the place stand out, that made it all so magical.
Share this:
Travel Theme Autumn
Ailsa has challenged us to send autumn out with a bang at her blog
http://wheresmybackpack.com/2014/10/31/travel-theme-autumn/
Check out how others have done just that by visiting after you view my tribute to the season of harvest!
Autumn Roads in New England
Autumn Rainbow In New England
Autumn Skies In New England
Share this:
Our Encounter With the Faeries of Ross Castle
Ross Castle along the Lower Lake
Please understand I write this post entirely tongue- in- cheek. I don’t believe in Faeries (somewhere in Neverland Tinkerbell just died). But while in Ireland, the unequivocal center of all faeridom, Amanda and I did have a very strange encounter on the early morning of October 7th as we made our way to Ross Castle.
The morning mist was just winding its way back into the primordial forests from which it had come and the road ahead was becoming more clear by the moment. We were about a mile from the castle on one of those quiet country roads we were becoming so use to driving in little Mii.
As we rounded one bend, the road became straight and visible for about a quarter of a mile and I sighted something in the road ahead. At first I thought it to be a large black dog. But as we drove closer both Amanda and I could see that it was far to large to be any dog but still too small to be a horse. It looked at first like it was carrying something in its mouth but as we moved closer (we had slowed down to about 10 MPH at this point) we saw that whatever it was, was not in the creature’s mouth but jutting from its forehead and the “whatever it was”, was big, maybe four or five feet in length.
“A unicorn?” I asked out loud.
Amanda chuckled and punched my arm but I was seriously nonplussed by the sight.
The lakes of Killarney do add a certain magic to the air.
We were now within about 15 feet of the creature and it lifted its head from the ground. It was a six point buck. I had never seen its like. Its neck was ruffed with black fur as if it had just stepped out of winter somewhere. Its face and horns were darker than the rest of its body. Bracken was wreathed in and out of its antlers.Twisted into the natural fibers was a four-foot piece of rotting log. As the buck looked at us it supported the piece of wood like some giant spear pointing it directly at little Mii. Then it whacked the wood once more against the ground and leapt off into the bushes carrying the log with it in its antlers.
Amanda and I almost wept at the sight of this majestic creature so trapped and tortured by its burden but within a few seconds the creature had melted back into the forest mists from whence it had come.
Now I do not suppose this was some faery critter. But were I of a different persuasion and maybe a little more Irish I think I could be forgiven for thinking perhaps… just perhaps it was.
Morning Mists On an Irish country road
Share this:
Skywatch Friday 10-31-14
A storm is brewing! We can only run for cover. There is only one safe place!
Psalm 91:1-7King James Version (KJV)
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Many times over the past week’s I have felt to remind my readership of these facts. Cling to them people they are all that is unshakeable!
Share this:
A Touch Of Majesty
While we truly enjoyed Blarney Castle, Amanda and I were glad to be shed of the traffic of Cork. I have to admit I get a little excitable in heavy traffic and Cork had no shortage of that. Add the whole left side of the road thing and forgetting which side of the car to look out of as I entered incoming traffic and you can just imagine how our sense of inner peace was challenged.
Things got better, though, as we headed toward the Mangerton Mountains and the town of Killarney in Co Kerry.
The word majestic is apropos’ here. I cannot suppose it is the size of the mountains or even the color. Yet there is no mistaking the otherworldly quality of the place that makes you feel you have entered the domain of kings or of the King. There again,was the sense of loneliness that became so familiar to us as we traveled the island. Yet, there was something else too as we drove into Killarney, a sense that somehow God was sharing with us some secret key to His own majesty. Many times as I travelled through Ireland I was struck by the truth that here in this place I was having a unique experience, one I could not have anywhere else in the wide-world.
The questions and truths of Psalm chapter eight seemed to echo through the landscape and somehow the terrain itself called back the answers.
Psalm 8
For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by a stringed instrument.[a]
1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
2 You have taught children and infants
to tell of your strength,
silencing your enemies
and all who oppose you.
3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God
and crowned them[e] with glory and honor.
6 You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—
7 the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.
9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
The Mangerton Mountains in Killarney National Forest as seen from our hotel window
Our ride into Killarney
Some walls are made to protect us.
Muckross House
The Mountains seen from the front lawn of Muckross House
The mountains seen from the front lawn of Muckross House
Amanda at Torc Waterfall
Amanda in the Magerton Mountains on the road to Moll’s Gap
Ladie’s View
Share this:
A Photo A Week Challenge: Livestock
This week’s challenge from Nancy is: LIVESTOCK.
Check out more livestock pictures at
http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/a-photo-a-week-challenge-livestock/
All I can say is that it is a good thing I went to Ireland recently. I may live in the country but I still spend more time behind a desk and in the office than I do around barnyards.
I guess the good Lord knew this opportunity would be coming so He chose to slow me down with a flock of sheep
In the mountains of Connemara
This photograph brought this Psalm to mind…
Psalm 100
A psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
