Wordless Wednesday - 190

Wordless Wednesday - 173

Thursday Thirteen - 167 - 13 Things You'd Find in Scorpius' World

Here are thirteen visual inspirations for the serialized fiction I'm posting every Saturday for the Weekend Writer's Retreat.

My dark fantasy story follows a young boy named Scorpius, brought up with other children of the nobility at a foster nursery - but never claimed by his family. Eventually he's handed over to a falconer in need of an apprentice to help him when the lords come to hunt. But Scorpius soon discovers that his new world is filled with danger, a world where the brutality of the nobles surpasses even that of the dragons.


1 - Falconer's Cottage

















2 - Falcon Mews
















3 - Falconer's Gloves









4 - Falcon











Photo by Jim Weber



5 - Dog













6 - Stick for driving out the game hens
















7 - Pillar rock














8 - Dragon












9 - Noble's horse bridle













10 - Doublet
















11 - Sword



12 - Wine goblet















13 - Cabinet











Alice Audrey says Too cool. You really got me with the cabinet, knowing how it gets used in the serial.

Susan Helene Gottfried says The dragon is gorgeous! Nice picture. I dig the falconer's hut, too. It really evoked the fiction for me.

Janet says Just makes me want the next instalment more than ever, Julia! Great visuals.

Wordless Wednesday - 116

Travis says Now that's just full of awwwww!

Ms Snarky Pants says Awww gooood puppy! :-D

Bobbi says Awww - how cute?!!

Wordless Wednesday - 107

Amy Ruttan says She's so cute!!

Shelley Munro says Aw, Xena looks lovely.

Brooke says Hehee.. a cutie..

Thursday Thirteen - 67 - 13 Peeks Into The Life of My Dog

1 - There's no place better than snuggling up on the couch.








2 - Xena adores her alpha male. AKA my husband Brad.








3 - She has so much fun at the family dinners. Little cousins are fun to hug.








4 - Xena recognizes a kindred spirit in my Auntie Noel.
















5 - Sometimes dogs come for a visit with their people, like my mom's friends from Yarmouth, who bring their dog Paige. Then Xena's in doggy heaven.










6 - Sometimes my cousin Julianne brings her dog Molly along, as she did for Christmas Day dinner. The more dogs the merrier!


7 - Xena and Molly keep the kid herd under control in the living room.
















8 - She practices doggy yoga to retain flexibility. She usually finds the best place for yoga practice is the path where people are most likely to walk.



9 - My sister loves making doggy accessories for Xena, as well as for her own two dogs. Brad wonders if she's made him a matching tie. Answer - not yet...



10 - One of Xena's favorite things to do is to go under my mom's bathrobe and let the fabric drape over her head like a scarf.



11 - Xena takes awhile to recover if Brad and I go away on a trip. This is Xena worrying that I'm about to disappear after returning from a trip to Toronto. Luckily for her, we've only had to leave her four times in her seven years with us. It's pretty hard to leave that face.


12 - And it's such a joy to come home to this face.







13 - It's tough work being so cute. Time for her beauty rest.

All Day in Eden

"My idea of gardening is to discover something wild
in my wood and weed around it with the utmost care
until it has a chance to grow and spread."

- Margaret Bourke-White
American photographer and photojournalist

Just spent a lovely day in the yard, mowing and weeding, planting and watering. I started at 10:30 this morning and didn't come in until 7:00 pm. Aside from taking rests and grabbing a drink of water, that is. Had lots of those.

Our yard is a double lot, so mowing takes awhile. Even with the new electric lawn mower, which I love! But I get a weird pleasure out of mowing, not the least of which is because I used to have a lot of allergy trouble with grass. I used to be unable to have the windows open when my dad mowed our lawn when I was a kid. So the delight of mowing never leaves me.

And I tend to gaze around at everything while I'm mowing, and I'll set the mower aside to weed if I see a spot that needs it. There's never any rhyme or reason to my time in the garden. I never carry an agenda with me. I relax when I garden, and I consider mowing part of tending my garden.

Of course, all that pushing and tugging does get tiring. But I'm tired in a wonderful way, not the usual way. And the garden is looking so beautiful. The yellow rose bush we planted in memory of my mom's sister, which we call the Aunt Sheila rose, is blooming right now and has such an intoxicating scent. The lavender is on the edge of blooming, the strawberries are ripe and numerous and the daisies bob merrily in the breeze.

There's a large section of the yard which we've left as a woodland garden. It's coming along very nicely, a mix between a true example of a woodland, and cultivated shade-tolerant garden plants. I'm trying to maintain a semblance of a natural eruption of plantlife within the woodland garden.

Every time one of my neighbors passes me when I'm in the yard, he tells me how wonderful it is compared to the yahoo who used to live here. We've been here 6 years now, but the trauma of this former resident must lurk close to the surface for him because he's been telling me that each time he sees me! He strolled up again this afternoon. Inside I laugh, but I can't bring myself to stop all his enthusiasm. I remember what the yard looked like when we got here.

My dog hung out with me all day, happy to be outside in the elusive sunshine. I even managed to wash her and hose her down, although she probably remembers it fondly as a great game of tag.

"Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the headbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O Let them be left, wildness and wet:
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889, Inversnaid
Jesuit priest and Victorian English poet