Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Monthly Photo Challenge: June

Eileen's monthly photo challenge for June was "Leaf/Leaves".  These are my finds for this challenge:

Fruit Tree Leaves:

Nectarine

Apple Seedling


Pomegranate

Culinary Leaves:

Curry Leaves

Broccoli Leaves

Beetroot Leaves

Passionfruit


Salad Mix

Spiky Leaves:

Dracaena

Gladioli

Yucca

Aloe


Lacy/Fern-y Leaves:

Asparagus Fern

Sprengeri 


Variegated Leaves:

Schefflera 


Pothos

Philodendron (Silver Satin)

Aeonium


Succulents Leaves:

Echevaria


Aeonium

Silvery-Grey Leaves:

Dusty Miller


Indian Sage

Wilted Leaves:

Zucchini


Sunflower


Scorched Leaves:

Aeonium


Dried Sacred Leaf:

Dried Leaf from the Sacred Bodhi Tree
or Pipal Tree (Ficus religiosa)
in Bodh Gaya, India


Other Leaves:

Embroidered Leaves (and flowers)


Porcelain Leaves

And, finally, just like Elvis:

Dancer...(Photo taken 7:52 p.m.)

Leaves... (7:53 p.m.)

The Room (7:53 p.m.)

Much to the disappointment of his number one fan, Snowball:

"NO!  Dancer Don't Leave!"
(Photo taken 7:54 p.m.)

Thank you, Eileen, for hosting the monthly photo challenges.  I had a lot of fun!

26 comments:

  1. Fascinating to see such a variety of leaves, not something we would otherwise think about. I like how you have included your other leaves and how clever to include Dancer as he leaves the building. You'll have to let me know who Snowball is, what a great photo. All great photos for Eileen's challenge.

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    1. The challenge did make me think twice about leaves! At least one other blogger who is participating in the challenge had included the leaves of a book, too! I always try to include a picture of Dancer when I do these challenges for a little extra fun, Ah, yes, Snowball - she is one of the feral cats who live in my garden (and under my house in the crawl space) and I feed. She loves to climb trees and I'll often find her perched on a tree branch. She is not tame, but, if I am late with her food, she is known to tap at the sliding glass door with her paw or scratch at it. She has white fur (thus her name) and blue eyes. Dancer was a feral cat too, but, he was rescued and given to me as a kitten; even so, he still hides when people come to the house. :)

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  2. Such a wonderful variety of leaves & I chuckled out loud about Dancer leaving ... I think my favourite leaf is the curry leaves.

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    1. Thank you, Mary-Lou. I had to get Dancer involved! :D The curry leaf plants are coming up all over the yard! Some from the roots of the main trees; some from the seeds that have dropped!

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  3. Love the snapshots, quite the variety - I found the Aeonium especially fascinating (I am such a non-gardener).

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    1. Thank you, Susanne. The aeonium (I have about 3 different varieties of them) are all grown from cuttings I was given by friends. :)

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  4. What a fun photo idea! I might have known Dancer would find a way to be a part of it. Obviously Snowball wants to be on your blog, too!

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    1. Ha, ha, yes, Dancer had to be in it and so did Snowball! LOL. She's going to shred my screen mesh if she continues to climb up like that!

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  5. Great selection, Bless, and I love your categories - wilted and scorched in particular! Dancer, as usual, takes first place ... he really if the King!
    Many thanks for joining in this time. x

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    1. Thank you, Eileen; I had a lot of fun! Yes, wilted and scorched are very much an aspect of my garden, right now! Dancer leaving was the one picture I had mentioned I was waiting to take - usually, he's too fast! By the time I'd notice he was leaving and get my phone, turn it on, etc., he's gone! Yesterday, I stalked him (yes, pun intended! :D ) The bonus was Snowball hanging from the screen mesh and meowing as soon as Dancer left!

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  6. This was a fun set of photos. The only thing I think you left our was a leaf to a table. But I think Dancer leaving the room more than makes up for it. :)

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    1. Thank you, June; I very briefly considered doing an A to Z of leaves (Aeonium to Zucchini), but, decided not to. A table leaf! Oh, I didn't think of that! The embroidered table cloth is set over the table leaf on the dining table, too! Lady Ella did the leaves of a book!

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    2. Lady Ella also thought of gold leaf but didn't come across any this month! Didn't think of table leaves though; great idea. (I also had to pass on tea leaves. I usually have some but all bags at the moment and it didn't seem worth buying especially. Maybe I could have asked Mum!)

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    3. Ooh, tea leaves! I didn't think of that, either! I did think of dried herbs (bay leaves, dried rosemary, etc.,) but, I thought I already had too many leaves!

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  7. Lovely photos. I've always found that gardeners have an inner peace and calm. The power of nature.

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    1. Thank you, Ratnamurti. Inner peace and calm - gardens and nature do play an important part in our well being; we are a part of nature and not apart from nature. :)

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  8. You have excelled yourself this time! Really like these and how you have categorised them. It's interesting for me to see the different culinary leaves as well as close-ups of plants I probably wouldn't recognise. Your beetroot leaves look quite different from the variety I have grown in the past. I think my fave is the broccoli leaves. Your salad mix is much better than mine. I also had an aloe vera photo (I know yours is a different aloe) but it wasn't very good so I left it out.

    Please tell us more about the sacred fig leaf: did you pick it yourself? Does it live in that envelope? What is the significance of the tree? (Don't ask for much, do I?!) As for Dancer ... isn't he just the coolest? "This meeting is over. I'll return when I am good and ready"!

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    1. Thank you, Lady Ella. I thought I'd try to arrange the leaves in categories, although, I know that some of them could have fitted into more than one category. I think these beet leaves turned more red in the sun!
      The sacred fig leaf was given to me by someone who visited Bodh Gaya. I received it in that envelope over 30 years ago and I keep it in that envelope inside a prayer book that I read from daily. The significance of the tree is that the Buddha is supposed to have sat under a pipal fig tree on the night he attained Enlightenment and became the Buddha. Thereafter, these trees are called Bo trees or Bodhi trees and are sacred to Buddhists. According to Buddhist lore, Bodh Gaya is the site where the Buddha attained Enlightenment and the tree at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya is supposed to be a descendant of the original tree under which the Buddha attained Enlightenment. A sapling from the original tree was also brought to Sri Lanka by Emperor Ashoka's daughter. Both sites, Bodh Gaya and the Bodhi tree in Sri Lanka are places of pilgrimage to Buddhists. I have been on pilgrimage to the Bodhi tree in Sri Lanka, but, not to Bodh Gaya.
      Dancer is too much! You should have seen how he gave my daughter the cold shoulder when she visited, this time! It took him a couple of days to forgive her for leaving him in April!

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    2. Thank you for the fulsome and interesting reply. I have visited a spot on the coast of Shikoku, Japan, where Koubou Daishi is said to have attained Enlightenment. He was looking out to sea and the morning star fell into his mouth! I sat there for a bit and looked for some nearby caves but I didn't think of picking up a pebble. I like to think you have that leaf in your prayer book.

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    3. You are welcome. I looked up Koubou Daishi and read about him. You might not have thought to pick up a pebble, but, you have preserved the memory of your visit. Speaking of picking up pebbles, that is what I apparently did at a Temple on my visit to Japan as a child (3+ years old). I don't have a memory of this, but, according to my mother, I picked up two small rounded stones, one in each hand, and refused to part with them! I can just imagine screaming my head off when my parents tried to get me to put them back! LOL. I had those two stones with me until I left Sri Lanka. Now, I wish I had put them in my suitcase! My tendencies to collect things started at a very young age, apparently! :D

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  9. Lovely variety of leaves. You have such a lovely, varied garden there are probably lots to choose from.

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    1. Thank you, Sharon. Yes, there were lots to choose from! :)

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  10. What a fantastically wonderful selection of leaves of such amazing shapes and colours. Also - Dancer!

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    1. Thank you, Lyssa. Yes, always Dancer! :D

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  11. I can't stop laughing at how you turned the prompt into a platform for Dancer. lol
    And Snowball! Get down from there!

    This was a good prompt and right up your alley. I enjoyed seeing all the leaves and I liked how you transitioned to the embroidery and the porcelain.....and Dancer :)

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    1. Thank you, Debra! Ha, ha, you know that I have to get Dancer in there, somehow. :D And you had recently asked about Snowball...Last night, she was making quite a racket, screeching through that same window (perched on the tops of those metal folding chairs I keep outside), scratching at the sliding glass door, etc. I didn't know what she was carrying on about, because I had put food out for her and Mama Cat. I went outside to check on Mama Cat who has taken to sleeping near the drive way to see if she was OK, and she was. I knew they had water in their bowl, as I had checked it when I put out the food, but, I emptied it and put new water, just in case that's what she was complaining about, but, it wasn't that, either. On my way back inside, I noticed that the bag with the litter box cleanings, that I had tossed out to be taken to the trash can in the morning, had landed right next to where I had put the kibbles (not on top of the kibbles, but, touching the outer edge of the pile) and moved it aside a bit. Apparently, that was what was offending Princess Snowball! She immediately ceased her complaining, ate the kibbles, and left! Honestly! My daughter laughed when I told her about it.

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