Curve | The Daily Post

For this week’s challenge, get inspired by the curves around you. From curves in architecture to bends in nature to man-made undulations, you have lots to work with!

Source: Curve | The Daily Post

A real score!! Le Spiral 016

Eight years ago, I stumbled across an auction on a local site for a rimu spiral staircase…there were no bids on it and even with only a few hours to go, we tossed a pretty large maximum bid in on it. In New Zealand, most rimu is recycled and exotic (the handrail is a single lamination) structures like this are few and far between, affordable ones even less…To our intense amazement we won the auction for the opening amount.

We drove down the Wellington to collect it and were even more amazed: the seller had only put it up for auction on the advice of a friend thinking he might get enough for a few beers for it: his original plan had just be to convert it into firewood! He also had a full set of rimu kitchen doors that he said we’d be doing him a favour if we took them as well. Only too happy to help there!!!

Le Spiral 018

The dismantled staircase languished in the garage next door for a year or some while we considered the best location for it. We decided to use it to replace our front stairway from the lounge up to the mezzanine. As you can see below, there is quite a drop down the centre axis and with small children running around…

Le Spiral 002

Despite his stated intention to burn it, the seller was a retired engineer and, despite himself, had meticulously named and marked all the parts in relation to each other. The joiner scratched his head with it for a while before deciding it would have to be assembled vertically and then installed complete. Away he went with all the parts to assemble in his workshop…as it came together in his front window, it became the subject of much interest, including a few offers that showed just what a good score it was…

Seven years later its curves are still as smooth and it still looks great…

Playful | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

Source: Playful | The Daily Post

DSCF9411-001

This is Louie…our latest addition after Kirky passed away…

Louie is a clown.

Louie loves to play…and, having been brought up in a gated community, loves being here with ten hectares to play in…more so after we have had some long chats about boundaries…

Balls are his favourite toys…the average life of any Swiss Ball that he catches is about three seconds and tennis balls aren’t much fun unless there is someone to throw them for him…soccer is his game and he will happy kick around a soccer ball on the concrete – he just has to remember not to park them under the car because they go BANG! when Dad drives away…

Louie has tons of energy, being only four years old, and needs a good run outside every day to burn it off. That makes it a bit interesting when it has been so wet over the last month but these things have to be done – a lesson hard learned after he tried a couple of laps inside the house…as the twins used to say “uh-oh”…

Definitely a bit of uh-oh…I had to shift my bed as it used to lie perpendicular to the doorway: Louie would bound into the room, up of the bed and then skate across the room on it…a big clown on the biggest skateboard..!

It’s good to play…

Brick | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

Source: Brick | The Daily Post

These one word daily prompts still strike me as quite lazy: possibly that is why I so often have a similarly motivationally deficient response in reverting to imagery for my post…

DSCF0139 Paving bricks that we pulled up from a pathway bordering the house to make way for a deck from the new (in 2007) bifold doors…the deck still isn’t in but the stacking bricks are becoming  a feature in their own right…DSCF0140

A build brick recovered from somewhere – we often still find things that were tossed off the old highway that is now our driveway – now home to a new strawberry plant, under a blanket of maple leaves…DSCF0141 Bricks in the workshop add weight to a laminating sandwich…

Earth | The Daily Post

Share your vision of our magnificent Earth through your lens.

Source: Earth | The Daily Post

DSCF9880

Red Crater, Tongariro National Park

Yes, I need a camera with a wider angle lens…!

DSCF9985

Tupapakurua Falls Lookout, Erua Forest

DSCF8890

Mounts Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, Tongariro National Park

DSCF0765

Native flax sunset, Tongariro National Park

 

Abstract | The Daily Post

This week, snap a picture either so close or so far from an object that it stops being what it’s normally seen as.

Source: Abstract | The Daily Post

DSCF3107

Something retro perhaps..? Part of a Golden Age appliance..? An old heater, or fridge maybe…? Shiny…most definitely… Precious…possibly to some…

Challenges like this are a fun way to examine how we perceive objects when they are isolated from their more common associative reference points…

DSCF3436

Like this drain…or is it part of a washing machine SmartDrive…?

DSCF3446

Or the exhaust of the engine that punches this D-21 drone to well over Mach 3…?

DSCF3108

An F-111 of the Royal Australian Air Force performs possibly the last ever “dump & burn” at the 2010 Brisbane Riverfire Festival in Australia. This is the only aircraft with the fuel dump nozzle positioned between the two engines at the back, and with afterburner on, the fuel dump switch is flicked resulting in a giant fireball.

Fog | The Daily Post

Today’s one-word prompt: Fog.

Source: Fog | The Daily Post

Clouds can form at many different altitudes. They can be as high as 12 miles above sea level or as low as the ground. Fog is a kind of cloud that touches the ground. ~ SciJinks

These one word prompts from WordPress always strike me as quite lazy: if the muses can’t be bothered putting any effort into the prompt, I feel less inspired to apply myself to any response…all too often my response is graphic (graphic imagery-wise, not graphic colourful in the semantic sense!) but while I am set-a-foot for the next week or so, I’m determined to write something once a day, even if it is not in response to that day’s prompt….

Fog here, just is…it is more common than not in the morning, often beautifully so, filling in the low ground and giving rise to impressions of great inland lakes, around which the road skirts – or sometimes descends into…

Raurimu-010

On the mountains, it is common for fog to form rapidly, catching out the unwary walker or climber. Often visibility will deteriorate to a point where the next marker pole on a track is no longer visible; or the landmark you are using as a point of reference of exploring off-trail just disappears…

DSCF9856

It is actually quite cool to be sitting up high and watching clouds and fog form in front of you, or below you…often around mid-morning as the sun burns off dew on the rocks from the previous night, the water vapour created will only rise a few metres and then drift off, slowly (sometimes not too slowly) thickening into a thick mist…

DSCF9864

Sometimes it is only a matter of minutes before clear skies are obscured, and navigation is hindered + it is cold in the cloud as well: another trap for the unwary…

DSCF9865

…and from there to here, on the summit of Mount Tongariro, where walkers are wisely waiting for the fog to clear enough for the poles marking the trail back to Red Crater to be visible again…it normally doesn’t take too long…best to wait than to wander off and find you cannot see any sign of civilisation when the fog clears..!

 

Green | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: Green.

Source: Green | The Daily Post

Green.

Green machine.

Burnham Training Depot TF Basic and Corps Training

Maj Graeme Vercoe, Maj Mark Howell - Ex LOTHLORIEN Nov 86 0029 Pl, C Coy, 1 RNZIR, Ex TAIAHA TOMBAK, me centre pic with glasses and C9
12185328_10207908443292111_7906741284517836324_o
ABCA Executive Council visit to ATG 012

 

Misstep | The Daily Post

Source: Misstep | The Daily Post

DSCF9714

No missteps here…

DSCF9704

…fortunately…

Saturday morning was our first frost of the year and and timely hint to clean the summer’s birds nests out of the chimney cap…

As it turned out, the nest was actually in the flue itself so all this ladder work was unnecessary…a quick run of the rotary chimney cleaner up from the inside and voila!..

DSCF9720

…deconstructed birds nest…pretty sure it had long since been vacated…

Screen | The Daily Post

Living with Kirk was like having a permanent seat behind the guy with the afro at the movies...

Living with Kirk was like having a permanent seat behind the guy with the afro at the movies…

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: Screen.

Source: Screen | The Daily Post

 

Seasons | The Daily Post

This week, let’s embrace the season: share an image that embodies the world or the weather where you live.

Source: Seasons | The Daily Post

Every January, the Department of Conservation and Project Tongariro host the local Mahi Aroha Summer Programme, a month-long calendar that encourages people into the outdoors and showcases local conservation projects…DSCF9471The first activity each year, on New Year’s Day, is the family kite day…
DSCF9481Even though the first of January is technically in the middle of summer, true summer here often does not kick in until February….
DSCF9486Pleasant but overcast days like this are common for this period of the season…DSCF9476

…and are no obstacle to everyone getting out and having a good time…DSCF9487

A bonus this New Year’s Day, was the first mistletoe in Whakapapa Village…