Thursday 10 June 2010

U is for Umbrella, Udder, Utter, Underwater, Unison, and University - abc Wedneday - U / Alphabe-Thursday - U



With the exception of the photos of a cow-udder, four kinds of otters and the killer whales from Wikipedia; and the goat's milk soap and Pricilla, the spokesgoat, from The Maaaaa of Pricilla; all photos on this post are taken by me, Christina Wigren.


It is already very late on Thursday June 10th, and the letter "U" is this week's stop along our journey through the alphabet, with Mrs. Denise Nesbitt's abc Wednesday and Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. I was not sure I could find any U-words at all. But after consulting the dictionary, I found more than I needed! My U-words for this week are Umbrella, Udder, Utter, Underwater, Unison, and University.

This first photo (second from the top), is of Elisabet, hiding under an umbrella on her way to a birthday party with a pirate-theme. Here we see Erik dressed as a sleepy Captain Jack Sparrow under his umbrella.


Read what Wikipedia has to say about the history of the umbrella and its sun-protecting twin, the parasol. After all the crazy things that have happened in my off-line-life this week, I don't feel very clever or witty. This post will be a straight-forward picture-book about U-words. Click on the word Umbrella.


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My photos of a toy cow from the Dairy company, Arla


According to the Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary my next word, "Udder", is "an organ shaped like a bag that produces milk and hangs underneath the body of a cow, goat, etc."


My photo of a drinking glass from the dairy company, Arla.

But if you really want to know about how udders work and what you can do with milk other than to drink it, I highly recommend visiting Pricilla, the Spokesgoat for Happy Goats Soap. (Click on the image of the soap to get to this listing.)


This is a photo of Pricilla

and not Anna.
(This is not an ad, just things I like.)
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There is a verb in English, "utter" that means "to make a sound with your voice; to say something." But I thought of a cute, aquatic, furry animal that looks like these creatures from Wikipedia:


But these animals are otters! Oops! Wrong letter! We had that letter weeks ago! The Swedish name for "otter" is "utter" (plural form: "uttrar"). This is what it's like to live and dream in two languages! Sometimes I get it wrong! So we may as well continue to the next U-word...
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....which is Underwater! Here is Elisabet's "Underwater-box" or "aquarium" made out of a shoe-box, showing seashells, gravel, seaweeds, fish and a killer whale!
The next U-word that I word that I would like to illustrate with my own personal photos is "Unison", which means: "(music) if singers or musicians sing or play in unison, they sing or play notes at the same pitch or at one or more actaves apart"(Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary).
Violin/viola-teacher, Sonja Nichols, is leading these children:



And here is Norrkoping's Suzuki Children's Orchestra playing string instruments at their Summer concert on Tuesday, supposedly play the same melody at the same time! (You can see Erik and his viola.)



My very last U-word is "University", for which I am still trying to get a paper written. This is a photo of the University of Linkoping's logo on the door to the branch of the university library that is in Norrkoping. I hope there is a special place in Heaven for kind, understanding and helpful librarians. A librarian named Sofia Engvall was very supportive when I was there yesterday. God bless you Sofia!



You can see my reflection in the window-glass! (I've got a helmet on my head because I rode my bike. Norrkoping is a small enough town to do that. I amost never take the bus)
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Now that I have finished this very difficult letter, I feel a whole lot better!
I hope that you do too!

Anna

First Commenter:
Pricilla of The Maaaaa of Pricilla



Jenny     Matlock

For more U-words at Mrs. Nesbitt's abcWednesday please click here.
For more U-words at Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday please click here.



27 Comments:

brokenteepee said...

Thank you for including my soap in your utterly wonderful exploration of the letter U

Rocky Mountain Woman said...

I grew up on a dairy farm, so I have personal hands-on experience with udders...know what I mean?

Thanks for the memories...

Ann said...

You did great with the letter U. I like Elisabet's underwater box, how cute that is and Erik looks like quite he musician there.

Avo said...

Beautiful post as Usual.
I especially dig utters (quite accustomed to linguistic mix ups), perhaps because I have so rarely encountered them. I like how you have both fresh water and sea otters depicted. : j

You have a knock for capturing significant moments, it really shines when you take pictures of your kids.

Viki said...

U came up with a great stuff for the letter u. I loved the underwater box and the kids with umbrella's and the animals. The utter, I don't think I could even force myself to do anything with those lol. Good job.

jeff campbell said...

Such a fine cornucopeia of unique "U"...utterly otter...peace and blessings

Natasha in Oz said...

This was a very interesting post! I loved the picture with the pink umbrella too.

Best wishes and happy weekend,
Natasha.

Unknown said...

Dear Pricilla,
Thanks. Glad you like it. What a relief! Sorry I did not ask you ahead of time. I was in a hurry and saw the possibilities at the last minute.
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Dear Rocky Mountain Woman,
I am always happy when people, who know more about a subject than I do, visit my blog posts. "Hand on experience" is really what you could call it! (That's really funny!!) My mother went to cooking school during WW-II when there was rationing in Sweden (even though it was one of the few places that remain neutral in Europe at that time), and had to learn how to do everything from scratch. She learned how to milk cows by hand. I had a suburban-childhood with no pets, so I have had to learn about animals as an adult. But I have seen how both hand and machine-milking is done.
Thanks for sharing and please correct any error you see!

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Dear Ann,
Thanks for your kind words about Erik & Elisabet.
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Dear Alesa Warcan,
Thank you also for your very kind words. I feel that you are a part of my cheering squad! You pointed me in the right direction about blogging and it has really helped. This blog has gone from an 89-grade to a 91 website-grade, since I followed your advice.

Photography was a part of my education. I have a BFA in Communcation Arts and Design from Virginia Commonwealth University with very good teachers. We looked a lot at the work of the famous photographers who were better at capturing the "decisive moment" (Was that Cartier-Bresson?? I'll look it up...) than I am. And this was before digital photography! I am not that technical, I love image-making, but I have always tried to make the most of the techiques that happen to be available, even if it is a box with a tiny pin-hole on one side!

I don't have much time to do these letter-posts. But I demand quality of myself, so I wind up in a conflict with myself. For this post I had about four or five more ideas for words than I have shown here. I cut the U-words that were not good enough.
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Dear Vicki,
I haven't looked at yours yet. But I'll get there. Glad that you have a sense of humour!
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Dear Jeff,
Thank you for your kind words. Peace and blessings to you too. I'll visit your post soon.
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Dear Natasha,
Thank you for your patience. You have been very good about visitng and commenting on these letter-posts, and I suspect that I have been a little sloppy and missed yours. But I will rectify this. My own favourite photo in this batch is the pink umbrella!
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Thank you all for visiting!
Best wishes,
Anna

Jo said...

What a wonderful U post ... i really enjoyed the utter/otter bit ... otters are just the cutest little creatures!

Tracy said...

Thank you so much for sharing hope to see you again

Bradley Hsi said...

Indeed, I agree with everyone that it is a wonderful post for "U". Good luck for your paper, have a nice weekend.

Terra said...

and I totally am glad you posted the otters even though they aren't utters because they were ADORABLE

Short and Sweet said...

I enjoyed the "otter"/"utter" explanation and the wonderful photos of the pink umbrella and the children. Good job.

Leslie: said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog and leaving such nice comments. I really enjoyed reading this post of yours - sorry, but this week has been h*ll for both Lorne and me as he had his first chemo and we thought he was going to be okay, but turns out he's not. *sigh* Anyway, just to answer your question, we went together when we were in our early 20's and were going to get married but he got cold feet. So I moved on and married someone else (who died in 1992) and he then rebounded with someone else and they got divorced in 1980...he never remarried and we reconnected almost 2 years ago to find the magic still there. So I'm really worried about losing him again, but this time to cancer.

Russ said...

Yes I am glad to see the otters also. Of course the umbrella(pink) is adorable.
Great Post

Unknown said...

I have been up close and personally with utters....I grew up in dairy farm land....I love the soap...it is so pretty but my favorite picture is your sweet little one in the rain with pink boots and pink umbrella....Have a great weekend!!!!

Unknown said...

Dear Jo,
Thank you for visitng my U-post. I agree, otters are cute. That's why I left them in, even though they don't really belong among the U-words - except in Swedish.
I've read your U-post and just love it! Great quotes and deep thoughts and interesting images.
Best wishes,
Anna

Personalized Sketches and Sentiments said...

Anna, I really enjoyed your list of "U" selections! I would love to say that I could speak, dream and think in more than one language! As always...love to see your photos of your cutie-pies! I would love to hear your son play his viola :o)

Blessings & Aloha!

Jenny said...

Pink boots and a drawn on mustache. Be still my heart.

My stop here on my journey through Alphabe-Thursdays Letter "U"! was uplifting and fun!

I am charmed by the Arla glass and the red stuffed cow.

We milked cows as children and while that brings back some happy memories it is not something I would probably do again!

Thank you for helping make this meme so unbelievably entertaining!

You are a wonder!

A+

Unknown said...

u are so clever...how do you go from having nothin' to all this? love the pics...so great!

Unknown said...

Sunday June 12th, 2010

Dear Terra,
Glad you like the otters. I really like them too. They are so sweet. I haven't seen your post yet, but I'm getting there!
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Dear Short and Sweet,
It's nice that you took my linguistic mistake the right way. Yes the otters are cute.
Thank you for your kind words about the pictures of the children.
Mostly they are good sports. But Elisabet had a temper-tantrum right after took the pics of her "Underwater-box". She demanded that I remove the photos from the camera and not use them on my blog post. She is six years old and sometimes does not listen to reason. She threatened to trash my camera (which is still not quite paid for and cost me 8.000 Swedish crowns [sek] =approximately a thousand US dollars). So I had to lock my camera in a cabinet in order to protect it from her rage.
You have no idea what goes on between these pretty pictures that I show on my blogs. My off-line-life is often very complicated!!!
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Dear Leslie,
Thank you for writing. There is a reason for asking you about you and Lorne, but I'll write an e-mail and explain.
You wonderful person. You and Lorne are in my prayers!
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Happy Weekend,
Anna

Gerald (Ackworth born) said...

otters/utters is quite appropriate for a U post from Sweden - u (text speech for you) should save your others ewes (female sheep pronounced u-s in english) for the next round!

Vicki/Jake said...

This was a Happy U post! Glad you took the time to do it :)

Lin said...

I enjoyed the letter "U", Anna! Your children with their umbrellas are adorable. :) And of course, I LOVE Pricilla's goat soap. I am addicted it!!

Mariuca said...

Hi Anna, u are at my site today yay! Thanks sweetie and have a wonderful week! :)

Susan Anderson said...

I got a chuckle out of your utter/otter explanation. The U version of otter is just fine by me, thanks to my Swedish ancestors.

And it was great fun to see a photo of you in your own photo!

And where on earth did you get that cow?! It was udderly unique.

NIce job!

;)

Roger Owen Green said...

Udderly adorable post.

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