Autumn at Rosings Park

You’d think that autumn would see a decrease in wildlife activity in our yard, but sometimes it seems the opposite is true.

Filbert, the world’s fattest squirrel, is convinced that he should be able to snatch seeds from the feeder on the dogwoods. Filbert leaps onto the screen and scrambles around, looking for a hole that might be slightly larger than the others. Then he r-e-a-c-h-e-s inside with his little squirrely arm, trying to grab the goodies.

Filbert the Squirrel is certain that these seeds would be mighty tasty.

He is not successful.

The jays scold Filbert. “We can’t even get to that food,” they seem to say. “It’s for the little birds.” The little birds are none to happy with their rodent friend, either. While he’s dangling from the feeder, they’re unable to eat.

Meanwhile, there’s trouble at one of the birdbaths. The male flicker has been fluffing and flopping for several minutes, and a certain robin thinks that it’s about time she got a turn. “Get out. Get out,” she calls, and she makes several attempts to share the basin with him.

Though it’s difficult to make out in this photo, the robin is flying up to share the bath with the male flicker.
The female flicker is waiting patiently on the ground.

Unbeknownst to the robins and flickers and squirrels, there’s another wild creature about. Oreo, the cat from next door, is lurking under the hydrangea. While the robin and flicker are arguing over rights to the birdbath, Oreo makes a charge at them. He doesn’t even come close.

Poor Simon would love to be outside, too — he longs to taste the blood of a squirrel again — but his parents are just too mean. He can do nothing but sit on the kitchen counter and stare at the action.

Alright, I admit it -- this is a year-old photo taken from a different location, but come on: it suits my needs.

Simon thinks that we are unfair to cats.

Don’t worry, Simon: spring will be here soon.

Soccer for Six-Year-Olds

We were up late last night, watching the second season of Arrested Development with Tiffany, Marla, Celeste, and Nicki. I was beat when we crawled into bed after midnight. I’m too old for such wild and crazy nights.

My hopes for a late morning were dashed when Kris woke me before dawn. “Let’s go see Harrison’s soccer game,” she said.

I wanted to sleep. “I want to sleep,” I said, gasping through my C-PAP mask.

She resorted to bribery. “I’ll buy you a chantico,” she said. I went downstairs to take a bath.

As Jenn explained in a recent entry, soccer for first-graders is somewhat chaotic. The rules are essentially what you’d expect except:

there are only five players per team;
there are no goalkeepers;
there are essentially no fouls;
halves are only twenty minutes long;
no official score is kept;
any out-of-bounds yields a throw-in;
and, most radically, there is no off-sides.

Without this last concession, the game would be unplayable. Kids this young have no concept of position. The dominating factor regarding soccer for first-graders is that the kids cluster around the ball, all trying to kick it at once.

There's no concept of man-to-man marking or spreading out.

Sometimes a kid will come up with the ball and break from the crowd, sprinting for the goal. They rarely make it.

The coaches try to instill some sense of order:

Sabino gives directions while his son, Antonio, wanders off...

And sometimes the kids can be convinced to stay on the defensive half of the field:

Tristan and Antonio are ostensibly playing defense, but they're really just chatting

And sometimes something resembling normal soccer takes place, as here when Tyler crosses the ball to Harrison (who would be off-sides in a real game):

Rumor has it that Harrison sometimes cherrypicks, standing next to the goal for long stretches

It’s great fun to watch the kids play, though, and they all seem to love it.

Antonio sort of has the ball here. Sort of.

Harrison and Ian are actually quite good at the game

Harrison is fearless, which is both good and bad.

When it was all said and done, kids from opposing teams joined together for crackers and juice.

The kids congratulate each other on a game well played. Mostly, they jump on and hug their friends.

I was happy to have spent the morning among old friends: Rich, Karen, Kim, Sabino, and Katrina; John, Louise, and Jenn; Ken, Roger, and Kristin; and all of their children and grandchildren.

“That’s what I miss about living in Canby,” I told Kris on the drive home. “Those are my people. Whiskey Hill — Nintey-One — is my homeland.”

“You don’t have to miss it,” she said. “Didn’t we just visit?”

Moved In

It’s fortunate that Kris and I don’t ever intend to move again. Based on how long it took us to unpack and feel “moved in” at this place, we might never make that adjustment anywhere else. However, after fifteen months of s-l-o-w progress, we do at last feel moved in.

It helps that the bathroom remodel is finally nearing completion. (Yes, it has been nearly eight weeks, and yes it’s only “nearing” completion.) The job is 97% finished, which means the place is perfectly usable, but that there are little details (dimmer switch, power to the garage/workshop, and final inspections) that need to be completed.

It also helps that over the past week, we’ve finally tackled some of the move-in chores that we delayed for the past year. Last weekend, Tiffany came over to help us. While the Gates girls organized the garage, I tackled the garden shed and the spare shed. (You know you have too many outbuildings if you refer to one of them as the “spare shed”.)

(As we were cleaning, I found a dead bird on the lawn. It was probably killed by a cat, but its carcass had been taken over by yellowjackets. There were a dozen of the bastards politely taking turns to eat the bird’s innards. Despite a fear of bees, I managed to snap some handheld macro shots.

The bees were unhappy when I took the bird from them. They swarmed about the spot in the lawn for several minutes, longing for bird flesh.)

When we’d finished, the garage was neat and tidy (and empty); all the stuff in the garden shed had been shifted to the spare shed; and the garden shed had been converted to a playhouse of sorts (for visiting children).

When I was growing up, my grandparents had lots of outbuildings, too. One of them (the one filled with dynamite — no joke) was used as a playhouse. There were cups and saucers and chairs and tables (and the aforementioned dynamite) and all sorts of other things to play with. To make our playhouse, I hung the old bathroom cabinets from the wall, and dragged the old bathroom vanity into place. The space was completed by a small table and the two old chairs from Mac and Pam (chairs that are now destined to go to Craig and Lisa, whenever they want to pick them up).

All this cleaning was great, but the final step that allowed me to feel “moved in” was this: I hauled all of my old computer stuff to Free Geek, a Portland-based nonprofit. How much computer stuff?

Thirteen monitors
Eighteen computers
Four printers
One scanner
Dozens of memory modules, about eight hard drives, scads of modems and sound cards and video cards

Most of that equipment was still usable; some of it was even good. I ought to have taken the time to sort the wheat from the chaff, but in the end I just switched my brain off, grabbed everything, and hauled it away. That computer stuff was a boil that needed lancing; it was a sore on my mental life, and I’m relieved to have it gone.

Now my workshop is mostly empty. (All the more so since Kris had me haul the filing cabinet into the house last week.) I have some woodworking tools (and some comic books) laying about, but mostly the workshop is now an empty space. I’ll spend a couple nights this week tidying it up, and then maybe I’ll actually start a woodworking project. (Wait — we still don’t have electricity out there. The bathroom’s still only 97% finished; part of the remaining 3% is reconnecting electricity to the workshop.)

As my obsession with photography continues to wax, I’ve developed other possible uses for the workshop and the playshed. I could convert the playshed to a darkroom, and I could create some sort of photography studio in the workshop. The spaces are great, but there’d be a lot of work converting each to its new use. Still, it’s something to consider.

Meanwhile, Kris’ sister, Tiffany, recently moved to Portland. A truck filled with her belongings arrived on Saturday. We helped her unload the stuff Saturday morning, and she’d unpacked nearly all of it by Sunday afternoon. Holy cats! It took me and Kris fifteen months to move in; Tiffany did it in a day.

Comments

On 29 August 2005 (10:53 AM),
Joel said:

As someone who has moved away, let me be the latest to welcome Tiffany to the neighborhood. Tiffany, I’ve always liked you, and since I’ve also always liked Portland, it works for me that you’re there.

On 29 August 2005 (11:01 AM),
Tiffany said:

Thanks for the welcome Joel. I hope to see you soon.

Jd, thanks for not showing the dead bird, the description was gross enough.

On 29 August 2005 (11:36 AM),
Tammy said:

We have been remodeling our master bath for two years now. The toilet has been out for all of that time. Luckily we have two other bathrooms. I’m just sayin’ I’d give anything for an eight week remodel!

On 29 August 2005 (02:33 PM),
Amy Jo said:

Three comments:

(1) Welcome to Portland Tiffany. I suspect you don’t remember me, but we met a few years back in Alexandria, VA when Kris was out east for some sort of training. We moved back to Paradise, oh, sorry, I mean Portland, a year ago after four years of braving the wilds of the DC Metro Area.

(2) JD–A post showing more photos of the bathroom is warranted. Some of us would like to see more than the tub . . .

(3) JD–I would love to see a post about the dynamite lurking in the shed/playhouse. Did you know it was there at the time? Were there any rules of behavior designed to keep your grubby little hands off the dynamite? Did you break the rules?

On 29 August 2005 (03:06 PM),
mac said:

More importantly, where is the blasted stuff now?

On 29 August 2005 (03:25 PM),
Stacy said:

I’m glad you donated your items to free geek –they are running some amazing programs.

Yes, moving is not fun, but good thing you’re done.

Stunning photo. I didn’t know bees liked blood.

On 29 August 2005 (03:41 PM),
Pam said:

I am ready to claim my garage sale picture in order to help you clear your garage of clutter. And I can’t blame you for passing on the chairs, but what changed your mind?

On 29 August 2005 (04:35 PM),
tammy said:

Jd may recall this differently but the only thing I remember about that dynamite is that we were told to not go behind that wall. It was a little half wall with no extra door or anything. I didnt know until just a couple of years ago that there was dynamite in those boxes. We played out there for years and never got into the stuff. Grandpa would stop on his way into the house from the fields or barn and we’d give him carrots or crackers. There was an old red wicker chair out there he’d sit in. I recall him reading the paper in there with us sometimes. Grandma very seldom visited. Now as a Grandparent myself I see this all so differently. What a special place they made for us there in that playhouse. And because of spending just a few minutes a day with us we now have lasting memories.

On 29 August 2005 (06:52 PM),
Lisa said:

Why was the dynamite around to begin with? It’s not a common household item these days…

On 29 August 2005 (06:52 PM),
Tiffany said:

Hi Amy Jo,

Yes I remember you, Thai food. I could not find you in a crowd, but that will change soon. Thanks for the welcome.

On 29 August 2005 (07:04 PM),
Ron said:

When Grandpa bought the place it was all woods and stumps. After he logged most of the place he had to blast the stumps to be able to farm the land. One of my favorite memories is blasting stumps with Grandpa as a kid. We would dig a hole under the stump and Grandpa would tape together as many sticks of dynamite as he thought it would take to tear it up (sometimes it took 2 attempts to get all the stump and big roots) and then he would insert the blasting cap and fuse and shove it down the hole. He would then tamp dirt back in the hole to keep the blast from coming out the hole and then he would make me crawl under the tractor and wait while he lit the fuse and would crawl under the tractor with me. After the explosion and the pieces all hit the ground around us we would crawl out and go look at the hole to see if all the roots got torn out. I remember the smell of the smoke and the bad headaches it gave you. Grandpa would tell me to stay back until the smoke cleared, but being an impatient little boy I would run up to see the new hole. To this day I love explosions and the Fourth of July.

On 29 August 2005 (10:47 PM),
J.D. said:

I should point out that I have no firsthand memory of the dynamite. I only know about it from stories that Ron and Tammy have told at recent family reunions…

Gadgets

I found time to play with two new gadgets this morning: the inexpensive iMic and the not-so-inexpensive Nikon D70 digital SLR.

I woke early. The sun had just risen. I could hear the birds outside. (In the summer, we sleep with the french doors open in the bedroom, and we cannot help but be awakened by bird song; this time of year I have to strain to hear it through the doors.)

Grabbing my iBook, I headed outside to sit in my pajamas and slippers, listening to the jays and the crows and the little songbirds greeting the morning. A woodpecker peck peck peck peck pecked somewhere up the hill. I tried to record some of what I heard with my new iMic and a cheap microphone (actually a remnant from my very first Mac fifteen years ago). I need a better microphone. I was able to record some birdsong, but only faintly.

The female flicker provided the best sounds:

flicker call one (994kb mp3)
flicker call two (240kb mp3)

At one point, Nemo sauntered by to see what was up:

Nemo squeaking (84kb mp3)

It was yet another beautiful day. We spent most of it outside, working in the garden. The cats helped. Sort of.

Nemo showed his might:

Simon played mind games with Flash:

Later in the evening, Simon sat outside the library window, politely asking to be let inside:

I admit there are sections in the above photos that are pixelated. This is not a result of the camera. I’ve saved each of the above as heavily compressed JPGs. In fact, they’re set at 10% quality in Photoshop Elements.

The D70 produces digital images of astounding quality.

Expect a full review of the D70 after I become accustomed to all its features and functions. It’s an overwhelming device, and it’s going to take me several weeks (at least) to learn.

For now, here’s an example of what six megapixels can do when coupled with a large CCD. (The CCD is the charge coupled device, the actual component of the digital camera that records the image. It’s far, far more important to image quality than the nominal size of the photo produced.)

Here’s a full-size detail of the above image. (Meaning: this is the actual size at which the image was recorded. The above photo was reduced drastically to fit the confines of this weblog.)

And here’s a detail of the above, magnified four times.

This final image is a detail of the above detail of a detail. It has been magnified another four times, or sixteen times the actual recorded image size.

Given that the topmost image in this series, the one that shows Simon in the window, was reduced to a little less than one ~~quarter~~ sixteenth of its original size, this final detail has been magnified over ~~sixty-four~~ 256 times! (Or, put another way, Simon’s nose in the final photo is sixteen times as wide and sixteen times as tall as it is in the first photo. In theory.)

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

Comments

On 13 March 2005 (09:06 PM),
dowingba said:

That is impressive. Up until a little while ago, I thought 4 megapixels was the max, and I had heard people claim nobody would ever need more than 4. But earlier today I saw an ad or something for a 16 megapixel camera. Imagine how much you could zoom with that.

On 13 March 2005 (09:49 PM),
J.D. said:

The number of megapixels in the final image is only one part of the equation. It’s not much good to have a 16megapixel image if the CCD is small. The CCD is what is used to actually “grab” the light in the first place. The larger the CCD, the more light grabbed, and the higher resolution the image, regardless of the number of megapixels. What’s ideal is to have a large CCD *and* lots of megapixels. :)

Your earlier point remains essentially correct, however: film does have better resolution right now, and probably will for the forseeable future. Still, quality prints can be achieved from digital photographs, especially at 4×6 and 5×7 sizes. In theory, the D70 ought to be able to provide crisp, clean images up to 12×16 or even larger. That’s certainly good enough for me.

On 14 March 2005 (08:06 AM),
Tiffany said:

You know how much I love your cats, but I never need to see cat snot that large. :)

On 14 March 2005 (08:32 AM),
Lane said:

In my office, I have a 10×15 print from my D70, printed at 300 dpi at (www.whcc.com). I did some basic interpolation during post-processing in Photoshop. My photography-centric friends at work, upon first viewing, can not tell if it is from film or digital. If you have any questions, let me know.

Cat Pictures

Today this space features photos of my cats. Isn’t that what weblogs are all about?

I think the cats loved this unseasonable February even more than Kris and I did. Simon, especially. He took every opportunity to lounge about the yard, to hide in the bushes, to chase birds and squirrels, and to climb his tree.

I think that, left to his own devices, Simon could perch in this tree for hours. There’s so much to see. Like the woman walking her dog down the street.

Dogs are scary.

Of course, Nemo likes attention, too. Unfortunately, I still haven’t got the hang of the new digital camera, so when I’m trying to capture action in low light with an unfamiliar camera I get blurry shots.

Although Nemo craves affection, he’s a lot more fidgety than Simon. He won’t sit still. This makes him difficult to photoraph.

Simon likes to sit in the tree, but he loves my workshop more. When I’m out there, he often scratches on the door until I let him in. He then lounges around the shop, exploring the dark corners, until he decides that he needs attention, at which point he becomes Mr. Super Affectionate (which is strange, because he’s not all that affectionate otherwise).

On Sunday, I left the workshop door open while I carried things to-and-fro. Simon decided that, despite the sunny day, and despite the attractive tree limbs, he’d rather spend his time inside the workshop, sitting on Joel’s old desk, watching the birds through the window.

Goofy cat.

Nick, giving tremendously practical advice: “Cats are worthless! Get a dog — you could train it to hunt pythons.”

Comments

On 01 March 2005 (08:35 PM),
Jethro said:

Good old Gordo. He’s still the best cat ever, even with a goofy name like Simon. :-)

On 02 March 2005 (05:25 PM),
jenefer said:

Am I losing my mind? Or were there more pictures yesterday?

On 02 March 2005 (08:03 PM),
tammy said:

Nope there were more pictures yesterday. He had more of the cat in the window.

On 02 March 2005 (08:05 PM),
J.D. said:

I’m practicing my editing techniques, particularly my photo editing techniques, as suggested by the link in the flotchbar…

On 02 March 2005 (08:31 PM),
Joel said:

Ooooh, Oregon looks so warm and green… hold on warm snap! We’re a-comin’!

On 03 March 2005 (11:57 AM),
Amanda said:

Yay! More kitty posts!!!

On 03 March 2005 (12:30 PM),
Tiffany said:

What, no photos of Toto?

Peanut Battle

There was a peanut battle outside our house yesterday. I took photos. (Some of these are blurry, or underexposed, or mangled by iPhoto. I apologize; I’m learning a new camera. Also, on my monitor at work, some of these photos are very, very dark. )

Every morning she’s home, Kris feeds the birds. She fills the seed feeder with millet and thistle. She puts peanuts and dried corn-on-the-cob in the squirrel feeder which hangs from the walnut tree. She places more peanuts in the feeder outside the kitchen window, along with a pile of birdseed and a new block of suet (if necessary).

[Photo: The scrub jays love the peanuts]

We’re not sure how the birds know to look for new food, but they do. Especially on Sunday mornings. The scrub jays are usually first to find the food, and they’re the noisiest about defending it. They love the peanuts. So do the other birds.

In fact, for a short time, our yard becomes the site of a great Peanut Battle.

We’re still puzzling out the rules to this war. Only one jay can be on a feeder at a time. If another jay swoops in before the first is finished, the newcomer is sent flying with a tremendous squawking chatter. However, if the jay on the feeder takes too long to choose a peanut (are some better than others?), a new jay can chase him off.

If the starling appears, the jays retreat. They’re scared of her. But the starling doesn’t really eat much; she simply likes to sit at the feeder, glowering at the other birds, challenging them to fight.

L: A jay lands at the feeder, R: The mean ol’ starling

L: The stupid band-tailed dove, R: The flickers perform their mating dance

A couple of band-tailed doves live nearby. They’d like to eat, too, but they can’t seem to figure out how. They see the other birds flying to the feeder, so they come over to join them, but they’re too stupid (and perhaps too big) to land inside where the food is. They land on the roof of the feeder and pace back-and-forth, staring stupidly at all the jays that have peanuts in their mouths.

While the big birds eat, the little birds wait their turn. Even the flickers — which are at least the same size as the jays and have deadly-looking bills — yield. They’re too polite. And besides, yesterday the pair that lives in our trees seemed more interested in each other than in food. They fluttered around the lawn, nodding and bobbing, circling each other. We think they’re preparing to mate.

It’s important to note that the jays don’t actually eat the peanuts. They take the peanuts and they hide them in the yard. They tuck them in corners of the flower bed. They stick them in the middle of the grass. They cover them with leaves. The jays think they’re planning ahead, storing nuts for later, but they’re really just extending the Peanut Battle.

When the feeding begins, the crows swoop in. They perch on the wires and in the branches of the walnut. They watch the jays tuck their precious peanuts away. When all of the work is done, the crows swoop down to undo it.

L: The crows work methodically in teams, R: They often find peanuts beneath leaves

It’s fascinating to watch the crows at work. They cluster in twos and threes, pacing the grass systematically. They snatch up leaves and cast them aside. They check the dirt. They find many peanuts, and they eat them instead of saving them. (In the fall, the crows gather walnuts. To open them, they fly above the street and drop the nuts over and over and over until the nuts crack.)

The picture below may not look like much, but that’s simply because I don’t have a long enough lens to show all the detail:

[Photo: a complex tableaux in which the Peanut Battle rages

That, my friends, is the Peanut Battle raging in full-force. In the left of the frame is a crow, picking through grass and leaves, searching for hidden loot. Up and to the right, you can see Filbert, the squirrel. The squirrels love the peanuts, too. (They dominate the feeder in the walnut tree; the jays yield to their mammalian nature, I guess.) Sunday morning, Filbert was scurrying around this little patch of ground looking for peanuts. He chased off all interlopers: the flickers, the jays, and and the starling. If you stare hard, you can almost discern the jay beneath the rhododendron, to the right of the squirrel. She’s hiding a nut. Clinging to the dogwood at the right of the frame is one of the flickers (the male, I think). He uses his woodpecker grip to hang from the tree while he waits for a spot at the feeder.

There are other birds around, too, of course, all playing some role in the Peanut Battle:

The leftmost bird above is a Steller’s Jay. She likes to eat from the feeder at the walnut tree. She’s not as brazen as the common jays, and is much more skittish around humans. And cats. The next photo is another (horrible) photo of the flicker. We like our flickers quite a bit, and I look forward to getting some good shots of them eventually. The third photo is of one of the two birdbaths. These get constant use during a Peanut Battle, though we’re not sure why. In this case, the robin has no hope of winning a peanut from the jays, so he’s contenting himself with a five-minute bath.

The final picture above shows a mystery bird. This bird has made a couple of appearances lately, but we can’t get close enough to it to really note its markings. It seems to have a blood-red head. Its wings are dark, with a long white stripe. We can’t recall what its chest looks like. I say this bird is a pine grosbeak, but Kris is unconvinced. (Maybe it’s this house finch we once saw at Jeremy and Jennifer’s?)

We enjoy birdwatching. It’s one of the highlights of our new house. On Sunday mornings we stand in the kitchen window for ten minutes, or twenty, or thirty, and we watch the Peanut Battle unfold.

(We’re not the only family members who like the birds, either.)

Comments

On 31 January 2005 (07:39 AM),
al said:

Nice details and photos. My neighbor hand feeds peanuts to the scrubs, so I’m going to try it soon. They seem a little skittery, but he claims they’ll take the p-nuts right from his hand. How big is the mystery bird? It almost looks like a pileated . . .

On 31 January 2005 (08:04 AM),
J.D. said:

That’s amazing that your neighbor can feed the jays right from his hand.

Kris and both estimate that the mystery bird is about the same size (or perhaps a little smaller) than a jay. I’ve only seen it once, and that was from far away (as you can tell from the photo). As I say, it seemed to have a blood-red hood that didn’t end evenly around its neck. Its wings were dark with a white stripe. (Though from the photo, it seems almost as if perhaps it has a white breast.)

According to Sibley: a jay is about 11.5 inches long, a grosbeak is 9 inches long, and a pileated woodpecker is 16.5 inches long. We did see a pileated woodpecker once last fall, and this isn’t it. The head is definitely different.

On 31 January 2005 (08:17 AM),
Tiffany said:

This is only a little related to your bird watching story.
This weekend we went to Petsmart and were amazed by one lady that brought in her 5 cats to push around in the cart! I mean what cats like to travel in the car?
But far cuter, was a second lady that parked her cat, in a cart, right next to the bird cages. The cat was really enjoying the show from only a foot away.

On 31 January 2005 (08:54 AM),
Tammy said:

Jd, we have these too and I really think they are a red breasted sapsucker; a kind of wood pecker. Read this and see: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4030id.html

On 31 January 2005 (10:13 AM),
J.D. said:

Ding ding ding ding!

Tammy is absolutely correct. I’m not sure how I missed this in Sibley, but the mystery bird is a red-breasted sapsucker. The drawing in the book looks exactly like the bird I saw. (And it’s 8.5″ long, which seems exactly right.)

Based on the drawings, I would guess that the specimen in question is young male adult southern red-breasted sapsucker. (The red on the northern variety extends to its chest, whereas the red on this ends around its neck.)

On 31 January 2005 (10:21 AM),
Lynn said:

I loved this entry. My cat and I both love our birds and squirrels.

In the magazine Birds and Blooms they sell a cardboard person to be set in a chair, it’s hand extended, to get the birds used to feeding from it. Then you can just move the cardboard person and take its place, or so the theory goes.

Where do you guys purchase your birdseed, peanuts and suet? You mentioned once that you can find suet on sale for 50 cents each – cheapest I’ve found is about 80 cents.

On 31 January 2005 (10:39 AM),
Kris said:

Lynn–

Coastal Farm store occasionally has a case of 12 suet blocks on sale for $5.99. We stocked up and bought 2 cases last time. Good thing we have a cellar!

Thanks for the bird ID help, Tammy!

On 31 January 2005 (10:56 AM),
tammy said:

Happy to be of assistance, dear cousins.

On 31 January 2005 (02:20 PM),
Amanda said:

Great entry! Now I think I will just have to buy some sort of bird feeder. In Florida it’s not nearly as exciting as in Oregon, apparently. I might see some Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, Crows and the occasional Cardinal (or usually two).

On 31 January 2005 (03:39 PM),
John said:

Great photos. The squirrel vs. bird battles continue at our place. On Sunday, *everyone* was out in the yard battling for seed. Do you ever get the flock of those small finch-like birds? They descend on the ground eating seed. Also, been meaning to ask you: what’s up with the Save Kellog Lake from the Transit Center signs near River Road? Leftovers from last November?

Sunny Sunday

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in March, the world is both dulcet and abuzz with activity.

Simon, sprawled on the couch, represents the former:

Outside, Nemo represents the latter. He darts hither and yon, pouncing on unsuspecting insects. No gnat is safe. It’s only through great perseverance that I can get him to pause even for a moment in order to snap this shot:

I’m sprawled on the warm grass. Kris is on the patio reading a book.

The world is quiet.

Or is it? There’s a constant low buzzing hum emanating from the cherry tree:

It only takes a moment to realize that the tree is aswarm with honey bees busily collecting pollen:

[photo of a bee gathering pollen from a cherry blossom]

One of the bees mistakenly flies into the house, panicking Toto (who hates all things that buzz). Kris tries to coax it outside, but in the end she has to smush it.

We have book group here tonight. It’s tempting to cancel it on account of good weather…

Comments

On 21 March 2004 (04:15 PM),
stacy said:

Beautiful animals.

Small

This week’s Photo Friday assignment is small.

I had hoped to make a photograph in which ‘small’ was represented by contrasts in scale: a small ant next to a gigantic apple, a small infant held in his father’s hands, etc.

This isn’t going to happen. I don’t have the time.

Instead, here is a previous photograph of a small object: a dandelion photographed with my 105mm macro lens (exposure unrecorded).

The Beyond the Basics photography field trip was held this morning in downtown Portland. I had high hopes for the trip, but, just five minutes in, I broke my tripod. I forgot to lock one leg segment, and as I was digging my camera out of its bag, the tripod collapsed. The cheap plastic head shattered. Since the entire tripod is cheap, there’s no separating the legs from the head. This is a good excuse to buy a nice tripod, but I can’t exactly afford it at the moment. If you know of a good used tripod for sale, please let me know.

Warren allowed me to use his tripod for the rest of the field trip; it’s a huge, heavy beast, but after using it, and experiencing its stability, I understand just how cheap my tripod was.

We spent a part of our field trip in Ladd’s Addition, a relatively nice Portland neighborhood constructed around a series of large roundabouts (they’re too large to just call traffic circles). I used call this area “the Black Hole of Portland” because before I knew the streets well, I’d often get sucked into the center roundabout and not be able to find my way out. I hadn’t ever considered taking photographs in the area, but it’s actually a fantastic location. There are several public alleyways, lots of old trees and flowers in bloom, and there’s even some relatively interesting architecture. I’ll return there myself in the future.

Next week in David Falconer‘s class, we’re taking a field trip to Portland’s Saturday Market. This ought to be fun, but it’s going to be a little intimidating. I don’t have much experience photographing strangers, and that is, essentially, what we’ll be doing.

In preparation, I did some research on photographers’ rights. I found a lawyer’s viewpoint, and some useful information from an experienced photographer.

Before class on Saturday morning, I drove out to take some photographs of a field and a barn near Gribble Road. As I was setting up my equipment, an old man from the house across the street came out to see what I was doing. He seemed wary of my presence.

He introduced himself as Paul Grand, and when I told him my name, he brightened.

“I knew your grandpa, Noey,” he said, and I knew that he was telling the truth. Grandpa’s name was Noah, and only his friends and family called him Noey.

“Your grandpa used to get tired while driving, and he’d stop to take naps along the way home,” Paul said. “I’d drive home from work — I worked at the Oregon City post office — and see Ol’ Noey parked along the side of the road, sleeping. One day he ran his car off the road right up there” — and Paul pointed to a ditch near the Van Gordon house — “and I was outside so I ran up to make sure that he was okay.”

“‘Are you alright?’ I asked.”

“‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was tired, but I thought I could make it home. I guess I fell asleep while driving.'”

Paul and I talked for about ten minutes. His daughter graduated from Willamette University, so he was excited to hear that I had, too. He told me about other people that had photographed his property (which extends on both sides of the highway). In the end, he granted me permission to access his land at any time, even the property set back from the road. Outstanding! I’d been eyeing an old barn of his for the past few weeks…

Water

This week’s subject for Photo Friday is water. Fortunately, I’ve already created an image that will work: I still like this photograph of the South Falls at Silver Creek Falls State Park.

[Long, tall photograph of South Falls in which the falls is white against a black background]

This photograph was made with my 20mm wide-angle lens. The mist from the falls had coated the lens (explaining the blotchy effect in the upper-right of the image), and I was very panicky about taking the photo from my tripod. I snapped the image and then yanked off the camera and tucked it in my sweatshirt to dry.

Warren hates the light spot in the upper-right. He says it detracts from the impact, pulling the viewer’s eye from the subject, and he’s probably right. Does it lead your eye away from the waterfall? Personally, I like the effect. It gives the photograph an almost sacred tone.

Comments

On 21 April 2003 (12:04 PM),
J.D. said:

Oh yeah — the other key feature of this photograph is that it is underexposed. The meter read the light from the sky and from the waterfall and stopped down the aperature (I had the camera on autoexposure at the time). I feel this works better than if I had made a “correct” exposure in the first place, revealing the detail in the ferns and trees and trails on the other side of the falls.

A Wonderful World

iMovie (and all of the iLife applications) are more difficult to learn than Apple probably believes they are.

There’s little documentation. There are no tool-tips. There are no printed manuals. There are on-line docs available for each application, but they are not only inadequate, they’re also difficult to search.

If one wants to learn how to use, for example, the Ken Burns effects in iMovie, it’s a frustrating beat-your-head-against the wall plow-through-it kind of experience. I hate it.

I’ve had to puzzle over the interface several times: Why does iMovie keep resetting the zoom I just set? I rotated this photograph in iPhoto, why doesn’t the change appear in iMovie? Why do I lose time when I add this transition? How do I keep from losing time? How come the updates don’t take effect when I try to alter the slide transitions between frames? Why doesn’t the export command display the estimated file size (and time to export) so that one doesn’t start a high-quality Quicktime export if it’s too big? Etc.

Yes, I know it’s a free product.

Apple markets its applications as easy-to-use. They may be, but they’re not always easy-to-learn. I know that Apple’s marketing machine should be ignored because it’s prone to hyperbole and little white lies, but I expected the iLife applications to be easier to learn. (I’ve had terrible trouble with iTunes, also — a clumsy, clumsy application.)

Despite my complaints, once learned how to use iMovie, I was able to work efficiently. Once I learned to use iTunes, I was pleased, too. My complaints are with the initial ease-of-use, the lack of documentation, and the poorly designed interfaces, not the power and usability of the applications for experienced users.

Last night was the final session of our photography class. Seven die-hards attended (of the eighteen who started the class) and shared slide shows and enlargements.

Only three of us completed the “What a Wonderful World” slide show. Warren confessed that he hadn’t expected anyone to complete it — it was time-consuming and required a lot of effort, and he had given the assignment just to see what we might accomplish.

The three of us that completed the task each took a slightly different approach. Sue used 70+ traditional slides (all of them brilliant). Larry captured ~30 digital images (many of them brilliant) and converted the project to digital video tape and played it on the television. I used ~40 images (few of them brilliant), displaying my slide show in iMovie on my iBook.

Though I’m satisfied with my completed project, it’s not nearly as good as it could be. I know more about scanning negatives now, know more about iMovie, know more photography in general. If I were to undertake the project again, I’d have a better idea of what to do.

Here is my slide show (6.08mb, Quicktime file): What a Wonderful World (click to view in your browser or right-click to download)

After viewing the slide shows, we displayed our enlargements. Five of us brought a total of 33 photographs. The results were impressive. Nearly every photograph adhered to Warren’s tenets: get closer, eliminate extraneous elements, etc.

We voted on our favorites. Sue’s gorgeous photograph of a lighthouse silhouetted against fiery clouds at sunset took first place. Larry’s lovely pastoral image (white fence, plum trees in bloom, rolling hills) was voted second place. Two of my images tied for third:

The cat climbing the ladder won the run-off. The class knew before-hand that this photograph was not taken during class, but they liked it enough to keep it in the pool from which we voted. The prize for third place was a roll of 3200-speed (!!!) black-and-white film. (The prize for first place was an old box-camera from Warren’s collection.)

It was a great class session. Several of us exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and discussed plans for future photography courses.

Now I’ve discovered this site’s raw log files. What fun!

Google search terms that led people here yesterday (in chronological order):

fun house JD Roth downloads
she’s come undone
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
earth below us drifting falling
crack total club manager
where the gin is cold and the
Plot summary a thousand acres
Wgpoadmn.dl_
scrabout download
john krakauer
oregon crime lay layoffs
Geraldine Brooks
mac copy bubbler
scrabout
chatwin songlines criticism
geek love dunn
amy sherrard
ulrich midwife commentary
Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion
Bagel dog facts
Bagel dog facts
photography neon signs
blueberry candy “blueberry candy” -daylily
timothy ferris milky way
literary review for snow falling on cedars
sienkiewicz original sale
tender is the night by f. scott fitzgerald
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Warcraft III Access Violation
Contextual selectors
The rapture of canaan information
natural history of the senses touch ackerman
suskind perfume
suskind perfume
Dialect Survey
interesting quotes from Into Thin Air
new arrival…congratulations mom rest
Quotes from Into Thin Air
holding pattern response
robert pirsig
Jon Krakauer quotes
discussion of perfume patrick suskind
all the pretty horses symbolism
Ursula Leguin Biography
the power of one bryce
U Penn Off the Beat sheet music
a thousand acres book summary
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
How do I know what I think until I see what I say
power of one bryce courtenay
best clam chowder

Holy cats! All of that info can be found on this side, to some extent. My favorite search is: blueberry candy “blueberry candy” -daylilies. And note: nobody searched for milky women. Also note that there were no hits for Helms Deep — my review of Peter Jackson’s Helms Deep shuffled off Google’s front page a few days ago, so I’m not longer getting hits on that page. Google has a strong influence on page popularity.

Comments

On 14 March 2003 (07:42 PM),
Paul said:

JD,

I really liked your final project. It was fun to see how the photos we’ve seen over the past few weeks (months?) were used for the song. I hope I’m not over-stating it but I think that you’ve started to yank that song back over to the pleasant side where it belongs after the damning treatment it got int “Good Morning Vietnam”. (Can you do one for the song “Blue Velvet”?)

Paul