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Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Saturday, April 04, 2009 8 comments

A walk around the yard

The wild violets are in wild riot all across my lawn. This was the first pic I took with my new f1.8, 50mm lens — it worked pretty good in the dim of a drizzly evening:

Violets all over the yard

Cutting one out of the herd and getting really up close and personal (with a +4 close-up filter, back to the 28-135 zoom lens):

White violet, +4 close-up filter

For whatever reason, this dogwood is always the first to go full-bloom around the manor. Maybe being between the studio and detached garage puts it in a warm spot or something:

Dogwood over the studio

Directly to the right of where I was standing for the shot above (in front of the attached garage), Mrs. Fetched put a couple of tulips in a flower bed. She’s thrilled that they’re doing so well.

Tulip

You can see the edge of the cold frame just to the left of the studio, back in the dogwood picture. I have spinach, lettuce, and onions in the three trays… of the three, the onions (on the right) are doing best so far, but you might have to click through to the Big Picture to see them. I've also got some lettuce in the ground, it seems to be slow to sprout. Maybe it’ll get going soon.

Planting trays

I don’t know if I mentioned that Mrs. Fetched and her mom really got medieval on the butterfly bushes last week. They actually yanked some out of the ground! They’ll come right back, though — they’ll take over if you let them. They’re starting to green up, so we’ll be getting plenty of buggy visitors soon…

Butterfly bushes, post-crewcut

Another plant that’s working on what Iowa Victory Gardener calls “weed status” is the oregano. It has developed a clever strategy of staying low and creeping through the winter, then shooting upward with the temperatures. I thought it had strangled the mint, but it’s still in the game… just surrounded.

Oregano

The blossoming cherry is also doing nicely, although some of the heavy wind we’ve been having knocked a few off the tree. But it’s still in pretty good shape. As I was focusing, one of the substitute pollinators came up over the top to see what I was up to… once he realized I was taking pictures, he turned the other way.

Wasp on cherry blossom

So why am I showing you all this now? Well… looks like we’ll be getting a freeze Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, with lows of 28°F. So it might all be gone in a few days.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8 comments

Violets and Business Models

While I was working at home today, Mrs. Fetched had a client in for some video work. Ironically enough, this client makes (wait for it) poultry processing equipment. I had to take a gadget out to the studio for a little shooting, and noticed the wild violets were once again springing up all over the yard (clicking the photo will give you something larger than life):

White wild violet

Going back inside, I reminded Mrs. Fetched to tell the client that I did product photography for my day job… gotta make these Shiny Things earn their keep, after all. I’d started a blog post about a month ago called “Musings on Photography and Copyrights,” but never got much farther than the title. Technology has dealt a serious blow to photography as a profession these days…
  • $1500 will buy you a pro-level (or at least prosumer) DSLR and the essentials — the barriers to entry have never been lower. But the only photo I ever sold, I took with my late lamented PowerShot (which cost about $300).

  • Digital photography itself has all but wiped out the darkroom. As an old friend of mine (who now shoots weddings) told me, “I used to spend a lot of time in the darkroom, now I spend it all in Photoshop.”

  • Scanners and computers have wrecked the traditional photographer’s business model. People are going to scan their portraits and print copies — it doesn’t matter (to them) if the copy isn’t quite as good, they’ve been trained to not care about quality. And their attitude toward copyright is something like, “I paid some hundreds of bucks for this, it’s mine!”

The guy with the medium-format camera and the account with a commercial film processing facility are still around, but their niche is truly a niche these days. Of course, there are always the people who work for Sports Illustrated or Time; major media will always need skilled photographers, even if they end up becoming web-only publications sooner or later.

The business model of the independent photographer has taken a mortal blow. But perhaps a new business model might work.

One facet could be summed up as “Photography and” or even "and Photography” — in other words, photography becomes a part of the business… and not necessarily the primary part. As I mentioned, I already take product photos as part of my technical writing job. It was something that needed to be done, and I learned how to do them well with basic equipment. But even if photography is secondary, it can provide a competitive edge to the business — if the client needs a good photo, there’s no need to contract with another person who might also take your primary work too.

The whole copyright issue needs to be addressed. With no negatives, digital photography might be best approached as a “work for hire,” the same way technical writing contractors work. Ideally, both you and your customer would hold joint ownership — the customer can fling a copy into Photoshop and mash it up or whatever, while you can license it as a stock shot or use it as part of your portfolio. To get people interested in your work to begin with, consider placing a few good shots under a Creative Commons Attribution license: this allows other people to use them (and spread them around) while you get credit for your work. You might as well make this whole file sharing culture work for you, right?

Of course, I might be completely off base. But this is part of my backup plan in case my day job goes away.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 4 comments

Yellowbells

From the Sunday photowalk.

Yellowbell

Everything blooming that day was yellow. Today, the Bradford Pear trees are blooming, and those are more white.

Friday, June 06, 2008 4 comments

First Fruits

blueberriesI was kind of surprised to see the huckleberries/blueberries getting ripe already. There were only a few ripe ones, but there’s a lot more where that came from. I think there will be enough by Saturday morning to have blueberry pancakes.

In a couple weeks, they’ll really come on the pipe and we’ll have to figure out what to do with them. Probably a pie or two.

The blackberries will be ripe in another month, and I shouldn’t have any trouble getting all we want and then some.

Thursday, June 05, 2008 8 comments

Flowers of FAR Manor: Lilies

Mrs. Fetched was pleased to see these guys blooming out front.

Like the rhodo’s, they don’t have much modesty, sticking their IBs out for all to see.

[Another smellphone shot, taken 6/1]

Tuesday, June 03, 2008 2 comments

Flowers of FAR Manor: Thistle

To follow up on the alien onion, until I have something else to talk about, I will post pictures of the flowers currently blooming around FAR Manor this week.

ThistleThis thistle was actually in the pasture on the way to the chicken houses. It’s kind of like a rose — it has pretty flowers and nasty thorns — but as Mrs. Fetched puts it: “Cows won’t try to eat roses. They’ll eat thistles, and choke on ’em. You should have sprayed it after you took that picture.”

I suppose I could have peed on it.

[Taken with the smellphone, 5/31]

Friday, May 09, 2008 4 comments

One (or two) for the Road

A couple of cellphone shots to wrap up the week…

Besides the huckleberries, we have some higher blueberry bushes growing wild on the place. They run a couple weeks behind the huckleberries, for whatever reason. Last year, I was waiting for them to get ripe and then they… disappeared. I guess the birds were waiting too, and they got there first. I was bummed out, but hopeful that we’ll get some of them this year. Maybe I’ll get some cheese cloth or hang some tinfoil around the area to keep them out.

On the way home from work, I took a ride out a back road that I knew dead-ended at a river. I just wondered how far it went and what was out there. Looks like it might have been a bridge at one time.

Well, that’s the end of the road for the flower pix, at least for now. FAR Future episodes will be posted at least on the next two Mondays, and I should be able to make it three. I hope things will continue to work out that way.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 6 comments

Sage

The sage is absolutely covered with these purple blooms now. Up close, they look like tiny iris flowers, don’t they? As long as it’s blooming like this, I really can’t cut it back. Clever little beastie.

I like the lighting in this second shot. The detail, not so much.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 4 comments

Rhododendron InSAnItY!

I needed an excuse to try out Blogger’s new “scheduled post” feature, so I went out and took pix of some of the stuff sproinging up around the manor. We’ll see how it works over the next few days.

The rhododendron out front of the garage is, to say the least, happy. Then again, it doesn’t care what time of year it is — it’s either blooming or about to. It runs down the long side of the garage and is clearly visible from the kitchen window (about 20 feet long). But this spring, it’s even crazier than usual. This particular cluster is about the size of a child’s head.

Click for larger versions, of course. I’m pretty happy with this shot; the IBs are pretty clear (although the rhodo is a bit of an exhibitionist in that regard).

I couldn’t decide which shot to post… so I posted both!

Sunday, April 20, 2008 6 comments

Flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere

Along the drivewayThere are some compensations to living at FAR Manor. One is the explosion of color we get, usually around April Fool’s Day. This year, with winter hanging on just as long as it could, things were a little slow to get moving… waiting, of course, until we were on vacation. On the other hand, this is what we came home to: everything is in bloom.





Boran2 asked me to post a photo of this episode of “When Sage Goes Wild.” It’s sprawling about 6 feet across at the moment. Iowa Victory Gardener suggests I prune it back, and that’s probably a good idea.

The rosemary (over to the left) needs a little fertilizer and trimming back, but it too is blooming at the moment. I’ll wait for it to go back to just being green (instead of green and purple) before doing much more than getting a little cutting for the homebrew (which I have yet to start, dangit!).



Oregano and mintI’d mentioned that the oregano I planted last fall was hugging the ground and slowly creeping around, under the weeds and under the frost radar. Now that things are warming up, it has made its presence known. This thing is nearly 2-½ feet across, enough to flavor a few dozen pizzas with enough left over for salads.

Meanwhile, the mint held its own through the winter and is now feeling ready to do its thing. I have a feeling these two will put on an Herbal Death Match this year.



Flowering cherryThe flowering cherry tree sits right outside the bedroom window, and stands higher than the house itself. It makes for a nice view this time of year when I’m working at home and sitting at the window.

The picture doesn’t really do justice to the tree, unless you click on it to get the full-size view.





Cherry blossom close-upJust in case you want an even closer view…

So anyway, this was a weekend of much going on (the good parts of FAR Manor tend to be rather brief that way :-P). At least I didn’t have to deal with the chicken houses… but yesterday morning I cleaned out the fireplace insert and saved out a small bucket of charcoal, maybe enough to grill out once. The Boy has been helping to start building up the fuel supply for next winter, and he’s about ¼ of the way there.

After lunch, we started shopping. The lawn mower had Epic Fail last fall, so we started looking for a new one. I decided I’d rather spend a couple hundred bucks and get something that won’t give us a bunch of grief, and ended up with a Cub Cadet. Mrs. Fetched went berserk in the garden section at Home Despot, and I picked up a couple of annual herbs — purple basil? Must try! Finally, I learned (much to my dismay) that the only place that sells composting bins around here is Wally World.

So we got home, and I put the lawn mower together (mainly the handle) — then realized we had no gas. Daughter Dearest had been pinging us occasionally through the day about getting cat litter while we were out, but Mrs. Fetched’s dad was with us and he was getting tired before we managed to get to the grocery store. So once more into a vehicle, and off to the grocery store. We got cat litter, and much more (of course), then stopped to fill a couple of gas cans on the way back. Naturally, it was dark before we returned home, so the lawn had to wait.

And wait some more. Mrs. Fetched was hot to get those flowers planted. She knew I wanted to deal with the lawn, so she simply had me drag out the Mantis and dig up the beds. I got most of the weeds out from around the oregano as well. But when I was done with the lawn, I was dragooned into digging holes for the larger stuff. Again, it was getting dark before we finished… so I guess Mrs. Fetched can try getting The Boy to do some weed-eating this week.

I’m ready for bed. Back to the office, where I can maybe relax a little.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008 5 comments

Revenge of the Pines

Pine flowersIt’s that time of year again.

Planet Georgia, being one of the original 13 colonies, has a long history of environmental abuse. The old-growth forests of Southern Pine or hardwood are long gone, with the exception of some truly impressive hemlocks I’ve seen along the Appalachian Trail.

Development, especially in the Atlanta area, involves mowing down every single tree as a first step. Sometimes they’ll plant replacements. Sometimes. Usually ornamentals, lashed down with guy wires and surrounded by pavement to prevent them from escaping.

Somewhere around 1985, we hit a tipping point of sorts — and the pines started to fight back. Atlanta has never been The Place To Be for allergy sufferers during the spring, and things have only gotten worse since then. The official pollen count can get crazy this time of year. A pollen count over 120 is “extremely high” — and during dry spells it regularly soars above 1000, 3000, or even 5000. I think it actually hit 10000 once or twice. I think they need to add some ratings to the scale: “Ridiculous” up to 1000; “Judas Priest!” up to 3000, and so forth.

Pine trees are, as a matter of vengeance, a major contributor to the pollen count. On windy days, I’ve seen yellow clouds of pollen flying from the trees (you can grab a limb and shake to get the same effect). It doesn’t matter what color your car is — around here, in springtime, it’s yellow. Don’t bother washing it off; you’ll just have to do it again tomorrow. And every spring, they’re standing along the roadside, giving us all the finger.

I’m not allergic, thank God, but I still feel it when the pollen count gets above 5000 or so. Fortunately, rainy days like today rinse out the pollen and bring relief to the allergic.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12 comments

Flowering trees

Flowering treeMore sproing! — these are trees at a nearby church. There are similar trees in a traffic island on the way to work; I was going to grab a shot of those last week from the motorcycle, but the light turned green before I had a chance.

If anyone is keeping score, I took this one with the cellphone… the light was strong enough that I felt confident about getting something usable.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2 comments

Sproing!

Mater sproutsI had gone into the studio Sunday to grab a couple of tools I’d left in there, and saw no sprouts in the starter pots.

What a difference a couple of days makes. I checked again yesterday evening, and nearly all the tomatoes have sprouted — one tray has Rutgers, another Tommy-Toe (seeds from some friends), and the third is the little yellow pear tomato that volunteered from nowhere in the herb bed last year (the latter are very sweet and keep for a long time). The sprouts are bent over because they were covered in plastic (on the advice of Mrs. Fetched’s mom) and weren’t able to push the plastic out of the way on their own. Naturally, I didn’t mark them and have no idea which one is which. The peppers are still thinking about things and remain covered.

At the bottom left are some basil and cilantro I planted from saved seeds. I see one in each tray, so they’re beating the peppers up…

Sunday, March 16, 2008 5 comments

Spinning Wrenches, Spinning Air Columns

Ah, spring… when a young man’s fancy turns to— HOLY $#!+A TORNADO!!!!

The first Big One of spring paid a visit to downtown Atlanta, and took in many of the tourist sites: the Georgia Dome, Phillips Arena (interrupting a Hawks game in overtime), the CNN Center, and many many more. The usual Saturday cartoon fest was thrown aside for a wall-to-wall news orgy of the Disaster On Our Doorstep (DOOD!).

But more storms were on their way for the afternoon, and we had stuff to do, so we turned off the TV and got to it. The Boy miraculously showed up in the morning when he said he would, which took the pressure off me to once again throw my plans in the dumpster and tend to the chicken houses (wasn’t gonna happen anyway). Big V’s husband came by with his trailer; we rolled the red Civic (which has stopped shifting) onto it and took it to the mechanic. From there, I went on to the motorcycle shop and their “sidewalk sale,” shopping list in hand and rear wheels from both motorcycles in the trunk. As I’d hoped, heated gloves were in the discount bin, so I found a pair that fit me and scratched that one off my list. Then it was off to the parts counter for some serious denting of the checking account (recently augmented by the addition of a bonus check). I came home with:

- a cargo rack for the Suzuki (a miracle: they had it in stock!)
- heated gloves
- brake pads for the Virago
- the Virago rear wheel, with fresh rubber
- fresh oil for both bikes, filter for the Virago
- chain lube
- cable lube (plus a lube tool)

Stuff I’ll be picking up later in the week:

- Suzuki rear tire, with fresh rubber
- Acerbis 4.25gal tank for the Suzuki
- garage stand

I got home just in front of the rain, and found the all-day news-orgy had shifted from the past to the immediate future: a pair of strong storms were heading in from Alabama, killed some people in Polk County (terrible news there), and continued almost due east at 50mph (those spring storms move FAST) in single file. The weather dudes were waxing poetic over their new technology, that allows them to build 3D models of storms and display them in different ways, and to zoom in on the immediate area and show roads and locations that were in the path of the storms. This particular storm was highly radar-genic, so they were having all sorts of fun showing us just about everything they could do. As it turned out, the really bad parts of the storms (F2 tornadoes, 2" hail, 70mph winds) went 10 miles south of us. After things died down a bit, I headed to the garage to work on the bikes.

I got the wheel back on the Virago, with only the usual difficulty plus a brain-fart (where’s the spacer? duh, I left it on the axle so I wouldn’t lose it!), then put the cargo rack on the Zook while draining old oil out of the Virago. I was about to tackle the brake pads, when Mrs. Fetched asked if I was interested in food. Being 6pm (already?), I realized I was ready to eat. Of course, Mrs. Fetched rarely delivers the whole story: we had to stop at a couple of places to pay bills. The second place was Home Depot, and we picked up a couple minor things while we were there — including a new light fixture for her closet. We ate (at Up the Creek) and then got to Office Max, five minutes before closing, to pick up card stock for Daughter Dearest’s graduation invitations.

After church, I’ll finish up the Virago brakes and wire in the heated gloves, then perhaps I’ll take a (ahem) short ride! The Boy came in with Snippet a few minutes ago, “disappointed” that he missed his shot at the chicken houses, but willing to come to church. Time to jump in the shower and get ready…

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3 comments

(Basil) Survivor: Winter

Surviving plantI brought three basil plants in for the winter. As you can see, one managed to make it to spring. But it looks like it will live long enough to go back outside when it stays warm.

I’ve got plenty to do and not enough time to do any of it. At least Daughter Dearest’s car (which has been spewing oil) turned out to have the cheap problem: a bad oil sensor gasket.

Thursday, May 03, 2007 6 comments

Plants, flowers, bees [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: I added a picture of the mountain laurel.]

Mrs. Fetched snagged me from the comfort of a lounge chair this evening, where I was reading Cell, to plant a few things out front in the dusk. I dug, she planted, and we both scooped dirt back in.

Mountain LaurelLooking out the bathroom window this evening, I saw a huge mountain laurel in full bloom down at the edge of the woods. Click the picture for a closeup of the flowers.

Some of the lilies that run riot around the manor grounds are also starting to bloom, purple varigated with white, that look somewhat like large versions of the wild violets that I couldn’t get rid of even if I wanted to.

The mountain laurel was getting plenty of attention from the large carpenter bees, and my strange old friend the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth was also getting in on the pollination action. I haven’t seen any honeybees in about a month, when they were buzzing around the wisteria. Colony Collapse Disorder is a terrible thing to have happen, but it looks like other bugs are already picking up the pollination slack. I hope so, anyway.

Are you seeing honeybees at your place, or are other bugs stepping in?

Sunday, April 15, 2007 5 comments

Ridiculous

Middle of April? check
Planet Georgia? check

Now could someone explain WHY there is SNOW mixed in with the light rain this afternoon?

As if it couldn’t get any worse, my hands smell like a chicken house.

Someone just shoot me.

Saturday, April 07, 2007 5 comments

A Late Freeze

Cherry blossomsWinter, or what passes for winter on Planet Georgia, has made one final visit to FAR Manor:

A BROAD SURFACE RIDGE CONTINUES TO BUILD SOUTH FROM CENTRAL CANADA AS A LARGE UPPER LOW REMAINS ANCHORED OVER SOUTHEAST CANADA. THIS PATTERN ALLOWS COLD CANADIAN AIR TO SPREAD FAR INTO THE SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES. A REINFORCING SURGE OF COLD AIR WAS MOVING THROUGH THE AREA THIS MORNING. TEMPERATURES WILL BE NEAR OR JUST BELOW FREEZING THIS MORNING...AND MOSTLY IN THE 20S SUNDAY MORNING...


Mrs. Fetched is understandably concerned about all the flowering stuff around the manor house, and wanted me to get pictures. Fortunately, I’d already done that except for a close shot of the flowering cherry outside our bedroom window. But as of this morning, it seems the wind (strong all evening and even stronger last night) was crueler than the cold — many of the blossoms got blown off the tree. One was on the ground when I was taking pictures; I took it into Mrs. Fetched.

Fortunately, it looks like it’s going to be slightly warmer tonight than last night, and (if we’re lucky) it will stay above freezing Sunday night. The wind may have rescued much of the fruit crop in the state by preventing frost from forming.

Blackberry Winter came early this year, and stronger than usual. Let’s hope that’s the end of it.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 5 comments

Sprouting!

Basil seedlingsIt took a while, but the basil seeds I saved from previous years’ plants are starting to sprout. I was starting to wonder… and most of the marjoram pots haven’t shown anything yet. But a good dozen basil plants will give me more than enough pesto this year. I might take some to the local farmer’s market later on, when the plants are thriving in the hot sun and I have plenty.

The Pesto King is seeing his domain grow. Unfortunately, we’re in for some below-freezing weather this weekend, so I’ve hauled them all into Studio FARfetched and plugged the electric heater back in. That should keep things happy.

I also bought a spearmint plant and put it over by the rosemary last weekend. It’s already half again as big as it was when I brought it home. The parsley seems to have given up the ghost, but I can get some more. It will probably like the impending chilly weather. I need to get some more oregano, too. I thought I’d saved some seeds from the first plant, but have no clue where they went. One of The Boy’s friends probably tried smoking them. :-P


Lilac bushMeanwhile, the lilac bush out front is blooming better than I’ve ever seen before. Or I might just be paying attention this year. Trying to upstage the dogwoods…

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