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The weekend was sort of mixed, with a dark contractor cloud hanging over our heads. The fencing job is "done" except for the parts that aren't or need to be fixed. Christine's anxiety spikes when she thinks of the done poorly, done stupidly, and not done bits. I am holding space for the owner to take a look and see immediately what needs attention. We did have my Dad look at it to help me assess the level of pickiness we were at. Christine worries that as two women, contractors see us as easily taken advantage of.
I also tried setting up the camera for some "studio" shots. I couldn't find my "green screen" felt or much of my equipment for a while, because i was looking for the plastic box it was in when we moved. Eventually, i found where i had concentrated most of my photography equipment. I still didn't see the green felt -- which may still be packed from the move -- and i have misplaced the most recent lens cap, and generally feel a sort of entropic misery. Happy news is that i was actually using the still new camera, and put on my old macro lens. It's a budget rig of tube extensions that remove any camera control over focus (use the manual focus ring) and f stop (paper wedged in the lever about mid stop). The new camera seems rather cranky about lenses it can't "talk" to. And i recalled my irritation at the change in location of all the controls, many to digital menus. Fie. So, i took photos, yay, and just sitting with the camera outside in the screened deck i became totally soaked with sweat. The air was saturated. I loaded 1001 photos into Lightroom, the application i manage and "develop" my photos -- i think i hadn't imported any images but a few of the camera trap from this year.
Photos were of the purple corn -- we'll see if i get them developed. The ideas i had wait for it to be temperate enough for me to stand working outside. I imagine making patterns out of the kernels and using the photos as the basis for fabric pattern designs, but fussy nudgig around of small bits needs a bit more comfort.
Overnight 1.71 inches of rain. That puts us at 11.87 inches in a month we normally have 4.76 inches.
I identified four new-to-me plants, and happily three were natives. Two were in the genus of St John's wort, little shrubby plants with little yellow flowers. One was in the lobelia genus: Lobelia inflata (Indian tobacco, puke weed). It's not terribly showy, but i'm glad to have preserved some colonies of it. The fourth was a singular plant out among the buckwheat: i got it before it set seed. Chinese Senna (Senna obtusifolia)
Oh no, despite the name it *is* native. Oh fiddlesticks. It was kind of attractive. Fie. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15616930 Maybe i'll get another chance.
Saturday night we stayed up late to watch the entire Amazon (or BBC One) miniseries, Ordeal by Innocence. From wikipedia i gather enough of the plot was changed that my wondering about a particular detail seems moot.
That particular detail is that, between this mystery and a Father Brown episode, i've two data-points of a fifties period depiction showing wealthy white British families adopting non-white daughters. The white son and the non-white daughter then develop a sexual relationship. Sympathetic others don't show any horror, concern, or disgust at this. My eyebrow raises at the gender and race dynamics there. I'm of the impression that sexual relationships between siblings by adoption have usually been considered "creepy" and problematic. The racial difference in these two cases underscores that there isn't a genetic issue with the relationship; would it play so easily if the siblings were of the same race? And then what if the brother had been of Chinese or African descent and the sister white? I'm used to the BBC pieces having a bit of The Society of Creative Anachronism's principle of righting past injustices (and thus the complete anachronistic non-worry about mixed race marriages is welcome), but something about these two plot lines seems ... problematic.
I also tried setting up the camera for some "studio" shots. I couldn't find my "green screen" felt or much of my equipment for a while, because i was looking for the plastic box it was in when we moved. Eventually, i found where i had concentrated most of my photography equipment. I still didn't see the green felt -- which may still be packed from the move -- and i have misplaced the most recent lens cap, and generally feel a sort of entropic misery. Happy news is that i was actually using the still new camera, and put on my old macro lens. It's a budget rig of tube extensions that remove any camera control over focus (use the manual focus ring) and f stop (paper wedged in the lever about mid stop). The new camera seems rather cranky about lenses it can't "talk" to. And i recalled my irritation at the change in location of all the controls, many to digital menus. Fie. So, i took photos, yay, and just sitting with the camera outside in the screened deck i became totally soaked with sweat. The air was saturated. I loaded 1001 photos into Lightroom, the application i manage and "develop" my photos -- i think i hadn't imported any images but a few of the camera trap from this year.
Photos were of the purple corn -- we'll see if i get them developed. The ideas i had wait for it to be temperate enough for me to stand working outside. I imagine making patterns out of the kernels and using the photos as the basis for fabric pattern designs, but fussy nudgig around of small bits needs a bit more comfort.
Overnight 1.71 inches of rain. That puts us at 11.87 inches in a month we normally have 4.76 inches.
I identified four new-to-me plants, and happily three were natives. Two were in the genus of St John's wort, little shrubby plants with little yellow flowers. One was in the lobelia genus: Lobelia inflata (Indian tobacco, puke weed). It's not terribly showy, but i'm glad to have preserved some colonies of it. The fourth was a singular plant out among the buckwheat: i got it before it set seed. Chinese Senna (Senna obtusifolia)
Oh no, despite the name it *is* native. Oh fiddlesticks. It was kind of attractive. Fie. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15616930 Maybe i'll get another chance.
Saturday night we stayed up late to watch the entire Amazon (or BBC One) miniseries, Ordeal by Innocence. From wikipedia i gather enough of the plot was changed that my wondering about a particular detail seems moot.
That particular detail is that, between this mystery and a Father Brown episode, i've two data-points of a fifties period depiction showing wealthy white British families adopting non-white daughters. The white son and the non-white daughter then develop a sexual relationship. Sympathetic others don't show any horror, concern, or disgust at this. My eyebrow raises at the gender and race dynamics there. I'm of the impression that sexual relationships between siblings by adoption have usually been considered "creepy" and problematic. The racial difference in these two cases underscores that there isn't a genetic issue with the relationship; would it play so easily if the siblings were of the same race? And then what if the brother had been of Chinese or African descent and the sister white? I'm used to the BBC pieces having a bit of The Society of Creative Anachronism's principle of righting past injustices (and thus the complete anachronistic non-worry about mixed race marriages is welcome), but something about these two plot lines seems ... problematic.
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