What are you up to?
- Thread starter brianvds
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Ellen Easton
Was Ellen E. on Wet Canvas
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I'll get some photos of my beadwork to post one of these days. I had tons of them but in a computer "death" I lost a lot of them.This sounds exciting, Ellen! Congrats on moving to a larger place. The area sounds beautiful, with a lot of painting inspiration!
Glad to hear you're feeling better. It's hard to get inspired when you have to battle through the aches and pains just to get set up.
I'm looking forward to seeing your work with the beads, and the greeting cards sound fun! What kind of wax finish goes over that?Like a cold wax medium?
I posted a photo in another area of the forums of the cougar my son caught on his game camera and I was very sad (but I do understand) when I saw this photo and story on Facebook awhile ago. I hope it wasn't our "resident cougar". But this one killed someone's goat, and the man carrying his body is 6'1" so you can see how huge these animals are. I can't help being very sad. They were here first and we do live in cougar country. The prey animals would be better enclosed in a shed or barn where the cats can't get them but I know it's not always possible. Anyway, where this one was killed wasn't that far from us as the crow flies and cougars do have a huge territory. I used to live in Cottage Grove and one of them tried to go into our pharmacy right downtown one day many years ago. He also used to sit on a hill and watch the town. I love cougars and can't help feeling grief over this loss. I wish there were some better way than to have to kill them, but they're ferocious, dangerous predators and if they're a problem, they really can't always just be relocated.
In northern California two brothers were attacked a couple days ago. One was killed and the other severely injured. The one I call our "resident" make sme quite nervous because there are children who live in this park, for one thing, and to see him prowling by over on the creek during the day or sitting and yawning at the hiking trail opening in the early morning really wasn't safe. Cougars don't usually show themselves to people at all, much less hang out around an RV park. Many of our residents walk their small pets on leashes and they do it sometimes after dark. I personally never go outside after dark. Big coward. lol Not really, I'm just very respectful of something that might like to eat a chubby granny for a midnight snack. The place I'm moving to has garbage cans with bear claw marks, too, because there's a mama black bear here who has been caught on game cameras.
On a lighter note, once a whole herd of elk came strolling up our creek. So there are elk the cougars up here can hunt but I don't know how easily they could bag an elk.
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Wow, cougars are huge. We have one species of wild cat here, imaginatively called the wildcat. Very rare to see, they're restricted to just a few of the forests in Scotland. There's is a lot of conservation work going on to stop them going extinct, they have a tendency to breed with domestic cats and it's thought that there may be very few, or none at all, pure wildcats left. They are being bred in wildlife parks and released, but it's unclear as yet how they are really getting on. I've done a few wildcat surveys, setting up cameras, but have never been lucky enough to see one.
Enyaw
old man
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maybe not but ironically they give rise to the spikes on the roses .. connectivity.
Did I read once that you didn't care who painted using your photos as reference?
brianvds
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Yup, feel free to use any photos I upload anywhere - as far as I'm concerned they're in the public domain. Seeing as I find the public domain invaluable as reference, I like giving back to it bit.
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Happy to see you, my friend!Just getting back to the forum after a long time away. Sorry for my absence. It will take me a while to catch up, so please bear with me.
See, I didn't burn the place down - huzzah!
brianvds
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Everyone excited about coming spring, but here in the southern hemisphere signs of autumn are all round. In the garden, the last of the season's chafer beetles happily munching the last of the season's roses:
Grasses ripening:
And the forlorn wing of a grasshopper:
Probably my favorite time of year - the summer heat is gone, but not cold yet. Just lazy, mellow days.
Grasses ripening:
And the forlorn wing of a grasshopper:
Probably my favorite time of year - the summer heat is gone, but not cold yet. Just lazy, mellow days.
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Brian, I agree - the transitional seasons are the best!
We watched yesterday's eclipse from our back yard. We were told our area was 99.2% in the path of totality, and I believe it. It definitely grew darker. The light got very strange - dim, but with daytime-area shadows, not long evening shadows associated with the dim light. It seems a minor thing, but clearly our minds have this subtle stuff hard-wired. Something was "off."
The temperature dropped. The birds had been chattering wildly, then suddenly grew quiet. We were peering through our glasses and saw only a thin sliver of sun. Then I noticed the bizarre look of the tree shadows on our deck.
I was standing in the yard, and it looked as though a birch tree had just appeared on the deck. The bark effect is from the crescent of the eclipse, I guess, but it all was just quite surreal at the moment. It looked like it was glowing.
A few minutes later, the effect began to fade, and it got warmer and brighter. At the moment, it's back to being very sunny and warm out there. It was a fun experience.
We watched yesterday's eclipse from our back yard. We were told our area was 99.2% in the path of totality, and I believe it. It definitely grew darker. The light got very strange - dim, but with daytime-area shadows, not long evening shadows associated with the dim light. It seems a minor thing, but clearly our minds have this subtle stuff hard-wired. Something was "off."
The temperature dropped. The birds had been chattering wildly, then suddenly grew quiet. We were peering through our glasses and saw only a thin sliver of sun. Then I noticed the bizarre look of the tree shadows on our deck.
I was standing in the yard, and it looked as though a birch tree had just appeared on the deck. The bark effect is from the crescent of the eclipse, I guess, but it all was just quite surreal at the moment. It looked like it was glowing.
A few minutes later, the effect began to fade, and it got warmer and brighter. At the moment, it's back to being very sunny and warm out there. It was a fun experience.
john
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Visited a local nature preserve. The skunk cabbage was bursting out of the ground as Spring arrives. This caught my eye.
"The skunk cabbage is a flowering perennial plant and is one of the first plants to emerge in the spring. The flowers appear before the leaves and are characterized by a mottled maroon hoodlike leaf called a spathe, which surrounds a knob-like structure called a spadix. The spadix is actually a fleshy spike of many petal-less flowers. As the flowers mature, the spathe opens more to allow pollinators such as flies and carrion beetles to enter and pollinate the flowers.
Skunk cabbage has a remarkable ability to produce heat that allows it to emerge and bloom even when the ground is still frozen. During the winter when temperatures are freezing, the flower buds can warm up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which melts the snow around the plant:
"The skunk cabbage is a flowering perennial plant and is one of the first plants to emerge in the spring. The flowers appear before the leaves and are characterized by a mottled maroon hoodlike leaf called a spathe, which surrounds a knob-like structure called a spadix. The spadix is actually a fleshy spike of many petal-less flowers. As the flowers mature, the spathe opens more to allow pollinators such as flies and carrion beetles to enter and pollinate the flowers.
Skunk cabbage has a remarkable ability to produce heat that allows it to emerge and bloom even when the ground is still frozen. During the winter when temperatures are freezing, the flower buds can warm up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which melts the snow around the plant:
Bongo
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Just getting back to the forum after a long time away. Sorry for my absence. It will take me a while to catch up, so please bear with me.
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Brian - your nature photos are always so interesting, thanks for sharing. One day I'm going to buy that camera I keep threatening to buy and join in!
Terri - great photos of your trees during the eclipse. I've enjoyed seing the various photos online. The UK had an eclipse in 1999 (total i the south-west, slightly partial for me) and my main memory was how cold it got and how eerie the light was. It was pretty magical!
John - great photo. Skunk cabbage isn't native to the UK but it 'escapes' out of gardens and forms colonies, it can be a nuisance plant because it out-shades other things. I can't help but like it though, it's so weird!
Terri - great photos of your trees during the eclipse. I've enjoyed seing the various photos online. The UK had an eclipse in 1999 (total i the south-west, slightly partial for me) and my main memory was how cold it got and how eerie the light was. It was pretty magical!
John - great photo. Skunk cabbage isn't native to the UK but it 'escapes' out of gardens and forms colonies, it can be a nuisance plant because it out-shades other things. I can't help but like it though, it's so weird!
john
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That's very interesting Terri. It just occurred to me that this was probably the pinhole camera effect? At any rate your pic of this is the first I've heard of this phenomena which is surprising.
Found this article about it. https://fox59.com/news/national-wor...-shaped-shadows-that-occur-during-an-eclipse/
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Great link, John - thanks for this!
brianvds
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Great link, John - thanks for this!
Yup, anything with little holes or that will have the same effect can be used to view the eclipse. If you Google "eclipse pinhole camera effect" you'll see plenty of examples, including this cool one, done with a colander:
No doubt the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will approve.
Of course, a pinhole is not only good for viewing eclipses; when the sun shines through it, forming an image, you are observing the sun. But the image is too small to be of much interest. It's not like you can see sunspots this way, except perhaps unusually large ones.
Pinhole cameras are fun things in a general sort of way. Here's a blog post from many moons ago, when I played around with one:
Well, waddya know, I see one can indeed possibly observe sunspots with a pinhole camera:
Pinhole Sun Viewer – AfH
afh.sonoma.edu
brianvds
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Yesterday I accompanied my landlady to go fetch her daughter at a fancy spa some way out of the city. Turns out the place is practically overrun with monkeys. Unfortunately, the late afternoon light, and the inability of monkeys to remain still for more than a fraction of a second at a time, did not make for very good photos.
Artyczar
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That's what I was going to say about this place!
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I think you did well to get these shots considering the active little subjects, Brian! Good job.
Personally, I'm not a fan of them and wouldn't be impressed by a spa that was overrun with them like this. Icky!
I'm not focusing on my own art right now - trying very hard to get the garden and patio into shape. It's been a rainy spring here so dragging on a bit.
Came back from a local nursery with some annuals, tomato plants and herbs:
I've only been able to get a few of the flowers potted because of rainy weather, but at least it's a start.
Personally, I'm not a fan of them and wouldn't be impressed by a spa that was overrun with them like this.
Icky!I'm not focusing on my own art right now - trying very hard to get the garden and patio into shape. It's been a rainy spring here so dragging on a bit.
Came back from a local nursery with some annuals, tomato plants and herbs:
I've only been able to get a few of the flowers potted because of rainy weather, but at least it's a start.
brianvds
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I think you did well to get these shots considering the active little subjects, Brian! Good job.
Personally, I'm not a fan of them and wouldn't be impressed by a spa that was overrun with them like this.
They are indeed problematic, and baboons are even worse. But people think they're cute and keep on feeding them. Of course, if you don't feed them they'll steal what they want anyway.
Indeed wonderfully exotic looking. And alien-looking, like something brought over from Barsoom by green visitors with six limbs each.
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