A brief hiatus

As promised, here is a summer view of the workshop.

It will probably never look this nice again. I took the photo when we were first thinking about buying the place.

The previous owners were paying about $300 a month for landscaping services, to keep everything looking manicured.

We tend to favor a more natural look, probably because it involves a lot less weed-eating.

Show set-up is today. If I don't have time to update here until it's over, I'll be back on Monday.

Note: It seems that "Hello", where I'm hosting my pictures, is having a little trouble today. If the pictures aren't showing, try hitting "reload", or just try again later... sorry!

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

This is an easy side dish that can be made in a few minutes. I used 'Tenderpick' beans from my not-so-healthy plants. Sweet basil (also from the garden) was added, as were shallots from Trader Joe's.

Green Beans with Shallots and Basil

Serves 1.

1 cup fresh green beans
2 shallots
5-10 fresh sweet basil leaves
1-2 tbsp. butter
salt

Peel and mince the shallots. Tear the basil into small pieces. In a pan, stir-fry the green beans, basil, and shallots in the butter (medium-high heat). When the beans are tender, serve immediately and garnish with leftover shallots from the pan. Salt as desired.

Mystery Photo #9

** Update ** Color version of photos added July 29, .. to help with analysis. Also added link to fM's post, see below.

This is the eighth post (and 9th photo) in a series of unidentified photographs from the Charles Wiseman Family Bible. See this post for background information. Click on the "Mystery Photo" label at the bottom of the post to see all of the photographs in this series. As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.





Paper photograph on card stock. 2 3/8 x 4 1/16. Printed on back: J. E. Walton, Photographer Vevay, Ind.

Depending upon when this picture was taken, it could be Susanna Wiseman, daughter of Charles and Naomi Bray Wiseman, who was born August 2, 1850. Susanna married James Scott on April 8, 1882. Or, it could be Elizabeth Detraz, born June 27, 1871 and daughter of Eliza Banta and Julius Detraz. Elizabeth married Charles Wiseman, Jr. on December 23, 1895. They all lived in Vevay. Or, of course, it could be someone else. . .

** Update July 29, .. **

footnoteMaven has posted Dating Old Photographs :: Becky's Mystery Photograph #9 which provides a great (tremendous, awesome) methodology for analyzing old photos. You have to check it out if you have any old pictures that have not been identified. fM also provides a list of resources/books she is using for help in creating a database for a project on Washington State and Territory photographers. A HUGE Thank You goes to fM!

A bit more informaton about the pictures, based on fM's methodology:

• Category: Card Measurement ~ the picture is 2 5/16 x 3 11/16 and the card is 2 1/2 x 4 1/8
• Category: Card Thickness ~ No calipers on hand ;-) but using the method suggested by fM and described here, the thickness of the card was 8 sheets of 20 bond paper or .032 inches thick, which puts it into the 1880-1900 date range.
• Category: Color of Card ~ The front of the card is off white/light tan with a hint of yellow. The background of the image is a bit darker than the card itself. The back of the card is white, not a bright white, but definitely white.

If there is just one thing I've learned in this process it is to scan all photographs, even monochromatic, in color, to take advantage of all clues hiding within the picture. It takes more time to get a good color "match" and you have to keep in mind that every monitor will display the pictures somewhat differently, which means not everyone will see it the way you do. Now I need to find the time to go back and rescan some of these Mystery Photos and apply fM's methodology, find the resources she mentioned, and see what information I can pull from these photos, as well as that big box of unidentified pictures my Dad gave me a few years before he passed away!

Tumbleweed

Even after all that snow we found a tumbleweed hanging on the fence. There was a sunset the night of the 30th that was really nice. But anywhere I try to take a photo of a sunset from my property there is always someone elses house. This one is across the street from us. And our street happens to be a dirt road.

Grand Canyon :: First View

The sun was shining and the sky was blue when I arrived at the Grand Canyon Sunday afternoon (April 11th). Surely that was a good omen? There was just a little of the ever-present blue haze. I was early for the rendezvous with my friends Sue and Fred so I parked at the Visitor Center and walked out to Mather Point, which is usually the first view many visitors have of the Grand Canyon.

I've been here twice before but didn't venture much further than Mather Point, like many other visitors. Regardless of how many times you've been here or for how long you have stayed, or how many photographs you've seen, that first view of the Canyon is startling. There is no indication of anything unusual up ahead as you are driving across the Coconino Plateau from Flagstaff. It is, quite simply, breathtaking. Photographs just can't do it justice. But that didn't stop me from taking lots of pictures!



After about an hour of strolling along the South Rim, I drove on over to the Mather Campground, which would be my "home" for the next week. As I pulled into the check-in station, I noticed Fred and Sue standing in line - they had arrived just a few minutes before me. Perfect timing!

After getting settled into our campsites - they have a little pop-up trailer that didn't take long to get set up and I opted to not put up the tent because of the wind - we went to the Visitor Center to get maps and information and then took a walk along the South Rim. For me, it was the second time today, but as the light changes, so does the Canyon. Each viewing shows a different aspect, all are amazing and beautiful.

Summerton from my Window

Normally, the first day we are at a new place, we drive around a bit to see what is there. Since we were here so late and it was dark, we had to wait until yesterday to do our meet and greet with Summerton. This time I grabbed my camera so I could shoot some pictures from the truck window while we drove around.



I've noticed some common themes about small towns. And I'm pretty sure since living on the road, my children will never be able to have the same idyllic view of our country that they would have been allowed otherwise. Actually, none of us will. Because as much as I say these things I'll share are common, there is also an element of "can't be captured and labeled" in each place we'll visit. Like the Disco Club we saw in the middle of nowhere yesterday. Disco??? Really???? Those parts would take a lifetime and far too much bandwidth for me to capture by myself, so I'll stick to what is easier to put pictures and words around for today.



Here are the common themes that I have noticed. There are always some parts that are lovely:



Some not so lovely:

Some parts where time stood still:

Some parts where time marches forward. (I did not snap any of these places today). There is always some evidence of religion:

Patriotism:

and Education:

All of these are interesting. I enjoy them as we see them. Nothing compares to my favorite category of all though. It is the What the ?????? category. It's the things that have me wanting to stop the truck, climb out and ask the story behind it. For example:

There has to be a story behind this sign, which was placed in someone's yard. Where there were no apparent businesses around. I'm still trying to figure out the secret message. Which is most definitely proof that the message was not to me.



This really has me thinking though. If I still lived in a house, I'd want one of these in my front yard too. I could leave messages for Nathan and the kids. Like "Did you remember the milk?" Because if they didn't remember the milk, they could turn around right then and there and go back to the store and get it. Rather than go through our typical process that happens if they make it inside without milk, which is far less pleasant for both of us.



Or I could put my current mood on there, like one would the temperature. That could be really useful to my family. I could even send messages to my neighbors that way. Like "Listening to you practice drums is not nearly as fun as you think" or "If I wanted a fertilized lawn, I'd get my own dog" or "Yes, those were my PJ's" or "It was probably my child". We could keep score of the current Scrabble leader on there (usually me). Or Monopoly (usually Nathan). Or Guitar Hero (usually the boys-ok ALWAYS the boys).



This could provide hours of endless fun for me. So I'm confused why the owners of this fine equipment are using it in such a boring way. If you decide to put it in your yard, shouldn't you then use it to its fullest advantage? I might have to drive back down there today to find out what is going on there.



Oh and if you are scared after reading all of this.....if Diana were with me, we'd probably already be down there asking. And no, I'm not joking. At all.



Living the life in South Carolina.

Microburst

Wednesday's forecast predicted thunderstorms, and after a sunny humid day a rapid downpour descended on our neighbourhood in the afternoon. Later we learned that the next town over had experienced a microburst - an intense storm similar to a tornado, only with wind patterns in the opposite direction. Over 100 full grown trees were uprooted in the storm in the course of very little time. No one was hurt, but property was damaged.



The next morning I went on a ride and found the Minuteman Bikeway impassable, with huge toppled trees in close succession blocking the entire path. As municipal workers in neon vests surveyed the area, confused bicycle commuters wandered around looking for alternative routes without having to ride on the high-traffic main road which the Bikeway parallels.






The side streets were blocked. Municipal vehicles were gathering from all directions - those huge machines where you feed them pieces of tree and they mulch it up. Finally, I went on the main road and competed with a procession of buses in mid-day heat until my nerves had worn raw. Drivers were especially out of sorts that morning, behaving aggressively and honking at cyclists for simply being "in the way" - probably not realising that we had all been displaced from the adjacent bikeway and had nowhere else to be.



Riding under these conditions, I realised how spoiled I've gotten lately - forgetting how stressful cycling can be when drivers behave like this and there is no alternative route. I was getting honked at continuously for trying to take the lane. But as busses kept cutting me off and car doors swung open with abandon, taking the lane was the only safe option. Eventually a few of us formed a cluster: me, a woman in a yellow sundress on a cruiser, a teenager on a mountain bike, and an older man on a time trial bike. The cars went wild, but at least there was safety in numbers.






The pièce de résistance happened on my way home. I was already back in Cambridge and riding on a quiet MUP when around the bend a municipal carcomes charging at me head-on, taking up the entire width of the path. The guy slammed his brakes when he saw me and I slammed mine, feeling a huge surge of adrenaline. We stopped within inches of each other and I had one of those not-quite-but-almost crashes that I am so talented at. I kept the bike from hitting the ground, in the process contorting my body unnaturally and twisting my elbow. Ouch. But who cares about a little ouch; I am just glad he did not run me over. We had words, if you can call it that. Me: "You could have killed me!" He: "Sorry sweetheart, I didn't see you coming!"



I suppose the take-away lesson here is to stay off the roads after natural disasters? Easy enough for someone doing a training ride, but what about those who commute that way? I don't think the city even announced anywhere that the Minuteway Bikeway was impassable, whereas they certainly would have announced it had a major road become unavailable to drivers. Maybe when there are more of us, things will be different. I hope so.

Tangled Roots :: Time for a Change

Saturday, September 29th - - The sign at Beverly Beach State Park in Oregon states that this is an Ancient Stump that goes...

“Back to the dawn of the bronze age! This root mass was one of many buried beneath the beaches along the Oregon Coast between Newport and Neskowin. It once supported a spruce tree, which was buried when the land suddenly dropped into the sea. It remained preserved beneath the sand for 4,100 years before surfacing and breaking free in 1998. Violent winter storms washed it into the mouth of Spencer Creek in 1999.”

The root mass was quite large, perhaps 25-30 feet in diameter and appeared to be of one piece. An amazing thing, regardless of its age, with roots going off in all directions and twisting and curving around each other.



Monday, October 3rd - - The few days I had here on the coast of Oregon were incredibly nice. The weather forecast was as nice as was predicted, and as predicted the clouds and rain returned. It's time for a change...



After a great deal of thought, and realizing (among other things) that I'm just plain tired after being "on the road" for most of the last two years, I've decided to take a break from the travels for a while. I'm not saying the journey is at an end, in some regards it may just be beginning! Yes, that's rather cryptic. Sort of follows the mood I'm in at the moment.



I've been heading east for the last two days, but not back to Indiana, at least not just yet. I'll be making a stop in Salt Lake City to do some research (for an undetermined, indefinite period of time). The ancestors have been calling me and I think the time has come that more of them will reveal themselves to me! That's what I'm hoping for... The answers are out there, somewhere, the very least I can do is go and look for them. Perhaps I can make my way through the maze of tangled roots in my family tree and expose them for their descendants to see...

Summer Sandhill Crane

Boy did we ever have a nice surprise today! We headed across the border to Canada this morning to pick our own strawberries at Belluz Farms then we spent the afternoon in Thunder Bay. We picked up delicious sandwiches from an Italian deli then went to Kam River Park for a river-side lunch, followed by a matinee movie. About half-way through the drive home Jessica exclaimed "Whoa! There was a sandhill crane standing in the ditch back there!" I swung the car around and we went back for a look. Sure enough, there was a crane just off the road! It had walked away from the highway through a thin line of brush and was standing out in a swampy area less than 100 feet from the road. We watched it walk around in the tall grass for a while, all the while taking photos of it. Eventually we saw a second one a short distance away from the one we had been watching, which leads us to believe they might be nesting in that swampy area. Very exciting to think there could be a young colt somewhere out there in that tall grass!

Breaking Up

High Falls at Grand Portage State Park as the river starts to open up in early April of . This photo was taken yesterday afternoon, just before we had a big thunderstorm that dropped some heavy rain on the area. I'm going to walk back up to the falls this afternoon to see what kind of a difference yesterday's rain made on the ice and the water flow.

your last chance at free gear for a month!

Tomorrow at midnight I'll draw a member's number and give away your choice of aBlue Ice Warthog or a Octopuss pack. But you must be a member of the blog to get drawn.

Red Angel's Trumpet

A bright red angel's trumpet, Brugmansia sanguinea, at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden.

Phantom Birch Trees

Here is an oldie but (in my opinion, anyway) a goodie. One of my very first attempts at using a slow shutter speed combined with a panning motion of the camera to create an abstract image. This is a stand of birch trees in late winter, taken after sunset just as the darkness was starting to descend on the forest. This was a 5 second exposure, during which I was panning the camera slowly from left to right.







Here is another interpretation of the same scene. This is the same stand of birch trees and again a 5 second exposure, but this time I panned the camera vertically during the exposure. I also chose not to convert this image to black and white however I did desaturate it quite a bit, removing at least 50% of the color that was in the original exposure. The original image was way too blue, and I liked the feel of this one much more with the subtle color.

Upper Tahquamenon Falls

The “showcase” of Tahquamenon Falls is the Upper Falls, which is about four miles upstream from the Lower Falls. It is larger and more dramatic – it has a drop of 50 feet and is more than 200 feet wide.





But first, I had to slip this in...A “fact shack” has a nice display of information about the falls and an impressive display recognizing the comeback of the gray wolf. I was hypnotized by the stare of this fellow – stuffed and amazingly life-like.



Paved trails from the parking lot lead to the Upper Falls, so it is an easy walk. Several viewing areas along the way provide a good look at the falls.





At the end of the trail is a staircase with 94 (or maybe it was 84, whatever, it was a lot) steps that have to be taken down (and back up). But it's worth the effort to get a close-up view of the magnificent falls.











Returning to the top of the steps and following the path back, I noticed a second pathway that continued south and down to the gorge. At the end I was faced with another staircase - this one of 118 steps - that went down to the river. I hoped that the view would be worth the effort – the temperature was 80 degrees and the humidity was probably 98% - it had rained in the morning.



The views did indeed provide a different perspective of the falls...







It was awesome, in spite of the gloomy, gray, rainy day. Lucky for me, on this day the rain stopped mid-day. Photos were taken on Tuesday August 2nd.

Mt. Maude Aurora

Grand Portage is sitting beneath a thick blanket of clouds right now, but I am optimistic that the clouds will part later this evening and we will get a glimpse of the Auroras that they say MAY be happening tonight. I definitely need an Aurora fix... the last really good ones I was able to photograph were in mid-July. I've seen a few since then, but they weren't anything to write home about. They also occurred during a full moon so they were difficult to see and even more difficult to photograph. Keeping my fingers crossed for a good opportunity tonight! In the meantime, today I was going through some more Aurora shots from last year and found several that I hadn't worked up yet. Here's one from the night of September 10, .

Signs Found on Our Walk

Lovely summer day on Lucille Island

Today Lake Superior displayed an incredibly calm mood that is rarely seen. I couldn't pass up the opportunity the lake was presenting, so I headed out in my boat and spent the day photographing and exploring the islands that are near my home. In the afternoon some really nice clouds started to show up. Adding a polarizer filter to my lens really helped to accent the clouds as well as cut the glare from the water, so the shallow rocks and reefs could really show up in the images. It was an incredible day to be on the water!

Alenax: the Ultimate Vintage Freak Bike?

Looking for the perfect bike for that End of the World themed ride? I think I found it. Having seen so many crazy two-wheeled contraptions in the basements and garages of collectors over the years, I sometimes think that I've seen it all and that no bike can really surprise me anymore. And that's usually when I'll stumble upon something like this. Notice anything out of the ordinary?





How about now?






Meet theAlenax TRB 2400, the original Transbar Power bicycle. It was designed to be pedaled using up-and-down motions instead of circular motions. Presumably this was done to approximate the feel of walking, thereby making cycling feel more "natural." Here is a video of this in action.






In leu of a crankset, the Alenax sports two pivoted "transbars." I won't pretend to understand how exactly the system works, but seethis articleby Jobst Brandt andthe Alenax blogfor additional descriptions.






A stem-mounted shifter controls the gears






- on Alenax's own internally geared hub.





Abundance of cables and chains along the drivetrain.







But aside from the pedaling system, the Alenax looks disconcertingly normal. Lugs, skinny tubes, shimmery paint, tan wall tires. It's basically just a typical '80s roadbike, retrofitted to accommodate the Transbar Power system. It is also a good 5lb heavier that a standard roadbike from that era.






When Alenax came out with these bikes in 1983, they marketed aggressively, intending to revolutionise bicycle design. They attended all the bike shows, made promotional videos, courted distributors. But amazingly, the concept failed to catch on. By 1993 they threw in the towel, and all that's left today are the (apparently highly collectible) traces of their efforts. At some point more recently, it looks like there was an attempt to modernise and rebrand, but that too does not seem to have worked out.








I am doing some freelance work for Harris Cyclery, and one of the perks is getting to see things like this. Jon Harris dragged the Alenax out of the shop's basement one day, then proceeded to ride it jauntily up and down the block. "It feels a little strange until you get it up to speed," he explained, "but after that it's fine!" The bike is too big for me to ride, so I cannot confirm that. But they do have a partially assembled step-through version in the basement...