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Exposed

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We had a full moon last night and I went out to experiment with some long exposure shots using my phone’s camera.

I have a mini Gorilla Pod that I bought before the move, but haven’t had a chance to use other than testing it when I first bought it. I was able to use it to attach my phone to our driveway gate for a few shots, then at one of the wagon wheels on the fence beside the gate for a few more.

First, my favourite of the bunch.

This was taken from the wagon wheel beside the gate, using the manual setting on the camera. To be honest, I can barely see the numbers on the screen, so I was really winging it when adjusting the settings. For this one, it was taken using f/1.5, 4 second exposure, ISO-50.

This one was taken just a few minutes earlier, from the gate.

It’s a terrible picture, but it demonstrates just how much colour and brightness a long exposure can capture, even in the dead of night!

f/1.5, 30 second exposure, ISO-3200.

While I was taking shots at the gate, I flipped the camera and took a shot of the sky. So this next photo was taken in the exact same location as the bright photo above; just pointing the camera lens straight up.

I was really surprised by how blue the sky turned out! Other pictures I tried later, with longer exposures, from further down the driveway had a black sky. Possibly because this area was much brighter from the full moon?

f/1.5, 10 second exposure, ISO-1600

I’m rather liking this little Gorilla Pod I have! One of these days, I’ll even be able to use it for the purpose I bought it – once I reclaim my crafting table. :-/

The Re-Farmer

A cool find!

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This morning, after dropping my daughter off at work, I took the time to check out the beach and take a walk.

It was really quite gorgeous.

As always, I keep an eye out for interesting things washed up by the waves and tides. For myself, I look for interesting rocks. For my older daughter, I look for interesting… anything.

And, wow, did I ever hit the jackpot today!!

At first glance, I actually thought it was some washed up, crumpled plastic or something.

I’ve found the odd jaw bone of a fish before, but never an entire skull! It’s pretty big, too. About the size of the palm of my hand. Slightly longer, in fact.

I have no clue what it is, though. That bone “sail” at the back of the skull is fascinating.

Does anyone recognize what it is?

Also, it rattles. There is something stuck inside the skull. Sounds like a small pebble.

As I write this, it is being disinfected! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: a new home for Mary

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My older daughter was a sweet heart and set up my mother’s concrete statue of Mary. We discussed a few possible locations, and decided on the space beside the mock orange, at the clothes line platform.

I had done some clean up there, then mulched the area, so she moved the mulch and tried to dig down to place the block.

She found a stump of a root, so she placed the block with one of the openings over the root, then stuffed the openings with straw mulch.

She also found…

A whole bunch of strange things buried under there.

One of these sticks is actually a long bone!

So now Mary has a new home.

Also, I have the best daughters. :-)

The Re-Farmer

A strange find

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Whenever I am able to go to the beach, I keep an eye out for interesting things. Especially for things for my daughter’s collection. We sometimes joke about her habit of picking up random things she finds on the ground! :-D

The last time I was at the beach, I made an unusual find that I thought was funny enough to take a picture to send to her.

I wasn’t actually going to pick it up, though…

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Temporary

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With the recent rains and the cooler temperatures, I decided it was time to figure out how to burn the rotten wood I had cleared out of the old wood pile.

I had a bit of a conundrum.

The burn barrel was full, along with a bin beside it, but I didn’t want to use it, because it’s so close to the big pile of branches we’ve been clearing out.

The best place do a burn is in the outer yard. After walking around and deciding on the best spot, I hooked up the remaining usable hoses to the one new hose I got. It gave me a total of 150 feet, but it wasn’t enough to reach where I had wanted to set up. I had to set up closer. At least this put me on a gravel base.

I dug out a large metal ring that has been sitting in the spruce grove for who knows how long, and rolled it over to use as a fire pit. Bits and pieces of rusted out metal broke off the inside as I rolled it over that I had to go back and pick up. The last thing I need is to have one of those slicing open a tire. I also found a sheet of metal near the barn to use as a base.

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Just a bit more…

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I wasn’t able to get back to working on getting the tire planter out (I can wiggle it a bit more, though! :-D ), but yesterday evening I decided to deadhead the spirea by the storage house.

I also cut them back from the grapes they were starting to encroach on again.

As I was doing that, I noticed some dead branches and figured I may as well take them out, too.

And those other ones.

Oh, and there are a few more…

Just a bit more…

The next thing I knew…

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Old kitchen garden, retaining wall progress

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I am so happy I was able to get back to working on this today!

It is now basically finished for this year!

Here is where I started today.

I loosened the soil and leveled off the space where we could fit 1 more of the chimney blocks. In the process, I realized that I could completely miss the bunch of chives. However, I wanted to add a block to form a corner, so I decided to dig some out for transplanting, first.

After discussing what we wanted to put in these in the future, we decided to transplant just some of the chives into two blocks, just inside the corner. The bottoms were stuffed with mulch, then topped with peat, before transplanting. More peat was added, later.

I then went to work on the opposite corner, which had a bit of a problem.

That metal fence post is every so slightly in the way.

The ground here also started to slop upwards towards the house on this side, so I had to level the area by taking soil away from the area. On the other side, I had to level the soil by adding to it!

As for placing the block, I found I could push the metal post aside, just enough for it to line up right.

After everything we jammed in and settled into place, the post ended up being very close to straight, still. So I was happy.

On to the next step!

I raked the mulch I had moved aside, right up against the blocks, then used some of it to jam into the openings until they were filled to about an inch or two from the tops.

Next, I put a layer of peat on top of the mulch.

As I worked my way down the line, I added more mulch to some of them before adding the peat, just to make sure there was a deep, tamped down layer.

I then gave all of them a thorough watering, to give the decomposition process a bit of a head start – and wash off the tops of the blocks a bit.

As it breaks down, I expect the mulch and peat to sink by an inch or two. That will give us the space to add soil as we plant things in them.

As for the small openings, my daughter and I talked about filling them with sand or gravel. I don’t mind the idea of filling them with soil and planting things in them, though they are really too small for that. Even just leaving them empty will serve as a layer of insulation to protect the soil in the middle. However, if we were to put sand in them, it would keep unwelcome things from starting to grow in there, plus give a nice base to add garden stakes, supports, or even solar lights for lighting up pathways.

Since we’re stuck with those metal posts anyhow, I like the idea of using them to string decorative LED lights across, too. :-)

I’m pretty happy with how this area is starting to shape up.

For those new to this blog, here is what the area was like, when I started cleaning it up last year.

Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

We’ve made a lot of progress here! :-)

The Re-Farmer