Berry Season

 

On recent dog walks the dogs and I have been browsing on the ripe berries.  I'll stop to pick berries and I notice that the dogs are chomping away at the bushes too. My harvest has all been in the realm of immediate gratification, and I have not been picking berries into a bucket and freezing them.  In the park yesterday I found and ate salmonberries, blueberries and 'Russian berries' - Russian berries are a yellow variety of salmonberries. I think my favorite are the Russian berries.

For some reason I've found that the salmonberries seem juicer and more tasty under the trees in Abercrombie than they do out in the sunshine.  I am not sure of the reason for this - maybe they ripen more slowly? 

Patrick

handful of Russian berries

Garden at the end of July

 

The garden is at it's peak and is seriously producing.  Snap peas, kale, carrots, lettuce, and garlic scapes are what's on the table for dinner these days.  Some of the potatoes are starting to flower. So a couple of days ago I did try to root around the plants and see if I could 'steal' a few new potatoes.  I only found 3 tiny ones - so I think I need to wait a bit longer before trying for the new potatoes.  Last year's kale is still very good.  I eat the new flower stalks and they remind me of broccoli, but I am also letting them flower and go to seed.  That way I'll have some new kale next year!  And pretty soon I will be harvesting the new kale I planted this year.  I have too much lettuce and can barely keep on the pea pods. The slugs did get into the carrots and I noticed that they got all the carrot sprouts near the edges of the bed.  I planted some kale to fill the gap and I noticed the slugs tried to get them too.  I put down some 'Sluggo' - dog and animal friendly slug neutralizer.  So we will see how it goes.  

Right now the garden is roaring!

Patrick

Kale flower

snap peas

Lettuce and some kale

Carrots and slug browsed kale

Garlic and potatoes

This years new kale and last year's kale going to seed

Airports Yesterday and Today

 

One of my final class projects for a photography class at Harvard was people on the go at airports (circa 1986). For the project I'd take the subway to Logan Airport and spend the nights in the terminals taking pictures of people traveling. I'd even sleep there at a gate and then take more pictures in the morning.  My reasoning was to get into the airport mode so that I could take pictures that reflected that feeling.

I remember that I had to 'push' TriX film to ASA 1600 and that I had a special 'continuous agitation' way to develop it.  I also used Ilford paper and special toners.  Basically, I came up with a special way to develop and print the film to capture the airport at night.  But even 'pushing' the film to 1600 I still had to take pictures at 1/15 of a second - which was a pretty slow shutter speed.

Anyway, the top nine images in this post are photos of photos that I took of the final project prints while I was in Maine. On my way home from Maine I spent a lot of time in Airports - I even slept on a bench in Dulles.  It got me thinking of this class project.  So when I got to Seattle I decided to try taking some new 'airport' photos with my digital camera.  I used my little Ricoh GRXIII - which actually has a pretty similar lens to one I used, back in the day, at Logan (Pentax K1000). The bottom 6 images are from the Seattle airport in 2025.

Right away with my digital camera I noticed that the images where WAY sharper and I did not have to 'push' the ISO either. However, I sort of liked the grainy black and white look of my 1980's airport pictures. So in iPhoto I used the black and white filters and made them comparable to the ones originally shot in black and white.  I like them much better this way.  But they are still WAY cleaner and more detailed.

However, I found the biggest difference between the late 1980s and 2025 was that these days I do not feel comfortable getting close to people in airports.  I think it might be related to the whole 911 thing and increased security in airports.  In any case, after I took just a few I chickened out and quit! 

Patrick

Summer Flowers

Fireweed

I've been back in Alaska for a week now, and it has been sunny practically every single day. Every day the dogs and I have been taking short hikes up into the alpine.  One of our favorites this past week has been the Seismic trail up to a small lake where we have been going for a swim. On the way up and down I have been browsing on ripe salmonberries and taking pictures of flowers.

The fireweed is just starting to bloom. In Alaska there is a saying that summer is almost over when the fireweed blooms get to the top of their stalks.  Right now the fireweed blossoms are most definitely at the bottom of the stalks.  But they are moving up quick!

Patrick

Wild Geranium

Fireweed with a lot of blooming to go!

Invasive Foxglove

Bowing Angelica

Nootka Rose

Star Gentian

Yarrow

Sitka Burnet

Sun Valley Fun

 

These are some 'outside' pictures from my time in Sun Valley. I got there in the late afternoon Friday and left on Sunday so there was only one full day to play outside.  But we made the most of it. In the morning we hiked up a fairly substantial hill - it was maybe 1000 feet high.  Then in the afternoon we drove over a really scary pass to a little canyon on a river where you could jump off of a cliff into a deep swimming hole.

Sun Valley is pretty much a desert and practically all the plants were unfamiliar to me. The town planners have managed to keep development confined to the valley so all the mountains and hills do not have houses on them.  These makes it much more scenic.  Once you leave town, or even if you just look up - it is the wild west.

Patrick