Gardening: Droning On

I want to keep talking about gardening. But there's really nothing to talk about. For this year. (Look up there! Last year!)

But I could talk about the dozens of projects and crops that I'm not planning to work on this year. That could be interesting to see in some theoretical future when I have the simple garden chugging along and I have room for projects.

So, what are those possible projects?

Growing for donation. Like food banks and such. I've never grown for volume before, because we don't preserve things. But growing for volume could be an entertaining challenge.  And it could tie in with other things--for example, if I want to do a trial of multiple varieties (testing under dryfarming, or shade, or something) and lots of them succeed, I'll end up with too much food. It would be useful to already have a routine for giving excess away.

It would also feed fantasies of growing vegetables for income. That's purely fantasy, probably forever, but I like feeding fantasies.

Popping/parching grains. I've been curious about popbeans since I read the first version of Carol Deppe's Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties. And then about parch corn.  I tried parch corn, and I think popbeans, in earlier and more failure-prone years. And I seem to remember other popping grainlike things from her books. As I understand them, these are grains that don't pop explosively like popcorn, but instead sort of puff, becoming softly crunchy.

These are a gardening candidate because I have yet to find a way to just buy the grain or bean--you can buy popcorn anywhere, but not popbeans or parch corn. Apparently sorghum and amaranth and lentils can also be popped (sorghum makes adorable itty bitty popcorn; I had some at a restaurant the other day), but I suspect that I can just buy them. But I'm not sure.

All of these would, I think, be a kind of dried storage grain that I'd actually be willing and able to eat. I don't like dried bean or lentils cooked the normal wet way, and while I sometimes like polenta and I definitely like cornbread, I'm far too lazy to not only shell corn but also grind it. So they're a good choice for, among other things, the zombie apocalypse.

Tepary beans. These beans are supposedly appropriate for growing dryfarmed, assuming that you get them planted in still-wet spring weather. Of course, they run right into my dislike of dried beans. I just bought a bag of white tepary beans at the grocery, so I'll try them to see if there's any way that I like them. The interesting bit is dryfarmed beans that don't require support.

Sprawling Pole Beans. Speaking of beans that don't require support, Steve Solomon says that pole beans grown for dry seed can be allowed to sprawl on the ground. Could I get any snap beans this way, or would they get too much insect damage? It seems worth a try; I'd be annoyed to assume it won't work, struggle with supports for years, and then discover that it works just fine.

Bean Texture Experiments: I'd like to like dry beans. I don't like the mealy texture of most dry beans. So I'm interested in trying any dry bean that is reputed to have a different texture, such as the Hutterite Soup Bean.

Breeding: Snap/Dry Bean Crossover. Black Aztec corn is useful both fresh and dry. Sunshine squash is supposedly useful both as summer squash and winter squash. Fava beans are useful both fresh and dry. I have yet to hear of a regular common bean that is useful as both snap and dry.  Is there a fundamental reason why not? Does one already exist that I don't know about? Could one be bred?

Breeding: Shade-tolerant round snap beans. This may already exist, but I just read (Deppe, again) about the shade tolerance of Withner's White Cornfield Bean. They produce flat beans. We like round beans. Would it be worth playing with crosses?

Breeding: Sunflower buds/flowers as a vegetable. Supposedly, sunflower buds can be eaten. I keep growing them and not getting around to eating them. But if they're good for eating, then surely it would be worthwhile to do some breeding work

Winter Squash. Well, I'm already going to try those Sunshine squashes. If I like them, I'll try other things in other years. The premise is that while you can buy winter squash at the grocery, most of them are harvested immature and insufficiently cured.

Dried Summer Squash. Discussed in Deppe's The Resilient Gardener.  I want to like summer squash. I want to like it fresh, but so far I only like it when it's soaked in so much oil and garlic that it might as well be upholstery foam. So I want to try it dried.

There's more. Lots more. So much more. But I'll stop here.

Image: Mine.

Gardening: Seed Obsessions

Farm farm farm farm farm. Farm.

When it gets warm, all I can think of is what I'm going to plant.

I already blogged on the topic. But I can't plant any of it until next weekend, so my brain keeps spinning.

And I ordered seeds. Bad chicken! Not nearly as many as usual. But too many. So let's list 'em. Because.

• Blue Lake bush beans. As discussed. From three different sources.
• Jade bush beans, because I want to try one or two alternatives to Blue Lake.
• Adriana lettuce, because it was wonderful last year, except I don't actually plan to plant lettuce this year, so what's my excuse?
• Tohya soybeans, because if I like green soybeans at Japanese restaurants, why not grow them?
• Sunshine winter squash. This one, according to Carol Deppe, works as both a summer squash and a winter squash. So when I inevitably fail to harvest the summers squashes, the plants won't be a waste.
• Fortex pole beans. A pole bean that I hear about a lot.
• Evergreen Hardy White bunching onions. Because I keep meaning to grow perennial bunching onions. These will probably go in in late summer or fall.

I also have many, many seeds from last year. 

As previously discussed, I really need to force myself to prioritize. Let's list those priorities. The idea is that the ground must be prepped for each priority before I can move on. Except I'm cheating on that with the potatoes; they're really a lower priority than the beans.

I feel the need to define my watering rules, before I start the list:

• Strictly dryfarmed: They might get a little water to get them to the "first true leaves" stage or one good soaking after transplanting, but otherwise, that's it. If they die, they die.
• Tentatively dryfarmed: I start out as firmly dryfarmed but if they start to fade I'll start watering, because I want the harvest more than I want the experiment.
• Lightly irrigated: No more water than they seem to need to survive; if in doubt, err in the direction of watering too little.
• Irrigated: Ideally just enough water; if in doubt, err in the direction of watering too much.

So, the priorities?

• One 4X6 bed of Yukon Gold potatoes, tentatively dryfarmed.
• Blue Lake bush beans, irrigated. All three different seed sources.
• Howden and Orange Rave pumpkins, lightly irrigated.
• Tomatoes from seedlings, strictly dryfarmed. Early Girl plus one or two plum tomato candidates.
• One or two more beds of Yukon Gold potatoes, at least one of them strictly dryfarmed.
• Armenian cucumbers, lightly irrigated.
• Sunshine hybrid squash, tentatively dryfarmed.
• A Bean Experiment, two or three beds' worth. Maybe just a different kind of bush bean. Maybe the soybeans. Maybe dryfarmed and sprawling pole beans. Maybe Supai Red with pole beans growing up it. I'm not sure. There are a zillion beans worth trying; I'll try one or two this year.
• Howden Orange Rave pumpkins, strictly dryfarmed. Howden Orange Rave got near to producing a ripe pumpkin last year, on almost no irrigation. (I think it's the pumpkin in the photo.) Then we panicked on a hot day and started watering. This year I want to finish the experiment properly.  (Corrected--when I first posted, I misstated the pumpkin as Howden.)
• Costata Romanesca squash, strictly dryfarmed. Really, as long as there's space for this, it's no labor; I intend to insert the seeds into the ground by the fence, let them fend for themselves, and see what happens.
• Parch corn, if I didn't already plant Supai Red as part of the bean experiment. I'm looking at a shorter variety that apparently finishes sooner, which would be good, since ideally this dries down on the plant.

I could keep going, but it's very unlikely that I'll get this far. 

I'm also torn about my favorite Copra onions; I'm almost too late, or possibly already too late, to order plants, so I'll have to order them before I decide whether I'm going to plant them. If I added them, I'd probably insert them between the tomatoes and the second set of potatoes.

I think that's all.

Image: Mine.

POTD: Snacks. And the farm. And stuff.

I took the photo at Lardo, in Portland, on Saturday. Fat and fries. Mmmm.

I took it with a rented Fuji X100T, rented for three days because I wanted to know if I like that camera substantially more than my current camera. Not that I'd buy it soon even if I did. I'm figuring I should do this photo thing for at least a year, maybe eighteen months, and put some savings into a Camera Piggy Bank (either real or virtual in the form of an extra bank account) before I buy something like that.

I like the Fuji, but there is no lemming for it yet.  It looks really cool and retro; good. It gets great reviews; good. The sensor is bigger; good. It's pretty expensive; bad. There is no zoom; bad. Well, the lack of zoom is arguably good, but only in the sense that grated carrots are good--it would enforce discipline that I should learn. I should get used to getting close to my subject and get an instinctive feel for just how close I need to be, but the fact is that I'm not there yet. I may never be there.

The Fuji seems pretty bad for macro (look at me pretending I'm comfortable with the term "macro", when only a few weeks ago I would have said, "little things close up") photography. I read that in some reviews, and we went to the art museum and, among other photographic experiments, tried taking close photos of the netsuke on display, and the Sony did a much better job.  Macro isn't my thing, but until I've been playing with this for a while I don't actually know that it's never going to be my thing. I might be cranky if I buy an expensive camera that's no good at it. (Reminder to self: If I ever get around to that plant breeding thing, I might want good close up photos of flowers and leaves and seeds.) The Sony's capabilities are beyond my skills for a while, so there's no rush to choose a next camera.

This year I'm going to try to photograph the farm--both pure record-keeping photos and some photos that might look good as photos. Maybe.

The below is what much of the farm looks like right now, though the photo was taken around this time last year. In case I haven't clarified, lately, the farm isn't literally a farm--it's a garden of twelve wide rows, each row containing ten beds, each bed four feet by six feet, with two-foot paths between beds. So the beds are six feet wide center to center, but we're only planting four feet of that width--though the plants might reach their roots into the paths.

That means (math, math...) 120 X 24, or 2,880, square feet of growing space. We have yet to actually use all of that growing space. Last year we covered much of the farm with high-quality landscape fabric, merrily violating the fabric's warranty by failing to mulch over it. The same landscape fabric used in smaller quantities in the past seemed to hold up quite well across some years without sun protection, so we took the risk. Because weeding more than four thousand square feet of ground--the number goes up from the 2,880 when you include paths and the ten-foot DMZ reserved for eventual shrubs at the back--was never going to happen. Ever.

Ever. Did I mention ever? It took me some failed years of "farm"ing to accept that, but it's accepted now. Even the two lettuce beds in front tend to get out of control.  The fabric makes a huge difference; a few weekends ago I went out to the farm and was able to make a non-trivial dent in the required prep work for the summer garden in one little four-hour afternoon.

I suspect that the next reality-acceptance exercise will be accepting that I won't plant, tend, and harvest anywhere near 2,880 square feet of annual plants every year, even at dryfarm spacing. So we'll be slowly adding more perennials.  Very slowly. We're planning on roses, blueberries, raspberries, possibly asparagus, possibly artichokes, and so on.

I even had brief thoughts of hazelnuts, but after reading about pollinizer trees, it looks like I'd use up more than the entire farm before I planted enough trees to be reasonably confident of a crop. There might be pollinizers in the neighborhood, for all I know, but I'm not going to count on it.

Anyway. The main plan right now is still beans, beans, and beans.

And that is all.

Images: Mine.

Rambling: Garden Time

We're entering the time when the garden starts to push everything else out of the blog. I'm late; this year, I abandoned the fall and winter and early spring garden and am starting with late spring. My main rule this year is going to be, "If in doubt, plant more bush beans." It's all all all about the bush beans.

Last year, the Blue Lake bush beans failed. I planted, failed, planted again, failed, planted again, failed again, and only then did it occur to me that, oh, yeah, sometimes failure is about the seeds, not the conditions or the variety. So I got new seeds and those did just fine, but they were really really late.

So I just ordered the preferred variety--Blue Lake Bush--from three different sources. I also ordered Fortex pole and Jade bush, and plan to get some Blue Lake pole, and I still have some other bush and pole bean seeds from last year.

My other new garden rule is that I prep garden space for crops by crop priority, rather than by order of planting. So the first priority is to prepare nine four foot by six foot beds for bush beans, ready to the point that all I have to do is poke seeds into the ground--when planting time rolls around. Three of the beds are ready, and most of the rest are still in decent shape from last year. I should be able to just stir in some fertilizer with the electric tiller--half an afternoon's work. I just have to wait for the soil to be the right balance of not-wet-not-dry, and recruit someone to be ready to call 911 in case I cut my foot off.

The next priority is to similarly prepare space for...four? Six? pumpkin plants, again ready to poke the seeds in the ground. That will be more work--the ground hasn't really been broken for a couple of years, though it has been covered in landscape fabric. Though maybe it won't be that much work, because I may just dig out a bucket or so's worth of soil and then cheat by sprinkling fertilizer over the rest of the space.

Then I'll prep even more bean beds. I may pound some stakes into some of them for pole beans. Or I may let some pole beans sprawl around on the ground. I think that Steve Solomon (author of, among other things, Gardening When it Counts, and Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades) said you can do that. Though I may be remembering wrong.

Then I may or may not get around to prepping space for some Sunshine F1 squash. Carol Deppe (author of, among other things, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties and The Resilient Gardener) says that it grows good squash even when grown poorly. "Grown poorly" is mostly how I grow squash.  She says that Sunshine F1, when harvested immature, are very good for slicing and drying. We don't actually have a food dehydrator, but we have a smoker oven that maintains a similar slow, steady heat, and that might be worth experimenting with.

She says that Costata Romanesco zucchini--which are normally harvested immature--are also good for slicing and drying. I was going to grow those, too, but I realized that those are useless if I let them get out of hand and mature, while the Sunshine are no problem at all, because maturing is their usual job. And I'd get some squash blossoms for frying from the Sunshines, too.

So I guess my third rule for the garden this year is to grow plants that grow their way to a distant and flexible harvest date, rather than ones that are a waste if I don't get to them this week. Well, except for the snap beans.

I do intend to cheat and plant some potatoes in the two existing usually-lettuce-beds, even though potatoes are a quite low priority.  I may do that as soon as next week.  Then I might till two more lettuce-style beds for more when I'm tilling the beans. This is entirely breaking the "first priority first" rule. But I've been wanting to grow potatoes. And they fulfill the "distant and flexible harvest date." So I'm cheating.

So, beans, more beans, squash, more squash, potatoes.  Far fewer crops than I usually flail around with, and only the beans have to be harvested in a timely manner. Are there any beans that are high-quality snap beans AND high-quality dry beans? Then if I let a bush get out of hand, I could just let it sit there and mature its beans.

I'm skipping lettuce because too much of it goes uneaten--oddly, even though we eat more salads than we ever did. We buy those prewashed salad greens. Maybe next year that will change. I skipped the usual Copra onions because I could tell that I wasn't going to get bean space prepped in time for beans if I took the time to prep onion space in time for onions, and beans were a higher priority.

If the beans, beans, squash, squash, and potatoes get planted in time, I may have spare time for frivolities. Zinnias, sunflowers, and maybe more, late, potatoes. Or I could start some overwintering onions from seed and have a winter garden this year. Or I could put in some more perennials. I enjoy the presence of the perennials--this year we'll have several kinds of herbs, strawberries, currants, and possibly artichokes (there's a volunteer plant), without extra work. Well, without much extra work; I should really fertilize the strawberry beds.

I'm torn about cucumbers. I love Armenian cucumbers, but they produce too many fruits. On the other hand, they seem to just keep on producing, no matter how many giant cucumber-goardy things are on the ground, so why not? I can just toss the giant ones in the city green bin once in a while.

But, anyway, beans. Top priority. Beans.

Image: Mine.

Photography: Stopping Time

Tum te tum. Te tum. Tum.

Maybe this blogging-daily thing isn't good for getting any actual blog writing done. Maybe it trickles out all the thoughts and doesn't leave enough to build up any writing pressure.

Tum.

Trickle trickle.

Earlier today, I was thinking about why we like photographs of people. None of the obvious reasons seem to work. For example, I think it's not loneliness for people that we miss, because we're delighted by pictures of people that are right in the room looking at them with us. And not about a memory jogger, because we're delighted by pictures that we just took moments ago.

One thought: With a photograph, we freeze time. We can have a good long look at people's expressions and manner and gestures in a way that we can't in real life, because in real life those expression move, constantly. That's the main thing that pulls me into photographs. Expressions. Gestures. People. Characters.

Many people apparently don't like street photography, because they don't understand the point of taking pictures of strangers. I don't understand not understanding that. Strangers are fascinating. People you know are fascinating, too, of course. But that's no reason to ignore the whole rest of the world, right?

I spent most of my pre-adult years being an isolated introvert. Maybe that also explains a pent-up fascination with people? Of course, I also spent it reading hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of novels. So maybe all of those people are fictional characters.

It's a theory.

Hey,  I wrote paragraphs!

I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Rambling

OK, this time I'm going to write something. Really. Absolutely. Stuff, there's going to be written stuff. Sentences, paragraphs, all that. Yep.

So, that photo is another one from Disney. People get tired at Disney.

Um.

So, that photography thing. I notice that a fair percentage of the street photographs that I see on the the Internet are pretty or graphical or otherwise heavily about the visual. Lots of street, not always a lot of person. I seem to be almost entirely into facial expressions and gestures.

I've taken plenty of non-people pictures, but my reaction to most of them is...meh. Except for reflections. I like reflections. Usually in windows.

OK, maybe there will be not so much sentences and paragraphs, as pictures, in this post.

In fact, it appears that that is all.

Images: Mine.

POTD: Aliens!

Aliens! In San Francisco! Aiee!

Well. No. Not really. But it's a cool sculpture, isn't it?

Did you detect the pause there? Another daily post for which I don't seem to have things to say. But, still, daily posting is good, right? Right?

Um.

OK, apparently that is already all.

Image: Mine.

POTD: Bovine Sunglasses

I mostly like photographs of people, but I also like the weird. Like this, of a local shop window.

Um.

See, I was hoping that just opening a blog post would inspire me to write things. But I find my mind a blank. I did just eat dinner, so it could be a simple food coma blank.

Um.

Well, I posted, right?

Right.

That is apparently all.

Photo: Mine.

Rambling: Photography and Like That

"If you're traveling with small children...good luck with that." (Droid, Star Tours preshow.)

I've been away from the blog, playing with the camera and taking countless photos of strangers; the street photography thing. So far, I only like a few. The above, taken at the Kingdom of the Mouse, is one of them. (Click to make it bigger!) I may start doing a Photo of the Day. We'll see.

I'm slowly learning the camera and all that stuff about shutter and aperture and ISO (oh, my!). My knowledge is still around the level of "Fast shutter means I can photograph things that are moving, yay!" (And "Low light. No fast shutter. Dang.") I'm debating whether a brief photography class would speed up the process, or if this is one of those things that I learn best by teaching myself.

And I'm already eyeing fancier and terrifyingly expensive cameras. I've been listening to Valerie Jardin's Street Focus podcast.  She talks a lot about the Fuji X100 series, so in a fangirl-like manner I keep eyeing the X100T longingly. I guess you could call it a camera lemming. It's not a logical camera for me to seriously consider right now--I need to find out whether I'm going to reliably work up the nerve to get close to my subjects, first. If not, I should get something with zoom. (The X100 series has a single no-zoom, no-remove lens.)

The photography thing is weird, because one of my firm facts about myself has always been that I have no talent, not even basic competence, in the visual arts. I hesitate to question that, for fear that I'll find out that, yep, it was always true. But as long as I'm enjoying myself, why not? It is a good thing that I'm not interested in pretty; I'm interested in character. Thoughts. Faces and gestures. So I'll give it a try, and not worry about making a fool of myself.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: The Walking Hungry

"Excuse me. We'd like some more croutons."

Ashland has deer. Like dogs have fleas. Yes, they're pretty, but they eat things. Like gardens. And trees. A few years ago, a deer running from a dog crashed through the local fudge shop's plate glass window. These days, the deer are chasing the dogs. In the Halloween parade, some people wear deer costumes. Because you dress as scarey rampaging hungry monsters, right? Right.

I'm not sure if I have a point here, or if I just wanted an excuse to post a deer photo. Probably the deer photo.

That is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: More Rambling

So, that photography thing continues. I regained my nerve for photographing people, but didn't work up any for posting them. So, more reflections.

I'm not writing. I'm not sure if the photography is bad for the writing. There's no real evidence, because I wasn't writing, recently, before, either.

Um.

So.

Well.

Then.

My mind appears to be a blank.

Big blank.

An expanse of white sand, obscured by fog.

Featureless.

Yep.

A photo of that would be nice. But I don't have one. I wonder if Wikimedia Commons does.

Um.

It begins to appear that I'm stopping here.

So.

That is all.

Imagine: Mine.

Rambling: Rambling

I think Flowerpot Girl (above) was on my blog years ago. The is an old photo; I can't seem to find her right now. I hope that I'll find her someday in a clump of weeds.

Um.

It's been weeks and weeks (and weeks. and weeks. and (sigh) weeks.) since I drank a Coke, so I'm going to the next step: Starting this weekend, I plan to stop adding sugar to my iced tea. Or, well, to anything, but iced tea, and once in a long while hot tea, is the only thing I add it to. I'll go with that until the desperate craving fades, and then I'll go on to the next habit to break. Just to make it clear, this isn't about eliminating sugar, it's about eliminating the habit of sugaring things.

(Hmm. What will I do when the summer strawberries come in? Hmmm.)

The photography continues. The ethical quandary continues. So this weekend I'll probably photograph more cars and shiny windows.

Um.

Yeah, this post appears to be extra firmly in the "post something" category. So I'll stop here.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Photography again

So, I went out with the camera, while still debating those pesky ethical issues. The issues about photographing people without their permission. Those issues. So I decided to photograph non-people things, like...portraits of little tiny cars.

And reflections of the mountains, in windows:

And reflections of buildings in the windows of other buildings.

And ducks. You've got to have ducks. Quack.

I want to photograph people. I really do. I'll have to figure this out.

That is all. Maybe. But I already said that once today.

Images: Mine.

Rambling: The blog name. Just because.

So I changed the blog title to Rambling Chicken. That is, this blog title. I have the other blog that's...

Y'know, I'm going to do a timeline. Not that anyone cares, but I'm whacky.

• In October 2009, I created this blog and called it Chickenfreak's Obsessions, http://chickenfreaksobsessions.blogspot.com.
• In January, 2010 (Really? That soon?) I created another blog, Rambling Chicken, http://ramblingchicken.blogspot.com. I was going to focus ChickenFreak's Obsessions on perfume and put all the other stuff--gardening, books, fried chicken, fiction, and so on--on that one.
• Sometime around that time Himself bought me the domain ramblingchicken.com.
• In November, 2011 I decided that the spinoff had been a bad idea, and I started blogging about everything on this blog. I left a bunch of old posts on Rambling Chicken. I occasionally think of moving them here, and then I wonder about the advice that having the same content in two places is sometimes punished by search engines, and then I remember that I've never done much about search engine results anyway, and then I take a nap.
• Sometime around that time we presumably pointed ramblingchicken.com toward Chickenfreak's Obsessions. I don't know why. 
• In December 2015 I had a Brilliant Brainstorm! I would post about fried chicken restaurants on Rambling Chicken! Yay!
• Then I posted twice and lost interest. Hmm.
• Then, two or three days ago, while once again puzzling over a name for this blog, I decided that, y'know, Rambling Chicken was a pretty decent name. So I changed the title of this blog.
• So now http://ramblingchicken.com points to a Blogspot blog named Rambling Chicken whose "real" URL is http://chickenfreaksobsessions.blogspot.com.  And the blog whose "real" URL is http://ramblingchicken.blogspot.com is sitting out there saying, "What about me?! That was MY name!"
• Now I'm spending a few weeks deciding whether I like the name. And then I'll probably figure out how to switch from a situation where ramblingchicken.com redirects to chickenfreaksobsessions.blogspot.com, to the reverse. And maybe I'll move all of Rambling Chicken's content into this blog. Or maybe I'll rename that blog, oh, Rambling Annex, or something.
• Then I'll see if my already-weak search engine presence faaaaaades away.
• But I'll have a name that's fifteen percent less silly?
• Is it worth it?

That is all.

Oh, that up there? That's another selfie.  Try to identify me! Just try! Bwahahahaha!

Ahem.

That really is all.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Photography and street photography and ethics

The intermittently collapsing hobby balloon:

So, for several days I've been obsessed with the photography idea--reading websites and books, figuring out the controls on the camera, and so on and so on, and suddenly today I've hit a "Meh...why was I interested again?" wall. This happens to me periodically. I don't know why. Tomorrow I'll make a point of figuring out the latest few puzzlements with the camera, and taking pictures of something, in the hope of re-sparking. Maybe I'll walk downtown and take some random photos.

Street photography:

The area of photography that interests me most is street photography, which is a difficulty, because a fair bit of street photography is taking pictures of strangers. Usually without asking their permission. There really aren't any legal issues--at least, there's a broad range of spaces where I can take pictures without there being legal issues--but I'm still debating my comfort level with the ethics.

What ethics?

The ethics of photographing, and publishing the photographs of, strangers, without their permission.

There are some clear edges. I'm  completely comfortable with photographs of people actually performing in public--street performers, people marching in parades,  people giving speeches, and so on.  The two costumed women in the photo in the previous post are, IMO, pretty close to this category--though they may or may not have been actually marching in the parade, the whole parade is pretty much an exercise in performance art for costumed observers as well as marchers.

I'm absolutely not comfortable with photographing sleeping or otherwise nesting--is nesting a word that works?--homeless folks. While they may not have a legal expectation of privacy, it's a fundamental injustice that they don't have that privacy. It might be different if I were photographing with a coherent purpose or message, but I'm at the very beginning of amateurness, so there are no ends with which to justify the means.

What about people who have no expectation of privacy, but clearly would really like to be private? I watched a woman with a head covered in metallic bits of paper, obviously in the middle of some sort of hair treatment, rush from the salon to put money in the meter for her car, and then rush back. I decided that people who clearly want privacy in the moment would also be off limits.

OK, but...

That still leaves most of the world--the people who are out and about and clearly content to be seen. But who may or may not be content to be photographed.

Do I go with the law, which pretty much says that anything happening in plain view in a public place is fair game? If you Google "street photography" and click "images", it looks pretty clear that most photographers aren't asking for permission.

And for that matter, most people taking pictures don't ask permission of the people in the photo before they share those photos--if you take a picture at Disneyland, you're not going to run around to the sixty people visible in the frame and get their permission.

But those sixty people aren't the subject of the photo. In street photography, a stranger is quite likely to be the subject of a photo.

On the other hand, countless folks brandishing smartphones photograph whatever they please and upload it to wherever they please. On the other other hand, is that OK?

It's a thicket.

Meanwhile, another shop-window photograph. Which runs me into another ethical quandary, which is whether it's fine and dandy to photograph a window dresser's work and share that photo?

Too many thickets.

(And another you'll-never-pick-me-out-in-a-lineup selfie!)

Image: Mine.

Random Ashland Photo: Collision

The Photo:
I'm playing with old photos. This is, from the image information, from the Ashland Halloween parade of 2009.

The Rambling:
Um.

Also, um.

See, I want to write something, since I've been doing so more regularly than usual, but nothing is immediately coming to mind. Chicken thoughts, chocolate thoughts...

Nope, the brain is empty. Maybe later.

Image: Mine. Copyright me, all rights reserved, and that sort of thing.

Random Portland Photo: Living Threads Vintage

The photographic experimentation continues.

I fell in love with this window at Living Threads Vintage (I link to them because they're a dandy store, in addition to creating a dandy window), photographed it, and filtered and tweaked the photo to within an inch of its life, or at least of iPhoto's capabilities.

I'm still not sure why I'm doing the photography thing. I think it's the craving to do something visual. We'll see where it leads.

Image: Mine. 

Random Portland Photo: St. Cupcake

CUPCAKES!!!

That's all, really. I just wanted to post a thing.

Image: Mine.

Rambling: Journaling and Photography and My Almost-First Selfie and Stuff

The Journaling:

So, I keep thinking about "journaling". Now, this blog is thoroughly journal-like; what else could you call a forum where I babble about dieting, the shoes I wear, and my issues with my mother? (When I first typed that, I mistyped it as "issue." Suggesting that there was only one issue. Funny, huh? OK, moving on...)

But the blog doesn't quite entirely fill the journal gap, because (1) there's a limit to just how foolish I'm willing to sound in public and (2) I someday want to publish a book or books, and if I write every thought that I think, and publish every word that I write, why would anyone ever publish any of that between covers?

What's Your Point?:

I mention this because I'm taking up photography, as the latest addition to my already overstuffed mental storeroom of hobbies. I've occasionally wished that I had written more during the starting-up process of other hobbies and interests, because I quickly forget what I was thinking during the times when I didn't know what I knew later. (Yes, there's an incoherent breathlessness about that sentence. I'm going to leave it right there anyway.) When I go back to re-read what my blog has to say about, for example, my recent forays into kinda-fashion, there's a lot of "Oh, yeah..." about my own past thoughts, and I know that the blog posts represent just a tiny fraction of the thoughts and experiences.

I don't really think that I'll be all that interested in my thoughts and experiences as I start with this photography thing, and I think that it would be even less interesting in a book. But I've thought that about other things. So I'm going to write about photography, here, and also probably in a journal somewhere. I'm not sure what "somewhere" is. I prefer to do all my writing in bbEdit, of all things, but I'm a lousy organizer of files. So maybe Scrivener, because it has built-in organization.

Yes, Scrivener. I just ran off and created a "Fiction, with sub-heads" project and called it Journal. So there.

But, anyway, moving on to photography.

So You're Using Those Section Titles Again, Huh?:

Yep.

Why?:

No idea.

Photography?:

So. I have no eye for visual arts. None. Not a scrap. I never have. At least, I've always assumed that I never have, though now and then I have a faint hope that I'll find that I was wrong. So I'm not interested in photography for the purpose of creating Beautiful Things. But I am under the belief that I have something of an eye for character and the absurd and the weird. Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps. It could happen. So that's the focus.

But right now, the focus is, well, things like focus. And light. And aperture versus shutter priority and all those things that I only barely understand. I'm using a point-and-shoot camera, the Sony RX100 III, but point-and-shoot or not, it has features that I don't understand yet. Well, and sometimes I'm just using my phone, as in the image above. I'm not sure why I'm finally offering an image where you can kinda sorta almost see my face, or at least you could if it weren't for the hat and the phone. You might be able to pick my nose out of a lineup, anyway.

Um. Where was I? Yes, why the selfie? I think it's partly because if I'm going to occasionally blog photographs, they will probably contain people, and if I'm going to post photos of people who aren't me, it seems wrong to be too cowardly to post photos of me. See? And it's partly about the ongoing fashion and learning-not-to-hate-my-appearance process.

That Almost Rates A Digression Heading, Doesn't It?:

No. Shush.

Photography, Still:

So I've been reading about photography, but I want more of what I call munchy books. I discuss munchy books here. I want a book that talks about photography in a story-telling, philosophizing, anecdote-studded kind of way. I want the photography book equivalent of Henry Mitchell's On Gardening and The Essential Earthman.

But while I'm searching for that, I'm downloading Kindle previews for various photography books (which I will probably order through my Local Book Store when I narrow them down) and looking for photography blogs and forums and stuff. And I keep looking at Vivian Maier's photographs. Looking through them, it occurs to me that I've put Vivian Maier (photographer) and Rumer Godden (author) in the same category in my mental filing cabinet. I'm not sure what the label on that folder is, but they're sorted together.

I just converted the selfie of me from a regular color picture to the "Tonal" filter in iPhoto, because...I think out of sheer pretentiousness, because doesn't black and white photography seem more...more of all those things you want to be when you're being pretentious? I see that the resolution was also drastically reduced. I don't know what caused that and if I have any control over it.

I have things to learn.

I'm noticing that the above few paragraphs are an extra rambling dull catalog of thoughts, and that I'm tempted to cut most of them out. That's another reason for journaling--I want to record some thoughts that I don't edit, not even a little bit, for their readability or entertainment value.

Um.

Time For Another Subject Heading?:

No. Shush.

Hmph.:

OK, I think that is all.

Image: Mine.

Sewing: SWAP 2016, and travel, and stuff.

Lamenting:
I should be writing. But I'm not. I am sewing. So I thought I'd write about it.

Blogging Digression:
Now, that makes me think about the fact that my blog doesn't know what it wants to be--perfume, writing, sewing, fashion, gardening, griping, diary, blah blah blah. And that I should really give it a purpose. And there's the other blog, where I haven't written about chicken lately.

But then I flap my hand dismissively at myself and write about the SWAP.

What's With The Section Titles:
I don't know.

The SWAP:
SWAP stands for Sewing With A Plan. Here, I'm talking about the annual SWAP contest run out of a website called Artisan's Square. The general idea is to create a wardrobe of eleven garments, following the rules of the year. This year's rules are here, but as a really quick summary, the structure of this year's SWAP is:

1 "3 pack" of Color(s) A (3 garments)
1 "3 pack" of Color(s) B (3 garments)
1 "Combo Pack" of Colors A & B (2 garments)
1 "3 pack" of Wild Cards

We can include two already-sewn items and one purchased item, so a minimum of eight items have to be sewn. The sewing period started on December 26, and ends on April 30.

Travel Digression:
My goal is a travel wardrobe. Himself likes to travel, and I'm sometimes rather iffy about it, and part of that is what I refer to as the galumphiness of traveling--lumbering along with suitcases and bags and purses and stuff stuff stuff and more stuff.

And also the absence of systems--at home, I know how everything works, but when I travel everything feels impromptu. I've started building systems--for example, I have the "magic bag". It's a little leather toiletry kit bag that contains...hang on, let me find the list...

A toothbrush, tooth pellets, dental floss, folding hairbrush, deodorant wipes, Advil, Aspirin, Excedrin, Zantac, Band-Aids, a hand salve bar, acne wipes, a coverup crayon, a shampoo bar, a lightning cable for my phone and iPad, a charger brick, a barrette for hair restraint while showering, needles and thread, a nail clipper, what we refer to as "chick supplies" for that monthly thing, a pencil, several pairs of disposable earplugs, antiseptic wipes, vitamins, a bottle opener, safety pins, Kleenex, salt, a tiny notebook, stamps, a spork, cough drops, two trash bags, a shaver with some refill blades, emergency cash, a flashlight, a "lunch skin" bag for snacks, and a pair of earbud headphones.

So I'm prepared.

I also found that whenever we're in a hotel room, I miss my slippers. So I got another pair for travel. They take up a non-trivial chunk of space, but I want 'em. They also look like sheep. What more could you want?

There are other things. Maybe I'll write about them in another post.

The SWAP Again:
But turning back to the SWAP, I want a travel wardrobe. I want very, very low-volume garments--the phrase I keep using is that I want a garment that could be "crushed into a teacup!" That may be overoptimistic, especially for the skirts, but it sounds prettier than "crushed into a quart Ziplock!"

A good uniform for traveling would be gored skirt, simple top that hangs outside the skirt to avoid that tucking annoyance, leggings, short flat-heeled boots (tall enough to make the leggings visually indistinguishable from tights), and optionally some sweater/coat/jacket thing.

An issue with this plan is a lack of visual structure--the top pattern that I'm currently fitting is loose and comfy, so I may look as if I have no waist whatsoever. I'll consider the extent of the problem after I get the shirt fitted. Maybe an obi belt?

My summary plan for the SWAP is:

Skirt/top/top in brown/cream.
Skirt/top/top in black/white.
Jacket/sweater in brown/black.
Skirt/top/top in...colors. Some kind of colors, given all the neutrals.

I'm hoping to do the whole thing out of fabrics that I already have. I have plenty of fabric for the skirts--brown and cream wool, brown and cream cotton, gray wool, some creamy yellow stuff,  some oatmeal natural and white stuff, and so on and so on. But it'll take some digging to find fabrics for really lightweight tops that fit the color plan.

Um.

OK, this post seems like background for possible future posts, as I find fabrics. And if I don't hit Publish, odds are that it will end up in my extensive heap of unpublished Draft posts.

So...Publish!

Image: Mine. No, it has nothing to do with the post. We noticed how the Space Needle reflects into the glassy things in the Chihuly garden, so I took a picture.