Feb. 6
I spent a couple days updating all of my webpages, removing my attempts
to monetize my music by selling CD's (which are now pretty outdated,
and never were a revenue source, although I'm still mostly happy with
the music I produced). I do hope to systematically put up the music on
Youtube with higher definition videos to accompany it, which I've been
doing unsystematically recently. I've also
started turning the original pottery workshop, which has been a packing
room for shipping, into a glazing room, making more shelf space to
allow pots to dry slowly since all the clays I've been trying lately
seem to crack when drying too fast... It should also result in
more efficiently loaded kilns, with having sufficient space for glazed
pots to always fire a full kiln load... We've had
two tom turkeys visit our feeders regularly and clean out several cups
of sunflower seeds in a couple minutes. Here's a photo.
What stands out to me, seeing them close, is their homely heads
(shared with turkey vulturee) and the funny tuft of feathers that hangs
down in front. Also we enjoy the elegant shadings of their
general plumage...
About a week ago I bicycled on Spirit Lake and took this video.
It included a fall when the ice turned extra slick. I did
crack a rib as a result, but at the time it seemed worth it. This
was the bike ride down to the lake
Feb. 7 We
went to an overhang cave with icicles making a frozen waterfall over it
today. It's a favorite place of ours in the winter...
Feb. 13 Yesterday
was the Spirit Lake Winter Festival, sponsored by the SL Parks and Rec.
This year's brainchild was an outhouse race, modeled after other
similar events not in our area... There was only one entry, so
it was used by 5 teams of 3, with two pushing and one riding inside on
the seat... Many years ago I conglomerated all such events into a
conceptual "Stupid Festival" figuring that if you do enough stupid
stuff, people will flock to see it...
Down on the lake today, ice leads open up only to freeze again, sometimes with tinkly noises... Along the edge of the lake frost patterns grow and shrink daily... In some parts of the lake ice sheets converge with pressure, modeling the growth of mountain ranges.
Feb.14 The
last few days I've been taking photos with my older Nikon D5500, since
my Panasonic FZ80 got some gray blotches, particularly after my slide
out on the Ebike a couple weeks ago. The Nikon is nice but not
very flexible compared to "bridge" cameras. I bought a used Nikon
P900 on Ebay for about half the price of a new one, and it
arrived today. I'm still awaiting an order of filters and lens
cap, so was reluctant to take it out in the rain and snow we had today,
but it cleared by evening so I went to the lake to see what there was
to see: A
female goldeneye. It has better telephoto (83X) than the
panasonic, and gets clearer results even in the low light since the
lens is wider...
The rain made puddles on the lake which reflect the late sky and trees on the ridge...
In
some places the reflections were quite mirror like. I rotated
this 180 degrees to highlight the trees with surreal ice clouds...
Feb. 15 Male goldeneyes showed up today. Female had moved on...
Feb. 18 It was a nice day, 45 degrees, perfect for a walk at Farragut State Park. Here was the view across the lake: The
gravel beach is covered with water in the summer--like most lakes in
the west, even this, the largest natural lake in Idaho, is regulated by
a dam for hydroelectric and flood control purposes. Unlike the
drought-stricken Southwest, so far our lakes have been refilling in the
spring... Not much snow in those mountains, though...
The
History of the Blues by Francis Davis. Although I was already
familiar with 2/3s of the musicians works, Davis offers an interesting
perspective on their place in musical history...
