Descending Ashtray

Yes, I almost burnt down my Dad’s farm. I was attempting to have a small controlled burn to clear an area by the Sweat Lodge. I gathered a pile of twigs and after clearing a small area around it, I lit it on fire.

Within five minutes, wind had jumped the flame to the dry grass that made up the small field surrounding a pond. Within ten minutes there was a hundred square foot area scorched with growing flames. I paniced and ran to move my truck which was in the line of fire. Fortunetly my Dad and Uncle Dave came to the rescue with buckets for water and shovels to stomp out the flame. Within twenty minutes we had it under control.

The Sweat Lodge did suffer some burns on its west side but still remains structurally stable. A giant hay bale sitting on top of the hill was the worst tragedy of the whole situation. The ashes in the forground of the picture are its only remains!

We went to the Botanical Center today. I was nice to go somewhere green on cold day.

Since it’s still too cold here to make it out to the shop, I thought I’d continue the “enormous tools” theme from yesterday.

Who is that skinny young guy?

In 2002, Sarah and I were lucky enough to get a guided tour of the Brooklyn Train Yards in Portland’s Brooklyn Neighborhood district. Currently a switching yard owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, the yard also features a full-size turntable used for turning whole locomotives around to move them in and out of the “roundhouse” for repairs. Now, the roundhouse is occupied by a local steam preservation group that is restoring several old engines. Hence the giant drill press.

As a lover of rusty bits, I was like a kid in a candy store, snapping all sorts of interesting photos, a few of which are below.

I was looking through some pictures from a trip last summer and I came accross this one.  At first, I thought that it did not turn out very well and almost deleted it. But the more I looked at it the more my perspective began to change.

When I took the picture, I was hoping to zoom in on the flower but the auto focus on the camera saw things differently, thus bringing the middle ground into focus.  Instead of the obvious flower being the focal point, I starting seeing the texture of the wet rocks, the translucent leaves whose tips were decaying and the dark silouette of plant stems.  The composition also seemed to work well, everything points toward the center.  Almost as if there is a hole you can look through.

Looking at things in this way reminded me of the documentary (What the bleep do we know?) that I watched last weekend.  One of the examples that they used to show how we see only what we want to see, was a story about about the native americans.  When Columbus’s ships first came to america the natives could not see them at all.  There was nothing in their minds to reference what they could possibly be.  So they simply did not see them.  The only way they did finally see them was that the medicine man noticed strange ripples in the water from the ships.  Trying to figure out what was causing the ripples he slowly became able to see the ships.  What a strange concept!  But it does make me wonder what it is that we see and what we are capable of really seeing.

3 things

1. Well, I was looking through the archives and realized I had not posted a picture since Sept. 26.  So here is one of the last pictures we took with Brandy’s camera.  There is hope in sight,  we sold my film camera on ebay and I am going to buy a digital from there too.  Yesterday was the ninth consecutive day that I have worked long hours so I have not even been able to go to the store to look for a camera.  I should finish up with the trimwork today and then I am going to spend some time at home working on projects that have been building up.

2.  I received an interesting phone call from Dave at 1:43 am about meeting half way in South Dakota for Namminga Fest 2007.  I think it sounds like a great idea!  The black hills is one of my favorite places.  But perhaps Dave could elaborate on this latest conceptual travelling idea. 

3.   The other thing I wanted to discuss was movies about artists.  One of my favorites is actually a short film by Martin Scorcese in the collection called New York Stories.  Nick Nolte portrays a successful painter who has an awesome Manhattan loft for is studio.  He works on large abstract paintings while struggling in a relationship with a young paintress.  I like that he has a basketball hoop set up in his studio and practices during his breaks.  I am not sure if I like this movie because I can relate or because I aspire to live his livestyle.   Anyway, if you have not already seen it you should check it out.  The other two films in the collection are done by Coppola and Woody Allen.  I personally did not care for either of the latter. 

Another movie I wanted to see was Surviving Picasso.  Have you  seen it?  It looks interesting.