Day 238 8-25

Here's another look at the status of our garage that died back on the 4th of July. They've torn off the roof and made stacks of wood and had some people offer estimates on building a new one. I think that the weekend after Labor Day (so 2 weeks from today) some people will come from church to help load it all into a dumpster we'll rent for 3 weeks I think.

Technically this picture is from yesterday and I really should take a new one for today because after I took this the boys likely did some more work and they definitely cut the pine trees in back. They cut all the branches to about six or seven feet off the ground so it'll be easier to drag things down to the dumpster. It really opened things up back there, makes it seem like there's actually a place to be back there. Maybe I'll take a picture of it for later. I wanted that place to be a secret hideaway in the trees but it was not a comfortably place to get into and who knows what bugs were hiding in the trees. Seems like we're rehabilitating the yard now with the new garage and the pruning. We'll see what happens. :)

Day 237 8-24

So you know how back on day 232 I said I was searching for yeast in the freezer? I never found it and decided I'd just make my own yeast. I started this on Sunday night I think. Maybe it was Monday morning. Regardless, I want to make some bread already but I can't tell if this is really ready! I tried to "proof the sponge" but it didn't look particularly white and frothy. I will try to make bread tomorrow anyway. If it never rises I'll know I failed to grow wild yeast. It was a fun experiment anyway.

Day 236 8-23

This is some of the mess I made making jam. It may also be why things didn't set well. I maybe had 10 cups of berries instead of 8, I had pectin for 8 lbs of berries but I didn't boil for a full minute after adding it because things were bubbling over and I didn't want to lose jam. It was really just foam so I should've ignored it, except it did start a small fire at one point. :) All in good fun, right?

Day 235 8-22

Happy 64th Birthday to my Dad! I should've cleaned the house for him or something but instead I made strawberry jam with the 8 lbs of strawberries I got cheap in the strip a few weeks ago.

I don't think it set properly and the bit I tried from the pan tasted rather too sweet to me anyway, but it could always be an ice cream topping like I did with Susan's blueberry "syrup" jam she sent for my birthday. I don't know that we'd ever need 9 jars of strawberry topping though. :p It was fun to do anyway, even if I made a big mess knocking over the cup of skimmed foam.

Day 234 8-21

There were some nice flowers outside the visitors center in Kirtland. I took lots of pictures of things there and at the farm and camp that I'll probably never share. Maybe in a blog post on my main blog. I should just upload them all to Facebook at least!

Shade and lomographic (I don't know what that word means but I use the filter sometimes when vibrant makes things hurt your eyes to look at. Tha seems to be a problem with pinks and reds. It may only be on my phone that it's an issue though)

Day 233 8-20

There was a gate we had to keep closed across the gravel/dirt road that led from the Johnson farmhouse to our camp. I wasn't even sure I had the right place when I first came to it.

This picture was from Wednesday, walking back to camp after touring the farm. The clouds look really cool, too. We had such good weather at camp!

Clarity and 80% vibrant

Day 232 8-19

Barbara has tons of tomatoes in her garden, unlike me. She brought some over after church to make spaghetti sauce. It turned out pretty good and we had a very nice Sunday dinner which included vegetables I'd thrown out of the freezer in a frenzied search for yeast so I could make some quick rolls to be garlic bread to go with our dinner. It was all rather upsetting at the time but now I know what's in part of the freezer at least. I still need to clean out the rest of it and make an inventory so they'll stop buying things we already have hidden in the freezer. I found so many things!

But enough on cleaning, here's dinner with filters: food and 50% vibrant.

Day 231 8-18

Instead of driving straight home from camp I went about an hour north to Kirtland, OH. It was a nice drive through some Amish-type country. I saw a number of buggies and when I stopped for gas there were some parked for the people to go to the convenience store. I saw a pony looking a little bunny with three kids in it. It was really beautiful country around Hiram and Kirtland, not very developed still. It's funny how places with important church history, where people drove the Mormons out for fear of what they'd do to the community or whatever, didn't seem to prosper so much after we left. I don't think I've been to any church history site that had anything beyond church history to draw a person there.

I had an interesting visit to Kirtland, ended up talking an hour or more to an investigator, Kenneth, who was visiting the sites to see what he was reading about in the D&C. If you want to read more about that check out my main blog for an account.

I took this picture of the Johnson Inn with the Whitney home to the right in the background just before Kenneth started a conversation with me.

Clarity HDR

Day 230 8-17

Here is a look at my tent for the week. Just a tarp over a rope. It was good weather for us but rather cool at night. I don't think people in full tents were any warmer. My air mattress was comfy and I didn't really get bugs trapped inside eating me and I had a bunch of blankets to keep me warm. I wish I could have found taller things to tie to so I could maybe stand a bit but other than that it was a good tent.

Clarity and miniaturize

Day 229 8-16

Thursday was hike day. I didn't go on the 3 or 5 mile hike, but I did ferry some kids back and forth and waited at the start of the trail. I noticed a creek way down below. It was too steep to get a closer look, but it did seem nice.

Cropped clarity vibrant

Day 228 8-15

Wednesday was time to tour the Johnson Farm. The girls seemed to enjoy it and the senior couple did a very good job. I don't think they usually get so many people but it happened that there were our 60 girls, a bus load of people from BYU, and at least four our couples that I saw. It messed up the last two groups of our tour because all those people showed up around lunch time and took longer than our hour lunch break from tours.

Auto and vibrant

Day 227 8-14

The first night at camp we had Dutch oven desserts after singing by the fire and Sis Hoskins made popcorn on the hot coals. It was yummy. I'm surprised how much you can see in the pic. I used clarity and HDR.

Day 226 8-13

Hostas are blooming in our yard.

Day 225

The hibiscus is finally blooming for us. It bloomed in the winter for Barbara in her classroom but in the 3 or 4 years we've had it it's never bloomed at home since the first year. It would need all summer to recover from being in our dark and coal-smokey house and then it was time to come in again and lose all its leaves in horror all over again.

This past year I took it to Barbara's school so it could be inside and have sunlight and warmth and it apparently had really giant flowers after all that time because Barbara says these ones are smaller. I'm happy to see them anyway and there are a lot of other buds waiting to bloom.

The reds are just too intense for my camera. It doesn't hurt my eyes to look at the flowers but it seems to blind my phone. I have noticed that with other red/pink things like the time I took pictures of roses. I thought it had something to do with the cloudy lighting making things more intense but you can see it's sunny in these pictures.

The two flower picture is the one I sent out on twitter but I'll share all three with you. I used a faded effect on the pictures to make the flower have definition like visible wrinkles and such. I've never used it before and I think it was pretty good for making reds less intense but it washes out the greens which I don't like as much. I need I use more tools, it's not like I'm really trying to record reality with these photographs so I might as well experiment a bit more with what can be done.

Day 224 8-11

Busy day today, more suited for the other blog. It involved watching mom, going to a vegan buffet with Barbara, doing a little unsuccessful bike shopping, getting secret sister gifts, getting entirely different gifts, returning the first gifts, and going to see a movie in the park with the mid-singles (who didn't show up).

I've never been to Grandview park and boy was I missing out! It's a closer drive than Brookline park, it's got an amphitheater which means you could easily come without a blanket or chair, and it has an amazing view of the city. The side we sat on had the movie screen blocking the view of the skyline so in the future I'd pick the other side, though maybe it'd be distracting from the movie. There were fireworks going on in at least two different places. After the Princess and the Frog (better than I recall from the first time I saw it, though I'd forgotten she turned into a frog so obviously I didn't internalize the movie) ended the Pirates game fireoworks were still going off so Barbara and I took some pictures. It was a different view than you get from the usual Mt Washington lookout spots and I really enjoyed seeing the city from a different angle. There are only a couple more movies in the park left this year but I think I'll drag myself over there again to see them just for the atmosphere. I think it wasn't very crowded because it was cold and had been a touch rainy at different times during the day.

Day 223

I should have taken a picture of all the things I won at the Girls Camp fundraiser auction tonight but I didn't and now they're unlikely to ever be together again for a picture. At the very least the cinnamon roll bread and the brownies will be eaten. I also got some Mary Eror prints for mom (sunflower, pink flower, and raggedy Anne and Andy), some of her stationary with Pittsburgh pictures, and a freshwater pearl necklace made by Barbara.

I bet low on anything I liked with the expectation that so few people were there making bets I had a decent chance of winning. I also bet in Mom and Dad's names so it wasn't just me winning, but it was a little ridiculous how much stuff I walked away with because I played the game. It was all only $17 too which is less than a pearl necklace should cost let alone everything else.

Anyway, this is stuff more suited to the other blog, today's picture is not auction stuff, it is a look towards the city from my backyard. I liked how the cloud were looking. I messed around with editing a bit but decided not to bother. The phone just can't be very specific like photoshop. I'd want the sky how it is or even more vibrant and the ground stuff needs to be lightened to really be able to see all the houses and such. Maybe one of these days I'll do some computer stuff instead of just phone. Probably not though since my current computer doesn't have any special photo editing stuff.

Day 222 8-9

The boys have been taking apart the garage some. It's a lot of wood to move so you can't see much difference. :( I'd like to help but no one has bothered to teach me how to use a chain saw. You can see some brown grass where there used to be collapsed building.

There's so much to move and we only have a few months to rebuild a garage for the insurance money. We'd be better off with a nice replacement building but it's hard to know what can be built until the area is cleared. The hill makes things more difficult, as does the multiple tons of coal sitting at the end of the driveway. I really wish they'd kept that to the side of the house in front of the gate instead...

Day 221 8-8

The apples out back are starting to turn bed. Some have already fallen and started to rot and been slippery to step in while walking around the garden. Most of them do not look particularly appetizing but I found one that looks edible to take a picture of for today.

Day 220

I fed the missionaries tonight (stuffed peppers but I forgot to take a picture!) and since we were so close to Mt Washington overlooks we decided to take some pictures before going on to Institute.

Day 219

I did super lots today. To find out all about my adventures check out my main blog (where hopefully I'll go write about the day after I post this). All you get here is a yummy picture of the small tyme sundaes Barbara and I got at Sarris' today. She got strawberry cheesecake and Oregon peach with dark chocolate hard cap. I got chocolate chip cookie dough and mint chip with milk hard cap. My usually is double chocolate but I really wanted to try something different so I replaced it with the mint chip. It wasn't that minty but the sundae was of course entirely edible. The only bad ice cream I ever had there was a flavor called white Russian. I think that's actually a drink, but all I recall of the flavor was that it was very bland/icy and a great disappointment. Maybe I stopped being creative with what I got after that.

In a book series I read as a kid, The Saddle Club, they went to an ice cream parlor sometimes and one of the girls (Stevie I think) always made weird flavor combinations and I wanted to be more like her but really I'm just a chocolate person at heart. I considered getting blueberry sauce since I've had that recently via Susan, but I had it at home so why get it there? Plus their hard caps are just melted versions of their actual chocolate which I find too expensive to actually buy so I appreciate the massive amounts they dump on sundaes.

We got pretty full though so maybe we'll go for a single scoop of ice cream in the future. I could be happy with just chocolate chip cookie dough covered in milk chocolate. Double chocolate would be too much chocolate, but it'd be good with marshmallow fluff, something I used to get sometimes, along with milk shakes, before I became entirely converted to my current usual.

Day 218

A view of St Basil's church from the back alley. I don't think my phone got all the nice sunset colors I could see.

Finally back to editing pics, for what it's worth. Maybe I'll go back and edit the ones I've posted the last week and a half. Sometimes it just feels like too much of a bother since they end up blurry or pixilated or in other ways not looking as good on the computer screen as I managed to convince myself they looked on the phone screen.

Day 207 7-25

Some kids at one of the dances on the first night of conference. There were nine dances over three nights of youth conference.

I'm too busy to worry about trying to edit any of the photos I'm taking during Youth Conference to look better. I just don't have the will to mess with them since they're not very good pics anyway because of lighting and not being able to be still for very long. :p

Day 208 7-26

A wizard fight flash mob broke out during the Olympics. There were lots of casualties, I'm not sure who won, but I'm going to guess the good guys, not the ones with death eater shirts.