Howdy folks! Well, yep, just as promised, these here internets are more complicated than they first appear. So I'm in the process of switching over my blog, but it's not happening in the magically smooth way that I had planned. For right now, you can view the current blog at http://www.whoaphotos.com/wordpress Very soon (tomorrow? the next day? next week?), the updated version will be back at your current location (http://www.whoaphotos.com/blog) Thanks for your patience!

Tuesday, 23 May 2006

Long-Haired Cat
Topic: naturalist
For the longest time, Preston and I had a motto of sorts. As we walked through the grocery store, avoiding the isles harboring screaming grimy children and their harassed mothers, or as we drove past someone out on a freezing winter night walking their scrawny little mutt, we smirk wisely to each other and say, "No kids, no pets!" It was symbolic of all the ways we refuse to limit ourselves. It was about how totally awesome our lives are and how we refuse to muck them all up with ankle-biters of any kind.

However. We seem to have somehow found ourselves living with a long-haired cat. And it sorta seems like we really like her. And we like having her around, and we worry when she goes out at night and doesn't want to come back in before bedtime (not least because we are likely to wake up to some small furry dead creature left as a token of gratitude on the porch in the morning). She's been living here for 7 months or so, and we have still refrained from calling her a pet. Even though we bought earmite medicine for her. And we had the neighbor come down and feed her every day when we were on vacation over xmas. And I'm starting to realize that all those things that I thought were so annoying in other people's animals aren't nearly as annoying in the one that lives with us. With one exception.

It is now shedding season. She came to live with us last fall, so we have only known her while she was putting on the additional hair; we didn't realize what it would be like coming off. It coats every surface in the house. You can't open your mouth without getting some on your tongue. It is only by an act of willpower that we choose not to see it coating every bite of food that we put in our mouths. For a while, I was seriously questioning our decision to let her in the house at all. And then, one day, I had an epiphany.

There's gotta be something useful to be done with all this hair. And the conjunction of a few happenings, including having just learned how to make cordage and recently having seen Preston's mom's growing collection of home-spun yarn, made me wonder if it's possible to spin long-haired cats, umm, I mean cat hair. I don't have a spindle or any of the necessary supplies, and don't really have any idea how it's done, so I called up Kathy to see what she thought. She had lots of helpful information, and I gave it a go.

It turns out that it is possible to spin cat hair, although I suspect wool is much easier. Sorta like the difference between trying to make dreads with kinky hair versus making dreads with straight hair. You can do it with straight hair, but it's not quite the same.

I started with a big handful of hair, which I had brushed off the kitty. She's indoor/outdoor, so it needed some serious cleaning. I don't have carders, which are what the real spinners use to get all the hairs laying in the same direction. When you pull the cat hair off the brush, it's all matted up, so I tried to get the hairs all lined up the same direction as I cleaned it. Here's the unprocessed hair on my left knee, and the little pile of cleaned straightened stuff on the right.


Then with your right hand, you take a pinch of a dozen or so hairs from the bundle of hair in your left hand, pull it out a little ways from the main bunch of hair, and use your palm to roll it against your pant leg in order to twist it up. Don't let it twist all the way in to the main bunch of hair in your left hand. Before it gets there, pull out a little more of the hair and keep twisting. Here's kitty helping with the process. Click on the picture to get a closeup of the twisting.


As you can see by the two tails in the picture below, the twisted up strands like rather more like orange dreads than like yarn. I suspect that this is because it's straight cat hair, rather than the kinky wool which would wrap onto itself. It also might work better if I had a real spindle rather than using the legroll method. But that was good enough to at least get it all into one strand. Then I took two of those strands and twisted them together as if I was making cordage. This step would be much easier either with wool, or with a spindle. Ideally, you should be able to spin the two strands together the same way you created the first strand (only in the opposite direction), but I couldn't get that to work. And the hairs wouldn't grip each other well enough to use the legroll method that I know from cordage-making. So I did the hard manual way (twist, twist, wrap...twist, twist, wrap...). If you click on the picture, you'll get a bigger version of the picture in order to see more detail.


And after most of an afternoon (about halfway through, Preston walked by and said, "You're right. You don't need to smoke pot."), I ended up with this (click for the close-up).

This is only about half of the hair that I started with in the initial picture, and in the couple days since then I've collected at least that much more. It's thin enough that I'm thinking of using it for thread on some primitive-type project. I've been studying up on tanning small pelts, for the next time kitty brings me a rabbit. Perhaps I'll use this thread to make a rabbit-skin bag.

But don't worry, we still aren't tempted to have any kids. I suppose if a particularly cute and friendly one showed up on our doorstep, and then wouldn't go away after we gave it a bowl of milk, we might consider keeping it. The odds seem slim.

Tags: spinning, pets, cat, yarn, cordage, primitive skills

Monday, 22 May 2006

Winter and Spring
Topic: home
A quick comparison of our front yard, winter and spring.





Tags: winter, spring, nature

Bread
It seems like I've been spending my weekends more and more often in the pursuit of domesticity. I wonder if I should be worried?

This is cornbread muffins, orange-banana bread, wheat-oatmeal bread all made on Saturday while it was a beautiful sunny day outside and I should have been out wandering in the woods. But I really had an urge to bake, so that's what I did. And OMG, is it good stuff!

Tags: bread, baking, domesticity

Forest
Topic: home
I went for a walk in our backyard a few days ago, after not having ventured far in a week or more. And I realized, Holy Smokes! We live in the Forest!



Tags: nature, naturalist, forest, walking

Friday, 19 May 2006

Additions and Corrections
Topic: naturalist
Actually, just one of each.

Correction: In the post about the desert, I refer to the range map of the Bullock's Oriole and how it doesn't show up in Boise. Well, i don't know if I was looking at a totally wrong map, or if the book I happened to be looking at was just outdated, but when I looked them up again recently, they are well established all over Idaho and Washington. I also saw one in someone's front yard in Salkum about 9 days ago.

Addition: In the post about the Cinnabar Moth I forgot to mention that they are that color in order to warn predators that they TASTE BAD. They process the toxic alkaloids from the ragwort, and that makes them poisonous, just like the ragwort. I also forgot to mention that, although our postal address is Onalaska, the town we are closest to is called Cinnabar.

Friday Vignette
Topic: kids
There were a lot of cool moments today, but my major lesson learned was about letting things flow naturally. I tend to want to direct everything, be in charge of everything, get the kids to FIND SOME DAMN BIRD NESTS ALREADY because that is the stated goal for today. But of course, that's not how kids work, and that's also not how magic happens. It seems to me like it's in the spaces that are left open to randomness and chance where magic happens, not in the quest to find a bird nest.

I had been in charge of the opening story related to our theme of baby birds for the day. So I told a story about Magpie, and how the other birds tried to learn how to make a nest like hers. Here's the story of The Magpie's Nest if you're curious. So we split up into our clans, and I take the middle age group and we're going to go find some bird nests. But no one's really that into it, and the boys just want to hit things with sticks, and one girl stubs her toe because she's wearing sandals even though that's against the rules, so I suggest a game of Eagle Eye. (cuz eagles are birds, right?...so it's related to our theme, right?). The kids are way into that, and they spend the rest of the afternoon playing round after round of Eagle Eye. But a few wander off to a nearby mud puddle, where we find really clear raccoon tracks (which they can identify at a glance...how many 9 year old kids do you know who can do that?), and a bunch of bird tracks. That holds their attention for about 4 seconds, and then they want to play in the mud. Pretty soon, and I don't really know how this happened, they are asking me to tell the story about Magpie again, so they can learn how to build a nest. And they get totally absorbed in understanding the architecture of building a bird nest...all about the details of what consistency the mud should be, and the ratio of mud to sticks, and what sort of things should go on the inside, and how to you find twigs that will curve in the right way to make a roof, and all of a sudden they are totally *getting* bird nests and how complex and how individual they are. I have no doubt that they will totally see bird nests differently every time they see them.

Throughout this, there were a few die-hard Eagle Eye players, and I was worried that they weren't learning the content that I had set out to discover for today (i.e. FINDING A DAMN BIRD NEST). I wander over to see how it's going with them, and they are in the process of charcoaling up their faces to hide better. The charcoal isn't working that great for them, and I mention that they could use mud, and I know where a mud puddle is. They get excited about that idea, and everyone comes over to the mud puddle. The Eagle Eye players get themselves all mudded up, in the way that only 9-year old kids can. Any exposed skin is totally covered with a layer of mud. So, while they didn't really show that much interest in the nest, I at least felt like something worthwhile was happening, just in terms of familiarity and comfort with the natural world. When it was time to leave, all the kids were so excited about their day that they couldn't wait to get back to the big group and share what they did. That's a really cool thing to have helped facilitate.

Tags: magpie, naturalist, homeschool, unschool, kids, mud puddles, bird nests

Thursday, 18 May 2006

Cinnabar Moth
Topic: naturalist
Check out this cool moth!


It's a Cinnabar Moth (Tyria jacobaeae) and it's on the outside of my house, right next to the front door. I've seen three others also. Besides being just amazingly beautiful, their larva eat tansy ragwort almost exclusively. Ragwort is an invasive noxious weed here, and also the cause of the vast majority of allergy symptoms. The moth was introduced here specifically to eat the ragwort, although (as with so many of these introductions) it seems not to have worked very well. Paradoxically, ragwort has actually increased in some places where the moth has been introduced. The theory is that the ragwort has flourished because of a perceived lack of need for additional controls. But I wonder if the moth has a way of increasing its natural food supply over time.

Tags: cinnabar moth, naturalist, ragwort, biological controls

Web Host Recommendation
Topic: work
A month or more ago, a friend posted a link to a socially and environmentally responsible web host. (Thanks Phoenix!) I held on to that link, thinking that if I sold anything at SEAF, I would use that money to upgrade to a real host (as opposed to the Lycos people, who don't allow nudity of any kind, and may pull my site at any time). I checked into ThinkHost, and found them to be just as advertised. They use renewable wind/solar power for all of their servers, host non-profits for free, and are generally a pretty cool company. So when I got the check from SEAF, I was all set to switch over. I had a few questions for them about the site migration process, and they were totally awesome about answering my questions. Someone got back to me the same day for each question, they responded directly to each question I had, and explained things in such a way that I could mostly understand it. (I still don't know what wget software is, but I know that they're going to use it to copy over the whole structure of my website for me, at no additional charge, so I don't really have to do much of anything.) I was totally impressed with every interaction I had with them.

So I'm sitting there with my credit card, about to click on the Create Account button, when I decide, what the heck, maybe I'll actually read the Terms of Service for once. So I scan through it, and see that they have a policy barring any "adult content". Argh! But I had been so impressed with everything else about the company that I thought it was worth sending them an e-mail and asking them if they had some more specific guidelines for what constitutes adult content. Obviously, I'm not interested in creating a porn site, I just want to display art, some of which is nude. So I wanted to know how they were making a distinction between the two.

Once again, I've been totally impressed. The tech support person who got my question forwarded it immediately to the General Manager. His name is Michael, and we had quite an interesting discussion about where one draws the line between art and porn. While he agreed that my site is definitely art, he wasn't sure how to make a specific guideline by which I could be sure I wasn't going to get booted off their servers. We discussed for about a week. He had meetings with the rest of the admin at ThinkHost. We discussed some more. Throughout the process, I was really impressed that he was willing to even engage the question at all. Most folks would simply have said, "that's the rule, nothing we can do about it". He came up with a proposal that allowed nudity, but banned "depictions of sex acts". I responded that I think "sex act" is a pretty fuzzy guideline. Does there have to be more than one person in the picture for it to be a sex act? How about if there are two people in the picture but they're fully clothed in bed together? How about if there are two naked people in bed together, but they aren't touching each other? How about if all you can see is two people's faces, but one of them sort-of "looks like" they might be experiencing some sort of sexual gratification? How about a picture of a particularly suggestive flower, with a drop of nectar hanging off one of the petals, being penetrated by a hummingbird beak?

We discussed some more, he met with the rest of the admin some more, and finally responded with this e-mail:

Hi again DeAnna, You've opened a real can of worms for us here - and we welcome it as it's given us the opportunity to better define where we stand (as a company) on these issues :).

The various points you've raised have seen us discuss the issue further.

Basically it boils down to this:

a) We wish to be seen as supporters of freedom of speech and expression.

b) What constitutes pornography is often in the eye of the beholder. What may be art to some may be "adult content" to others and vice versa.

c) Pornography is not necessarily illegal.

d) We are not lawyers or censors, nor do we wish to be.

Given that, we've made some changes to our Terms of service, removing the line:

"Any site with adult-oriented content, including but not limited to any pornographic or sexually explicit material."
/snip for length and clarity/
So, in a nutshell, we are saying that we would be pleased to host your site. You will need to be familiar with the law in relation to your own content and observe those laws. We'll only act if it's pointed out to us that your content breaks any relevant laws or if your site is contravening any other clause in our Terms of Service."

So, how many web hosts do you know that are actually willing to *change their Terms of Service* based on a request from a prospective customer. Not to mention all the other awesome things about them. I highly recommend them, if you have any need for a webhost. Besides all the generally cool things about them, they also have really competitive rates.

Having said all that, my site will be in the migration process sometime in the next week or so. There shouldn't be any down time associated with that, but you know how web things are. So if you come along and find that I'm not here, don't worry. I should be up shortly, and all the addresses and everything will remain the same.

Tags: webhost, ThinkHost, adult content, art, nude

Tuesday, 16 May 2006

The Desert
Topic: family


Last Friday, I left from Vashon Island and headed south to pick up Preston at work in Centralia. From there, we headed south to Portland, turned left, and drove to Boise. It turned out that we were there for the one weekend per year where the weather is an acceptable temperature, and the desert was actually green. It was a rushed trip to return the Miata, which we had been borrowing for the last 9 months or so, and pick up the Explorer, which has been given to us. Preston drove the whole way there, and I slept most of the way from Hood River. Yep, it's possible to sleep in a Miata, if you're really determined, or if you, like me, are simply incapable of staying awake in a moving vehicle for more than a couple hours. My mom says she never drove me around in the car when I was a baby in order to put my to sleep, but she sure should have. She missed out on the best sleep drug I know of. But I digress.

Kathy was back from St. Lucia (hence, the return of the graciously loaned car), and it was good to see her back in her home. While she was a fabulous hostess in St. Lucia, her sense of belonging on her ranchlette in Eagle fairly radiated. I certainly don't feel that way about the desert, but I do feel that way about home, so I can relate. She has a little pond in her front yard, which has been taken over by bullfrogs and Western Toads. These two species were fascinatingly confused about the rightful way of things. Stephanie, Preston's sister and a Biologist, wasn't sure if they breed successfully, but "they obviously breed".

Kathy hosted a little shindig to celebrate her homecoming, Preston's graduation, and Simon's graduation (Preston's brother-in-law). It was fun to see the whole fam again, and a couple of Preston's old high school buddies stopped by. They're cute! But it was all a bit too much people for me, especially given that P and I had arrived at 4:30 that morning, slept for a few hours, and went all day eating party snack food. So I was glad when things finally wrapped up, and I had a chance to slip away for a quick walk in the BLM land just up the road from Kathy's house. It was cool to see sagebrush and rabbitbrush and magpies. And I had even forgotten about the stink bugs and goatheads, several of which ended up in my bare feet (the goatheads, not the stinkbugs, which are easier to avoid). I missed a couple of chances to get pictures of meadowlarks, and enjoyed a lively round of "identify that bird" with the family. I had guessed that it was some sort of warbler, but Stephanie was right with her guess of an oriole. It was a Bullock's Oriole, in Kathy's back yard. Somewhat out of range according to the range map, but I hear that most of those ranges are moving north these days, with the warmer weather.

Sunday, we took Kathy and Ann (Simon's mum) out for Mother's Day Brunch, and hit the road shortly after. We drove back in the new Ford Explorer. And let me just say that I know I'm not supposed to like the new Explorer. We went to pick it up with every intention of bringing it back here and selling it, so that we could buy something like a Subaru wagon. But I can't help it; I really like it. I feel like I have my 4-Runner back. I'm a Montana girl; we were not designed for driving any sort of wagon that isn't pulled by horses. While the Miata was fun to drive, I felt out of place every time I was in it. I certainly felt more comfortable in the little pick-up truck. But sitting up in that plush red seat, looking over the curve of a solid red hood at the small beings in their little commuter cars feels like home. We will keep it for the summer, since I may need a vehicle that I can live out of. We got more than 22 mpg on the way home, which is about equivalent to the 4-Runner, although the pick-up gets 30+ mpg. But Preston crunched some numbers, and we figured that we can drive this vehicle for about a year before we spend so much more on gas in it that it would have been cost-effective to buy something with a 10mpg increase in efficiency. And did I mention that it has cupholders? And little lights next to the mirror on the visor?

Tags: desert, landscape, pictures, gas mileage, ford explorer

Thursday, 11 May 2006

Just a Quick Vignette
Topic: kids
The second day of the camp was both more fun and more challenging. I spent the day teaching 5-Minute Fire to 6 different groups of 8-12 kids and a few adults (most of whom also didn't know how to make fire). As always there was an incredible amount of stuff I learned and was challenged by and enjoyed. But a little bit of it that sort of encapsulates the experience of the kids was when a particular group finally got a fire going. We had some stuff in there that was making big white flakes of ash waft up in the smoke and then come back down right near the fire. One of the kids said, "Oh, *that's* what that is." I asked him what he meant and he explained that on the first night when everyone was sitting around the campfire, he and his friend had thought that it was snowing for a few minutes. But now he realized that it must have been ashes from the big fire, lifting up into the dark sky and then drifting over them before it fell back down.

It's both really rewarding, and really a trip to hang out with kids who don't recognize campfire ashes coming out of the sky, who would mistake them for snow when sitting outside in their t-shirts on a clear May night. Most of these kids had never seen fire anywhere but in the movies and on birthday candles. The universal answers given when I asked them what they thought would be a good way to put out fire...blow it out, or stomp on it. Because that's what you do with birthday cakes and fire in the movies, respectively.

Tags: fire, primitive skills, city living, fire safety, kids

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