Patrick

A not-entirely-dark, not-so-deserted highway

Posted on by Patrick
Star Trails

Half an hour’s worth of Earth­’s rota­tion, along with the head­lights of three or four vehi­cles trav­el­ing down Man­i­to­ba PR 468, under the bright light of Octo­ber’s full moon. Also I think there are a cou­ple air­planes cross­ing the sky. And clouds.

Nerdy tech details

I’m not sure any­one but me will care about this, but so it goes.

~200 images, 10s each, f/2.8, ISO 800. WB was set to “Day­light”.

Light­ly edit­ed in GIMP: I copied and past­ed the main lay­er as two more lay­ers, and set the mid­dle one to Grain Merge, the top one to Hard Light. This dark­ened the back­ground a bit and enhanced the lights.

Le tournesol

Posted on by Patrick

A song, from my French immer­sion school­ing, about sun­flow­ers. (Every time I see a field of sun­flow­ers, this song comes to me.)

Le tour­nesol, le tour­nesol
n’a pas besoin d’une bous­sole
ni d’arc-en-ciel, ni d’arc-en-ciel
pour se tourn­er vers le soleil

In Eng­lish:

The sun­flower, the sun­flower
has no need of a com­pass
nor of a rain­bow, nor of a rain­bow,
to turn its face to the sun

One thing I did­n’t remem­ber from ele­men­tary school music ses­sions in the library at École Lau­ri­er: that bassline.

McNally Robinson Photo Submission

Posted on by Patrick

McNal­ly Robin­son, my favourite book­store, is curat­ing a pho­to­book of the province, to be titled Man­i­to­ba by Man­i­to­ba. To that end, they’re seek­ing pho­tos tak­en out­side the Perime­ter (for the non-Man­i­to­bans, that means, essen­tial­ly, “not tak­en in Win­nipeg”). You can sub­mit up to 5 photos.

It was­n’t easy, trim­ming my sub­mis­sion down to five. Here are the ones I sent in.

  • Auro­ra bore­alis at Minnedosa.
  • Coun­try road near Onanole.
  • Frozen creek near Carberry.
  • Sun­flow­ers near Neepawa.
  • Sun­set Beach at Hecla Island.

Wish me luck!

Roasted vegetable soup

Posted on by Patrick
Roasted vegetable soup

This is where the long-ass sto­ry goes, right? The one you scroll past, mut­ter­ing Just show me the freakin’ recipe! under your breath.

It was cold out­side yes­ter­day. I had lots of CSA (com­mu­ni­ty sup­port­ed agri­cul­ture) veg­gies in the house.

OK, sto­ry’s over. Here’s the recipe, such as it was:

1 large gold­en beet
2 onions
4 small pota­toes
2 car­rots
2 bell pep­pers
1 mid­dlin’ zuc­chi­ni
1 large pat­ty-pan squash
1/2 car­ton of left­over veg­etable broth from the back of the fridge
1 block of ice frozen in the veg­etable broth car­ton (my fridge gets cold at the very back, appar­ent­ly)
1/2 car­ton of left­over beef broth
1 cup of water

So here’s what I did: chopped up all the veg­gies, into cubes or slices about 1″ thick. Roast­ed them at 425°F for var­i­ous times, till they were all nice and soft­ened. The beet took about 45 min­utes, all told; the pota­toes, onions, and car­rots took 30 min­utes; the pep­pers and squash, about 15.

Then I pulsed ’em all in the food proces­sor, till they were smooth but still a bit, well, rus­tic. I spooned the veg­gie pâté into a stock pot over medi­um heat, and stirred in the broths, the chunk of ice, and the water. Heat­ed till it start­ed to boil light­ly, stir­ring every so often.

Served with ched­dar-onion fougasse and fin­ished off with a deli­cious slice of pump­kin pie, both from Chez Angela.