As I was going to bed last night, I took a look out the window. The forecast had said it was supposed to be partly cloudy overnight, but the sky looked pretty clear. I set up a camera in the spare room, pointed out the window, and let it snap away. I figured I’d get some star trails out of it if nothing else.
The aurora decided to make an appearance. It was just getting ramped up when my camera battery died around 2:30am, but I got a couple good shots out of it.
Oh, and the star trails turned out pretty good, too. They’re at the top, and are taken from about the first hour and a half of the evening.
The video below is the full two hours and thirty-six minutes, but it runs at 60x so that one second of video is one minute of real[1]Whatever that might mean, relativistically. time.
I think it was worth it, even if a thunderstorm woke me up early this morning.
I shot at Spruces for about an hour and a half, and met a couple who had stopped in on their way from Brandon to Dauphin. (Hi, Doms & Debs, if you’re reading this!)
Here are a couple timelapses, one of the Milky Way floating above Clear Lake and another of the stars wheeling across the sky.
The aurora data were good last night, but I’d had a long day so I didn’t go out in the countryside last night. I did set up a camera in the spare room, in case it got bright enough to be seen over the city lights. At worst, I thought, I’d get a few hours’ worth of star trails.
Oh, and the star trails turned out OK, too.
I set up the camera around midnight; the battery finally died around 4:35am. The trails above are made from about 2,200 frames, each 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 800.
I went camping with some friends I’ve known for well over 30 years. As is my nature, I took my cameras and tripods, so in between the fishing, the drinks, the meals, the hikes, and the naps, I took a few photos.
I moved in to the cabin Friday evening—laptop, sleeping bag, cameras, bike, and food—and got settled in. I read for a bit[1]Current read: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, which is pretty trippy so far. and checked the forecast. The evenings this week look pretty cloudy, so I’m not sure how much astrophotography I’ll get to do. Last night was clear, though, so I decided to head on out about 10pm.
I got set up at the Wasagaming dock just before 11 and snapped about 30 minutes’ of star trails. I discovered later that the camera wasn’t quite as level as I’d hoped, so I ended up cropping out the thin line of the lake, but the tree on the left made a nice foreground. (See the photo above.)
After that I headed to Spruces, and set up one camera for another round of star trails…
…while the other one was designated for Milky Way photos.
It was a good start to the week, I think.
Goals
What I’d like to do with my week:
write (aiming for 10,000 words, let’s say, in two projects: Praise the Torch When ‘Tis Burned[2]aka “Derelict starship + ghosts” and The Slow Apocalypse[3]aka “Wizard v. Warhead”.
photography
read a bunch
bike rides (aiming for 5–10km a day, weather permitting)
kayaking (at least twice, again, weather permitting)
On Wednesday last week, I got a message from my friend Ray:
Hey, want to come camping with Craig and I?
I almost said No. I swore off tenting after a disastrous thunderstorm spent in a cheap tent. But Ray’s a seasoned camper, and it’s been a long, long time since the three of us got together. (We’ve been friend since our university days, and while I’ve seen them each individually in the last year or so, it’s been over a decade since all of us were in the same place.)
So on Friday I packed up some gear and hit the road for Duck Mountain Provincial Park. We ended up sitting around the campfire, drinking and shooting the breeze, till well past one in the morning.
I set up my camera for a couple hours
Saturday morning Ray treated us to what he termed a “simple” breakfast of delicious bannock, spicy Italian sausage, and bacon fried over the fire…
…and then we spent a couple hours paddling around on West Blue Lake, Ray and I in a canoe, Craig in a kayak. After that we had some “basic” lunch[1]Ray’s idea of “basic” camping food included pad Thai, risotto and chicken, and chana masala; his protest was that “it’s all freeze-dried” but that didn’t make it any less delicious., then Craig and I crashed for an hour or two while Ray read in the gazebo. Once the sleepers had awoken, we went to the campground’s store to pick up more firewood, then shot more breeze. We listened to the Riders lose on Craig’s truck radio, had some “simple” supper and more drinks. Bedtime came a little earlier than Friday.
Sunday we got up, breakfasted, struck camp, and parted ways. Craig’s on the hook to come up with a plan for a camping adventure next year; perhaps we’ll end up doing some back-country paddling. I guess we’ll see.
My grandparents used to farm up by Fork River, which is about an hour’s drive from the park. My mom went up to the farm a year or two ago, and said it had fallen into disrepair. I wanted to see for myself how it looked, so I headed on over.
On the way I passed a number of interesting abandoned buildings, and snapped photos of a couple of them[2]Later this summer, when I’m on my retreat, I really want to try star trails at one of them, but it’s a long drive. We’ll see..
Then I got to the farm.
I didn’t drive in, but left my car at the end of the driveway and walked in. I snapped photos for a panoramic view of the yard first.
The driveway is overgrown with grass, and the yard was full of grass and weeds, waist-high at least. The outbuildings were in bad shape; a couple have collapsed, and the garage’s roof has come down inside.
But the barn’s still somehow standing—given how many swayback or collapsed barns I’ve seen in this province, I’m impressed at how well it’s holding up. I waded into the waist-high grass, damp still with either dew or a recent rain, and took some photos.
The willows behind the house are twice as tall as the house now. In places in the yard, the grass was flattened, which suggested to me that animals have been bedding down there. The prairie life seems to be taking the land back, which, on the whole, I’m OK with.
I almost chickened out. Part of me was afraid of what I might find up there at the farm. I spent a significant chunk of my childhood there, and I didn’t want decay and collapse to ruin the old memories. But I’m glad I went.
After about half an hour at the farm, I walked back to my car and headed home. What a weekend. Thanks, Ray, for the invitation.
Ray’s idea of “basic” camping food included pad Thai, risotto and chicken, and chana masala; his protest was that “it’s all freeze-dried” but that didn’t make it any less delicious.
My friend Tim was camping at Wasagaming, as is his wont on the September long weekend. I went to visit on Friday evening.
We headed up to Spruces to check out the sunset…
…and the moon.
Later, the galaxy appeared as the moon set.
And I decided to try to catch Jupiter with my 55–250mm lens, which is usually too shaky at 250mm. It seems to have worked. (If I’m reading this right, the moons are, L‑R, Callisto, Europa, and Io.)
After I dropped Tim off at his campsite, I saw that the aurora were making an appearance. I stopped in a few places (the beach in Wasagaming[1]Man, I really don’t like the orange lights at the beach, the dock on the golf course road, and on the roadside on #10 highway).
write at least 10,000 words in “Dried Flowers”: Check. The novel went from 33,000 words to 45,000.
get some astrophotography done. Check: see below.
read some books. I read the last chapter in Fugitive Telemetry, the last 6 chapters in The Book of the New Sun, and made my way a bit over half-way through Catch-22. Also, I borrowed the next Sandman collection from one of the library’s online resources, and read a couple chapters in it.
ride my bike. A little; one 6km ride and a few quick runs across the dam into town to go to the coffee shop, so as to use their wifi.
go kayaking. I got out on the water on Thursday and Friday, for a total of about 8½km.
relax. Yes? I had a hard time sleeping past 7 am, but otherwise it was a relaxing week.
All in all, this was a good retreat. As always, I wish it had been longer, but you know what they say: so it goes.