New Cottage on the Lake

Friday, 15 June 2012

My sister and brother in law just bought a cottage on the west side of the state. It's on a lake, so last weekend we helped them move the jet boat and boat hoist.

Here's pictures of the weekend we were up north to take the hoist apart. Then this weekend all of the parts to the shore station/boat lift were loaded on to a trailer and strapped down.

On our way with the jet boat and hoist.

Here is a panorama of the lake and cottage.

(click to enlarge)

I tried out my homemade ND filter with my camera. It really makes a calm looking photograph, especially when it's converted to black and white. This picture was a 30 second exposure.

Here's a time lapse video of us putting in the dock and putting the boat hoist together. It only took 2.5 hours to do but unfortunately my camera battery died after about 2 hours. So you miss seeing us push it over the sea wall and into the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yRTklcaGzc

The rest of the weekend was spent swimming and watching max jumping off the dock, into the water.

This is a picture i took from about 8' past the end of the dock.

That's his Kong he's chasing on the right.

And here's more pictures of the lake and Max.

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Cottage on the Lake - Putting in the Dock and Boats

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Last week i went up north to our cottage to help put in the boats and docks. Also my dad and i took apart the aluminum boat hoist. We weren't sure how long it would take, but it ended up only taking a few hours.

A lot of the bolts were rusted from being in the water for several years. Luckily the nuts were at the ends of the bolt, so once we broke them free there wasn't any corroded threads to deal with.

Here is what the boat lift/shore station looked like when it was all taken apart. All of the cables and pulleys are inside of the aluminum beams. And the heaviest part was definitely the white cable crank at the top left.

Also at night i wanted to try taking more pictures with my homemade ND filter, the stars at night and spinning wool. Here's the links to some of those previous pictures and how they are done:

• ND Filter at Lake Erie
• Spinning Wool - Night Photography
• Star Pictures
• Tennessee New Year

Here's the pictures i took with my ND filter. I really like the way it makes the water have a glass surface, it's a very calm and dreamlike photo.

With the photos taken using the welding glass there is some post processing in Photoshop. I have 4 or 5 presets saved so it saves a lot of time since now with just 1 click i can fix the colors. But in a lot of cases, converting the picture to black and white is the best way to emphasize the texture and detail.

Also you can see in this photo that the ND filter acts as a polarizing filter too. It lets you see right into the water.

This was me just experimenting. I had to sit real still for the 30 second exposure.

This is a panorama photo of the lake at night. It was created using 6 pictures, each of them at 53 second exposures. Then i processed them all the same way in Photoshop and combined them into one picture using Autostitch.

(click to enlarge)

I took several pictures of the night sky, but this one turned out the best. I think at first i had the ISO set too low on the camera. I could have forfeit a little bit of added noise for more vibrant pictures. For the panorama i set the ISO at 250, you can see a couple of shooting stars in there too.

This was the spinning wool photos i wanted to try. If you click on the link above you can see the setup i used to hold and light the steel wool.

I was expecting some amazing photographs from this, but none of them were all that great. I think the hardest part was in being the right distance from the camera. You want to be close to the camera to get the dramatic effect, but not so close that all you see is the sparks from the steel wool.

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How to Grow Bamboo in Cold Climates

Monday, 21 May 2012

I've written several blog post about the bamboo in my backyard here in Michigan. The 5 links below are some of the past history, starting back in 2009.

Bamboo in Heavy Snow - pictures after a big winter ice storm
Bamboo - 2011 - a much harsher winter meant lots of dead leaves in the spring
More Drain Pipe - trying to route a roof gutter drain around bamboo roots
Bamboo 2 - the first winter, hoping my small trees survive
Bamboo - the original grove of trees in West Virginia where i brought the trees home from

Here are some pictures from the past 4 years:

This was the original grove of trees in West Virginia where i traveled for work and ended up bringing trees home. I believe that they are Yellow Grove Bamboo but that is my non-expert opinion. I also brought home Cane Break Bamboo from Kentucky but it is a lot slower growing in my yard.
This was one of the largest trees i saw there. Probably 2-3" in diameter and at least 40' high.

The first winter after transplanting the bamboo to my yard. As long as the roots don't get below -15 degrees they should survive.

This was created from several pictures of my Moso Bamboo stitched together. I grew the Moso Bamboo from a seed. And like the Cane Break Bamboo, it's a slow grower here in Michigan.

After a winter ice storm my bamboo trees were completely bent over. But i don't think i lost a single one. The trees are really strong and can withstand a lot of stress.

Now, onto this year.

Bamboo shoots coming up March 22nd. About a month earlier than any previous years.

If i'm lucky and the summer last long enough, they might send up shoots a couple of times this year.

The bamboo continued to send up shoots through the early part of April. The warmer the weather the faster they grow.

One thing i'm worried about is that, usually the shoots grow all at once during the first warm month. This year they grew half way, then it got super cold, they stopped growing, then when it warms up they will grow to their full height. I'm not sure how that will affect them.

But there were tons of new shoots and their diameter was slightly thicker than the previous year, which is what i hoped for. Each year more more trees = more leaves = more energy stored in the roots (rhizomes) and that = bigger trees for the next year.
They are also taller then any of the tress from the previous years.

I noticed a lot of bent or broken shoots. I've seen this before and i think it's from ants that chew on the stalks. Sometimes they survive and the stalks have this weird bend in them. But most of the time they fold over and die.

But that damage only happens while they are soft. Once they grow a bit and harden up they can't really be hurt.

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Water with a Homemade ND Filter

Saturday, 10 March 2012

While i was out testing my DIY - Camera Polarizing Filter, i also brought my DIY - ND Filter i made from a piece of welding glass. I was really happy with how the pictures came out before when i was at Lake Erie.

Here's a slow-moving river near Flat Rock, Michigan.

The ND filter makes a very calm effect. The blurs in the picture are a flock of geese.

I used my new Manfrotto Tripod and it worked great, it was smaller and a lot easier to carry around.

The same picture as before, converted to black and white.

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Bad Axe

Saturday, 17 December 2011

I went to Bad Axe with John. We fixed his truck and milked cows.

Bad truck part.

We had to remove the whole dashboard.


Milking cows, i think they have about 70.

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Garden - 2011

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

This year was the same story as the last two years. There's not enough sun in my back yard due to all the trees. I really only get about 4 hours of direct sunlight. Besides that, some of the plants did ok. I really only care about the corn, but with the lack of sunlight they are never really going to grow well in my yard.

Here's what i grew:

• peppers - red, green, orange, jalapeno
• corn
• sunflowers
• tomatoes - cherry, giant
• gourds
• carrots
• onions
• pumpkins

After the first month.

The sunflowers did the best this year. They grew so high and big that some broke in half on windy days.



The peppers grew pretty well.
They must not need as much sunlight as other plants. The jalapeno's did the best of all the peppers.
The carrots came out ok. Some of them split open and others had weird mutant shapes.
Notice the weird looking carrot.


The gourds on the fence did great too.

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