New Skills

Christmas baking is underway and this house smells like gingerbread.  This is my first foray into rolled and cut cookies as well as (gulp) attempting to decorate them.  Practice with Royal icing is about to commence.  Thankfully these cookies are destined to be ornaments and not edibles.

It's always good to learn new skills.

Speaking of new skills, my two portfolios; Abitazione and Farms and Barns are going on sale this weekend at the Carmel Visual Arts Center in, well, Carmel.  These portfolios are sets of small to tiny photos contained in the above boxes.  It doesn't matter if they sell or not, I'm enjoying working on expanding the portfolios.  I've fallen intrigued with the small photo collection in a box format and will continue with these cherish-able photo findings.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Boxes

Continuing with the framed and captioned theme.  I've been looking at these boxes out in the field for a week now and have wanted to get a picture.  I used the photo merge in Photoshop to get the full panorama.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

June 27 Sunset

We had some good light last evening and I actually pulled myself up, grabbed the camera and headed out to catch some of it.

And I always have to indulge my love of black and white:

Farms of the valley.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Barn #7

The broad side of a barn framed by its surrounding landscape.  I chose an optic center, or weighted center for this "mount".  I choose black and white for gravitas. These barns are iconic.  Although they are used in nearly every culture, a barn of single wall, plain board, on a farm is somehow associated with Americana.  A symbol of the heart, of ideals, of solidity, home, security, love.  It at once reaffirms independence and an encompassing community spirit.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Windmill

Still working on the barn project.  One of the few local windmills that still operates.  I don't know how much water it's pumping.  Texas is underwater and California is becoming a dust bowl.  Is there anyone out there who still doubts that there are some changes occuring to the climate?

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Today 5/21/15

Building the portfolio

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Today 5/10/15

On the way home tonight...

Playing with post processing to make the photos look vintage

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Today 4/15/15

Now I'm getting into landscapes...

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Waste(d)land

Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula covers the same square mileage as the city/county of San Francisco.  There are hundreds of these barracks and many other buildings being allowed to stand useless.  A few years ago a few buildings were sold for $1 to churches and other foundations.  Those buildings have been restored, painted, and landscaped and are beautiful as well as functional.  Why, why, why do we continue to pave over open land, reduce fertile land for farms in order to build more and more housing units?  The Fort Ord Reuse Agency could sell the units for that same $1 with a stipulated time limit for improvement and habitability and lease the land the units are on.  These building would make terrific townhomes, studios, and businesses.  Across the road is a shopping center.  Access to Highway 1 is only a few hundred feet down the road, and the view is the Monterey Bay! There is a high school right in the center of all of these derelict buildings and believe me, the kids have no trouble getting inside these places. Doors stand wide open, windows are shattered and signs of less than legal activity is everywhere.

There they stand on their hill overlooking the bay and the new shopping center.  The barracks and other abandoned buildings go on for miles along paved roads winding maze-like over the vast expanse of the former military base. They need to be restored and re-used and we need to reduce the waste of land that once gone cannot be brought back.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Cannery Row

Yesterday afternoon we went down to Cannery Row for a coffee. We found a corner in the shop where we could sit by an open window overlooking the main drag, sip our coffee, and watch the world go by.  It was just one of those perfect late afternoons.

We've been having a small "heat wave" which for us is anything over 80℉.  

I'm venturing into black and white photography, along with the previously announced "project" that v and I are embarking on. I hope to have more on that in the near future.

This seagull was sharing his pole with the little Brewers Blackbirds that hang out on the row when someone with a loud rumbling engine gunned it, sending the little blackbirds off in a flurry.  

Nearby is the Cannery Row Brewing Co.  I always find their sign of hanging barrels intriguing.  

The day before we had driven up the coast to Swanton Farm to pick the ollalieberries that are now in season.  Jams, jellies, syrups, and cobblers will be on the menu.  We freeze them so we can have ollalieberry cobbler on a cold, damp winter's day.

We try to go berry picking every summer to mark the season.  This year the farmers have cleared the original fields and berry picking required a bit of a hike to the new ground.  I used to take my father up there to pick berries.  Even with his dementia he thoroughly enjoyed the outing and adventure.  He wasn't as discerning in his choice of berry, but the under-ripe ones help with the thickening of the jam and jelly.  

Quick update on v:  he is putting on weight and his energy is high.  He has five more infusions left before the next CT scan and we remain as hopeful as ever that he will continue to show improvement.  He feels he is winning this battle.  To watch him and to listen to him, it is hard to believe he is ill at all.  Only the loss of his eyebrows and lashes gives evidence.  It has been nine months of chemo.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v 

A Flowering Tree

Every spring as we drive to church I have noticed this lovely, lonely tree flowering in a field bordered by forest.  It's the only fruit tree in sight.  This year I decided we might just take some pictures of it.  Such a brave beauty.

It's on farmland along Hwy 1 south of Carmel and north of Big Sur.  It's so nice that it hasn't been paved over and we hope it stays that way for some time to come.

The fields are full of wildflowers.  I remember at one time there were artichokes in these fields. I've heard that the padres brought the mustard to California.  The Carmel Mission isn't far from this farm.  Father Serra is entombed at the mission.

The tractor hasn't been busy for awhile.

 

There's even a nest inside the engine.  Nothing goes to waste.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Saturday in Wine Country

Saturday afternoon v and I took a photo drive along River Road and the heart of the Salinas Valley wine country.  When I first moved to this area the fields were either full of the vegetables we put in salads or vast expanses of grass for cattle.  Now there are vines as far as the eye can see, sometimes.  Coming from Southern California where the fields have mostly been filled with concrete, asphalt, and matching houses as far as the eye can see, I'm so very pleased that agriculture still rules up here.

This lonely Victorian stands sentinel over pinot and syrah grapes.  Topping the rise with skeletal openings that once reflected candle and gaslight glow from within.

Side roads are planted with windbreaks of majestic trees casting dappled shade in the late afternoon.

We started out in a quest for fields of lupin.  We didn't find any along this route, but there were other wildflowers blooming.  I don't know what they are and would love it if someone reading this could identify them for me.

Barns are also on my list for photo capture, and there are several along the road and slightly off road.  We only captured a couple on Saturday, but plan to return soon.

We come across farmsteads neatly maintained yet uninhabited.  A mystery...

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Farms

Last evening v wasn't feeling good so we took a drive.  We found ourselves driving along the highway that cuts through the lettuce fields of Salinas.  It was just after sundown with a rim of marine layer threatening to envelope the fields.  One man was out walking along the rows checking the equipment and possibly monitoring the irrigation pipes where the plumes of water are rising from in this picture. I don't know why I had it set on sepia, but somehow that is fitting for the Salinas fields.  So many fortunes have been made from them and not just from the dirt itself.  John Steinbeck came from Salinas, a museum dedicated to him and the the farms he wrote about is on Main Street.

Whenever we drive past the miles and miles of fields that comprise the Salinas Valley v is always in awe of what he calls the generosity of the land.  The fields are in production from February through December, each yielding multiples of crops.  Strawberries, lettuce, celery, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, artichokes, asparagus, kale, radiccio...just on and on.  Once you drive south along the Central Coast stretch of Hwy 101 you pass miles and miles of grape vines.  River Road just south of Salinas boasts numerous Wineries.  Twenty years ago River Road boasted cattle and scrub.  Cattle ranches still exist throughout the warm hills and canyons trailing off the big Salinas Valley. What a bountiful land our California is and always living under the threat of "progress" and pavement.  Redevelopment over development should be the focus.  Look to the empty and crumbling infrastructure in any city or town before sealing the fate of open land under asphalt and cement.  Crops don't grow out of either, and our world is getting smaller, people are getting bigger.  Where do we expect our food, not to mention our air, to come from?

In bocca al lupo. m & v