Friday, January 28, 2011

See the good, people!

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work for BYUtv as a Story Producer for a series of short docs on people and organizations that are interesting or are making some kind of difference in the world.

Some of the docs are now available to watch on the BYUtv website. I'll post a few here over the next few days and weeks so you can all take a gander. Feel free to send these to facebook and non-facebook friends.

My favorite aspect of the project was working with Jed. He shot quite a few of these spots (including the one below) and has developed into quite a creative force to be reckoned with, not that that's a surprise to anyone.

This first one is about Ali Johnson founder of the organization "Start Something Beautiful" Enjoy!

This Was Touching

A man describes his autistic son's first spelling bee.

NCAA Tournament

Wouldn't it be cool to get some guys together to see the Cougars in the Big Dance? I'm just saying.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

No more words

There was a line at the end of Dancing at Lughnasa that mused about dance eliminating the need for language. The following clip does something similar, only it obliterates language. Annihilates it. Pulverizes and scatters it into the wind.

I defy you to find a superlative to match what you will see next.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Friday, January 21, 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Guinea Fowl

I was looking through some of my Holmestead pictures and found this shot of one of our guinea hens and some of her brood from last June 24. These babies are four days old. (Baby guinea fowl are called keets, not chicks.) Guinea fowl are loud birds (which is a positive in my book) whose primary function is eating ticks and sticker seeds. Supposedly they also kill small snakes and rodents although I've never seen them do it. At any rate, they definitely reduced our tick population last spring and summer. They will lay small eggs for you in the spring until they get broody and wander off into the grass to make a nest.
From Holmestead Pictures (public)
She hatched 16 out of 17 eggs on June 20. She made her nest in some tall grass not too far from the house. It rained really hard in early June when she was sitting on the nest but she stuck it out like a trooper. Once I finally located her nest I would leave her a little corn every day. It's amazing that a bird can nest out in the grass for three weeks and no critters found her. Of her 16 babies 9 are alive today. We started with six guineas originally, made it up to around 34 once two pairs hatched out eggs and are now at 10 after attrition, mostly to foxes and one to an owl.

One other interesting trait is that guineas form monogamous pairs so you can have multiple males. Also, they are better foragers than chickens so they don't require a lot of feed.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Dolmar PS510 Has Arrived

I ended up getting the Dolmar PS510 instead of the PS5105. It was $100 cheaper because it doesn't have quite as much horsepower and is 0.9 lbs heavier. I traded in the old saw for $140, got a couple of extra chains and a case for the Dolmar. The difference is amazing. The saw just rips through things and my back can tell I'm lugging 4-5 fewer pounds around. Here are some action photos after felling a 50 ft. Siberian Elm on Thursday.
From Holmestead Pictures (public)
Ah yeah!
From Holmestead Pictures (public)
I felled the tree into my neighbors' yard. You can see their tomato cages and bean trellises on one side and their compost container on the other. Fortunately, I dropped the tree right between them or my neighbor would be a lot angrier than he already is. (I'll write about that story later.)
From Holmestead Pictures (public)
Here is the view from the top of the tree. You can see how close I came to digging myself into a much bigger hole with the neighbors. I had started cutting the tree before I recognized that it was tall enough to hit their stuff. At that point it was too hard to change the direction the tree would fall so I had to hope for the best. Anyway, I was proud of my aim.
From Holmestead Pictures (public)
And there is a pickup load of firewood.