Post Storm

Another snow storm here - it's quite lovely to look at, but not so much fun if you have to shovel. Ask Dave! Fortunately, Casey decided to help, by rolling her favorite rock (yes, she has a favorite rock) around in the snow, making it bigger and bigger like a snowman. Glad she was there to help.

I love this shot, I think it really captures the two sides of snowfall - fun and work. :)

Pigeons and Photography

Thought I'd make a quick point about appropriate use of flash. And show off a cute pic of Peepers, sitting on the edge of the kitchen sink this afternoon, watching the doves/pigeons in the falling snow. :)

Sometimes, the flash will not go off when taking a photo, if it detects there's enough light. However, if you're taking a photo of something with drastic light and shadow, flash may still be appropriate. Take for example, the first photo. There is a ton of white light coming in from the window, so the flash doesn't automatically go off. But this leaves Peepers and the rest of the foreground in the dark:

So, you change the flash from AUTO to ON (it's called different things on different cameras), and try again. You'll get a shot like this one:

Now you can see Peepers more clearly!

Then you can muck around in your favorite image editing program, and get a much better result. Sometimes the bright part will be a little washed out, but it's a big improvement over a blackened-out pic you can't see. :)

And, if you really want to muck about and crop the photo and selectively darken/brighten certain areas, you end up with something pretty cute:

Woah...first recorded sounds of a human voice

Wow. There's been a discovery of a recording of a human voice from 1860 (1860!!!!) in a French patent office. The oldest known recording of a voice - and there was no way to play it back until now!!! It was recorded on a soot-covered piece of paper, but until modern scanning and computer tech came about, there was no way to recover the sound traced into the paper. It's amazing, really, to think about people creating a device to record sound, knowing they'd have no way to play it back, but doing it anyway.

It's a wonderful piece of history. My favorite aspect of anthropology (my major in University) was linguistics, and I still have a soft spot for it. Sound recordings really aid in the study of languages and how they change: and although this clip is of a well-known song, and not common speech, it's still really interesting. A piece of the past coming alive.

Read the CBC article to learn how all this came about, here.

Listen to the recording here, it's creepy, but amazing.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I'm off to plan out my big meal for tomorrow: marmalade glazed ham, kielbasa (what we call koubasa), borscht, maple-glazed carrots, pidpenky, a delicious hash-brown casserole, pickled eggs, and wine-pickled beets! Should be delish! I've made some things ahead to make tomorrow easier. Looking forward to all that good food.

Here's a pick of some of my pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) from a few years back, on a background of one of my embroidered cloths (the cloth isn't quite finished yet, I really need to get it done so I can use it in my Easter basket next year). :)



Don't forget, if you want to learn how to make these eggs yourself, check out my LearnPysanky site!

got eggs?

With only a week to go before the big feast at Easter, it's time already to make pickled eggs! Man, time goes by so fast!

I've enjoyed my uncle's recipe for these eggs for several years now (although I don't add the pickling spice, I prefer the flavour without) - they're a great addition to my Easter table!

And I HAVE to make time this week to try my hand at paska again! Last years' first attempt at making this special Ukrainian Easter bread went pretty darn well, but the decoration left much to be desired... :) Hopefully, it'll turn out prettier this time! ;)

Early Morning Blue

I was up early this morning, and caught the beautiful blue hue in the sky following our all-day snow storm yesterday.



So sorry I haven't been posting lately...I have a lot of personal distractions going on right now, that will likely last over the next few months. Hopefully everything will get cleared up sooner rather than later, and I'll be back to posting before you know it. :) Thanks for your patience!