Cell Phone Pics

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A golden stonefly visited my backyard and landed on my kid. It’s not the first time one has come mocking me for not fishing. They must live in the creek nearby but it’s not exactly a straight shot from the creek to my backyard so always a bit of a surprise.
 
The morning after (the 4th) in Central Pierce County.
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albula said:
There are no large diameter trees that grow this far north of the Arctic Circle, the maximum size mostly only 6 inch birch and similar sized knotty conifers. This church was painstakingly built over a number of years by the landowner out of lumber harvested from the farm his family has long owned. One has to wonder about the number of hours that were spent with hand tools during the construction. Truly a labor of love.

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Very cool. Some of those "Stave" churches (based on an old Norse term for the pine post construction) date to 1150 AD. Basically the time Vikings were being converted to Christianity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church

Although not a Stave type, I visited a church from that era in Harstad Norway when on a NATO exercise to the Evenes Air Station near Narvik. Apparently the Trondenes Church has the distinction of being the World's Northernmost surviving medieval building.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Trondenes Church - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

My film photos are all buried deep somewhere in a box, but the one image that sticks with me 35 years later was the giant wooden eyeball of God glaring down, and "greeting" you inside the front door. Guess it was necessary to literally scare the bejeezus into those Vikings.

But yes, those Stave churches are incredible works of craftsmanship, and art, as in this arch carving:

Urnesportalen.jpg

A return visit to Norway is on the bucket list.

Now, back to our regular cell phone Pic programming...
 
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albula said:
There are no large diameter trees that grow this far north of the Arctic Circle, the maximum size mostly only 6 inch birch and similar sized knotty conifers. This church was painstakingly built over a number of years by the landowner out of lumber harvested from the farm his family has long owned. One has to wonder about the number of hours that were spent with hand tools during the construction. Truly a labor of love.

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I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this church in an episode of the “Vikings” series I recently binge watched. It is very interesting…
 
Brian Miller said:
The morning after (the 4th) in Central Pierce County.
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Fire burning in your neighborhood? We woke up to smoke but the AQI is still okay. I guess the fire that's smokin' up Ephrata comes from Withrow (between Farmer and Mansfield), the fire started when a powerline dropped from the pole. Darn PUD!
 
Buzzy said:
Fire burning in your neighborhood?
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No, it's unburned aluminum, potassium perchlorate, potassium nitrate (saltpeter), sulfur, charcoal, and I suspect strontium, copper
barium, sodium nitrate, titanium, zirconium, and magnesium residue from last night's revelry :cautious:. The wind was calm overnight until it warmed up this AM to cause some light northeasterly winds. I was just happy to see no charred trees on the property.
 
Happy about no fires but the residue sucks. Kennewick sounded like a war zone until around 2AM. "Prohibited Aerial Fireworks Statute" = Empty Words. There were something like 14 fires requiring response, a few injuries and not enough time or officers to go around, although they were trying. I think raising the $250 fine to $5K & including some lengthy community service in addition might be an improvement.
 
Jim F. said:
Happy about no fires but the residue sucks. Kennewick sounded like a war zone until around 2AM. "Prohibited Aerial Fireworks Statute" = Empty Words. There were something like 14 fires requiring response, a few injuries and not enough time or officers to go around, although they were trying. I think raising the $250 fine to $5K & including some lengthy community service in addition might be an improvement.
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Worst day of the year for dogs
 
not a beautiful butterfly, but this pretty cool tarantula decided to make an appearance...
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I have a lightbox that I need to start using for some of these, but this one in particular is a little too spicy for me to want to deal with that.

🍻
 
clarkman said:
not a beautiful butterfly, but this pretty cool tarantula decided to make an appearance...
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I have a lightbox that I need to start using for some of these, but this one in particular is a little too spicy for me to want to deal with that.

🍻
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"Spicy" ... not the term my wife would use. Actually, not sure what she'd say. Probably no way to spell the sounds uttered, other than an F-bomb or two.
 
SilverFly said:
"Spicy" ... not the term my wife would use. Actually, not sure what she'd say. Probably no way to spell the sounds uttered, other than an F-bomb or two.
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"spirited"?
 
M_D said:
whoa….are those colors true? The greens look green so is the ‘spirited’ guy really that purply blue?
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I did a little bit of post processing (primarily for focusing), but no saturation at all. I went back at the original to double check and yeah, they are true to the original photo. The LED lights I have above the cage were set on standard white too.

It had just molted though (after being buried for several months), so that will all fade to some degree until the next molt.
 
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