KW-19 Accursed technology

And a polytunnel full of goodness

With well over an hour to go before I have to feed the pigs, I have already done a turn around the vegetable gardens and the poly tunnel this morning. In a shocking vision of grey greatcoat and red running shoes, I was out shortly after sunrise to check on the damage the overnight surprise frost brought with it.

The lightest of frosts, settling on fresh grass mulch and exposed metal

According to the weather station, we never dropped below 1.2C in the night. Weirdly, at around midnight, we saw a sweltering 5C. Presumably dry winds venturing north from warmer latitudes in the night swapped around at some point to easterlies, laden with Siberian moisture and blowing the heat out of the most conductive of surfaces.

Looking every part the pirate flasher, with a grimace on my face declaring “if the tomatoes are gone, then so am I”, it would appear that the thin film of polyethylene was enough to hold back the worst of it. The polytunnel cannot really trap heat for more than a fraction of an hour. When it gets cold outside, it is equally cold in the tunnel, but it can stop the evaporative effects of the wind, and the tomatoes, I am happier than you can imagine to report appear to be fine.

All indications are the dance with the ice-fairies is to continue all week, with the lowest coming at the weekend. I really don’t want to bring everything inside into the loft, but this might be the better idea. It is a tricky problem for sure. If we were going to have one or two nights guaranteed to be minus 2 or minus 4, I would unquestioningly light a small charcoal fire at floor level in the tunnel at around midnight, sleep for a few hours, and come and check on it again at maybe 4am. Nice and easy, and makes for a great story. Six or seven consecutive nights of almost bad news is somehow worse.

I think I have talked myself into bringing all the tomatoes into the loft. Urgh.

The Barracks and Technology.

If this week’s chapter of the Book of the Barracks is a little light on photography, that is because I have spent a large portion of the week swearing at technology.

That is not entirely true. The drone has been a wonder. It’s got a great little camera on it which does amazing things with saturation and brightness, really making everything that it shoots so vivid and exciting. The actual picture quality is on the low side of the claimed 4k, but I’ve been getting to grips with the automatic modes (circle, follow, rocket and so on) and working on my visual storytelling. The little DJI has been a pleasure. And I figured out how to transfer the videos directly from the little critter to the computer. When I learn how to control it myself, I might even figure out how to get it to take photos. Then we shall make up for the paucity of pictures in this week’s chapter.

I have also been relearning DaVinci Resolve video editing software. That has been fun as well. But wow. It takes up a lot more time than I thought it was going to.

It’s the other cameras which have been frustrating me.

I have a Panasonic Lumix from maybe 2010 which I just looked up on the internets to remind myself of the specs. I remember it being really quite decent when I bought it, but the sensor on it is described in modern terminology as “small and noisy”. Anyway, the pesky little thing, mounted on a tripod, and pointed at a single even unmoving target has developed a twitchy little habit of refocussing every few seconds, usually deciding to autofocus on a thing which is not there, rendering the rest of the image artistically, unusably blurred.

My phone has a perfectly decent camera, although it does the opposite of the drone, washing out all colour and flattening anything you point it at. This alone puts it beyond my abilities in colour correction to merge non-abruptly with the drone footage, but more significantly, it has developed a curious little trick of not saving about 50% of the videos that I shoot with it. When I go into the file system, they are there, hidden from the gallery, and when extracted, contain only the audio.

This does not make the telling of a story with video any easier.

My final camera is a Canon EOS 350 Digital Rebel. Get this kids. It’s a full body through-the-lens digital camera that is so old it doesn’t even have the ability to shoot video! Can you imagine such a thing?!

YouTubing will happen. Not this week.

Vegetables.

In self sufficiency news, all the potatoes are in. The bean gate is up. One row of peas and 8 rows of carrots are all done. As soon as the Ice Saints are past, there is a wealth of gourds to be planted out, and this week, I shall be thinning and repotting cabbage family, lettuces and other assorted greens.

We are further ahead than we have ever been a this stage of the growing season. At least I think so. That might just be a bad memory and a delight in the growing of vegetables.

And now, if I am quick, I can just about get the audio version done and feed the pigs at their exactly allotted time, and before they start complaining that I am mistreating them most unjustly.

As we broke through Earth Day this week, I shall leave you with the question not of why it appears impossible for the vast majority of humanity to see the damage that we are doing, but instead, how is it that some, so few, are able to see it so clearly?

Please be lovely to all things

Your loving Pirate Ben

xoxo