Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising

It’s October, which means that means that Hallowe’en is just around the corner.  The bloggers here at Freethought Blogs will be hosting a Hallowe’en Fun and Fundraising event to show off our talents, including fall photography, and you’re invited to play along. There will be other events happening on Hallowe’en Day so stay tuned to hear about those, but the Photo Festival starts now, so you’ll want to tune in often to see what our fellow bloggers are doing with their cameras.  I’m pretty sure there will be spiders, but who knows what else could turn up. But wait, we want to see your photos, too. All of the photos will be posted under the title above, so they’ll be easy to find.

PHOTO submissions should be sent to affintysubmissions@gmail. com (the address is always in the left sidebar under the percolating head, and the link there will open up an email form for you). If you’re able and so inclined, you can donate to the cause at our PayPal at FtB Defense Fund.

As soon as we have the schedule for the Hallowe’en Day event, I’ll point you to it, but for now, why not pick up your camera and go outside and see what you can find. They don’t have to be current photos. You can search through your stash, too, but fall is a gorgeous time of year, so why not get outside while you can. It won’t be long until Winter arrives, dragging Covid with it, which means a lot of isolated indooring. Ugh. Don’t waste this opportunity to get out for a walk before that happens.

Today, the Photo Festival of Fun starts with a submission from our regular reader, Avalus, who has sent in a deadly dragonfly to start things off. It looks to me as if this guy is camouflaging while waiting for an unsuspecting fruit-eating bug to happen by, so he can gobble them up. Wham! Avalus then tortured the berries by making them into jam, so this harmless-looking photo is anything but.

Dragonfly with Blackberries  © Avalus, all rights reserved.

 

How’s Your Second Wave Going? Covid and the Myth of Individual Responsibility

As about everybody with the expertise to do so predicted, Covid is back with a vengeance and Europe is in the firm grip of a second wave.

I absolutely have no clue what France is doing, because their new cases are just through the roof with 27k new cases yesterday, or Spain, or what is keeping Italy relatively stable. What I do know is that currently the narrative is that the second wave is caused by irresponsible individuals. And sure, we are all fed up with the people who don’t wear their masks, and the SNP MP who took the train home despite having Covid, and the Kids who party like there was no tomorrow (well, probably they’re right). Yet, in the end, the tale of the reckless individual who endangers all of us is just that: a tale, mostly to deflect from the complete failure of our governing bodies.

The media are, of course, helping. 12 infected at an illegal party, or 25 infected at a completely legal wedding makes for good headlines. As does “most transmissions occur in the personal sector” while only mentioning in the small print that 30-50% of transmissions are unknown. Transmissions in your private life are easy to follow. Contact tracing will work well when the people you infected with Covid are your spouse and teenage kid. Contact tracing will not work at all when you infect 2 people at the grocery store and one on public transport. Our daily life will force us into close contact with many people, often with not enough protection. At school I’m in close contact with up to 200 people a day, usually with no masks, no air filters, no distance. At least so far it seems that the concept of “tracing and isolating” after a positive test is working, there have been few spreads within schools or among the families, but it shows again why the spread outside of schools and workplaces is going on and on: There’s no contact tracing and isolation for people who shopped together at the supermarket. How’s the cashier supposed to know whether they got the ‘Rona at work or in an elevator where somebody sneezed?

The current discourse is nothing but to deflect from the abysmal failure of the people in charge to implement safety standards that will really keep people safe, but as long as we’re happily blaming one another they’ll get away with it.

A Kestrel on Fire

I am glad for the photo-op late in the evening, but I hope this was just a brief pause between murderings of voles who are a scourge of my garden. I haven’t seen kestrels or signs of them near my garden last year at all, but this year I have seen at least two individuals, and that is a good sign. The voles infestation used to be less severe when they were around regularly – when I often found their feathers and pellets of undigested food.

I never thought I will miss the times when I had fresh bird vomit in my garden all the time, but those really were the good times.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Woman Artists on Youtube – Movie Reviewer – Jill Bearup

I am not shure whether movie reviewer is the correct title – she is specializing in talking about stage combat, but not only that. I found her because I have recently caught up with my MCU deficit (last movie I saw before this year was Guardians of the Galaxy 2) and YouTube algorithm caught up pretty quickly on that.

Jack’s Walk

Sugar Maples at Ye Olde Sugar Shanty © Voyager, all rights reserved (click photo to see it full-size. You can do that with all of our photos!)

This building is a fully functional sugar shanty, just like the sign says.  The syrup is boiled over a wood fire, and it’s my favourite maple brand because it carries a hint of Bubba, who pees on all the trees. Sugar maples do more than make good syrup, though. In autumn, they have the most vibrant colours of any tree around, and they make the landscape into a brilliant work of art.

Well, at Least Nobody Got Hurt.

One of the reasons why I spend less time making knives than I wanted to that I did not tell you about is my parents’ health. It started to get a lot worse in the last year and if I still did have a daily job, I do not know how we would manage – I spend two days on average every week driving them to and from various doctor appointments. I do not want to complain about it, because I love my parents, and the more than deserve all the help I can give them. But it is slowly getting too much for one person to bear alone.

Today I had to drive 150 km on short notice. At the destination, I got severely stressed out trying to offload my mother as close to the hospital pavillion she was supposed to visit as possible because she has limited mobility and has to use crutches – one of the reasons why using public transport is not an option for her.

And when leaving the hospital, I went to pay for my parking ticket and I completely fortgot to secure the handbrake. The car rolled forward a few meters and bent the front door of another vehicle, and only noticed it after I paid for the parking and turned around to return to the car. In hindsight, the unsecured car followed probably right behind me, and had I been just a bit slower, it would probably either go over me or press me against the other car.

Nobody got hurt, police did not need to be involved (I asked them), my car has no damage and the other car has probably only some minor sheet metal bending. The insurance should pay for the damages and the damaged party took it better than I deserved. So probably the worst damage is to fill out some paperwork, which I hate.

But it was a reminder that I am severely stressed out and it is starting to impact my ability to function properly. And there is not much that I can do about it.

Degupdate: They Do Run Run Run, They Do Run, Run, Run

The new degu run is set up now and Candy just loves getting out. When we come to Degustan she’ll go downstairs and wait for the door to be opened. then she takes a longer or shorter stroll before returning. By now she has deemed me fully safe. The degus love to run, and in doing so, they slow me down, as I spend some time sitting quietly.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

We tied a few old T-shirts against the door to close the gap so no degu gets hurt falling down. Of course they#re also playthings and the string is a highly sought plaything.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Looks like a leaf but isn’t edible! Cheating!

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Hi friends!

Estelle is coming around. Candy does actively encourage her to go outside and today she even sniffed my hand. We’re getting there.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The obvious advantage is that it’s much easier to take pics of careful Estelle than of whirlwind Candy.

But talking about “sitting down”: As I sat crosslegged today for 45 minutes, barely moving, I managed to cut off circulation in my feet to the extend that when I got up, I fell flat on my ass again. Thankfully the degus were inside by then and all I suffered was a laughing attack at my own stupidity and a headache.

The Art of …

… Emily Carr. Although not officially part of The Group of Seven, Carr’s work is a well-considered part of their movement, and is a part of the permanent collection at the McMichael Art gallery (The official gallery of the group of seven, in Kleinberg, Ontario. If you ever get a chance to go, you should. It’s less than an hour north of Toronto.)

Big Raven, 1931, by Emily Carr, image from the CBC