Ice Bubbles

My friend Jon and I finished the panelling installation to the high ceiling on January 24.  On the 25th we packed up and headed back home to the city.  Before heading home we took a drive up to Abraham Lake to check out the Ice Bubbles.

The lake was swept fairly clear of snow by the dominant winds.  In particular, it was very clear around the elbow of the lake... at Windy Point, across from Mt. Michener.  We wandered down to the shore of the lake and checked things out.  It was very windy on this day, and photography with a view camera was not possible.  Water is released from the reservoir over the winter months and as a result the ice collapses.  In areas where the shore is steep, this results in sloped sheets of ice laying on the shore.  Access to the horizontal ice on the surface of the lake is challenging, and ice cleats are necessary.  We neglected to bring any and so had to limit our exploration to the shore.

We travelled further up the lake to the headwaters.  Here access to the lake was much easier, but it was mostly snow covered.  It is not nearly as windy at the upper part of the lake.  The recent mild weather melted the surface of the ice somewhat.  This not only reduced the clarity of the ice, but also made some of the remaining snow stick to it.  Subsequent light snow has now further adhered to the surface and the winds are not fully clearing it.  We wandered around for a while and took some snapshots, but the wind was still fairly brisk and I did not attempt any large format photography.

At least there were no issues with my truck this time, and we managed to explore at leisure for a while.  As it was a weekday, there were not nearly as many people around this time.  By early afternoon we hit the road and made our way back to the city.

Ceiling Complete

The heat wave of Saturday was shortlived.  Sunday was still pretty warm as Jon and I set to work on the ceiling of the guest cottage.  We continued working on Monday.  We got a light snowfall of an inch or so, and the temperature cooled off to around -8 overnight.  During the day it just barely made it up to near the freezing mark.  But it was not an issue to work inside and was very pleasant.  I got a fire going first thing in the morning on both of our work days, but we let it burn out by mid day as it was plenty warm inside.

We finished installing the aspen to the ceiling by about 2:30 on Monday afternoon.  It had taken us three days to install the ceiling on the west side of the cottage before Christmas, but the east side only took us two days.  We actually only worked for five or six hours on both of those days.  Just as we became efficient in this type of installation, the job is complete.

The next steps will be to install panelling to the south gable end.  Once this is in place I can install ceiling trim at the south end, and at the ridge.  I will also install the light fixtures at that time.  Once these steps are complete, the scaffold can be taken down and removed for good.  The north gable end can be easily accessed from the loft at a later date.

Heat Wave

My friend Jon and I headed out to Nordegg on Saturday January 22nd.  We left the city around 10:00AM, and arrived at the cottage around 1:00.  It was a really warm day and the temperature peaked at around +12C as we passed over Saunders ridge.  We got unpacked and settled in on Saturday afternoon.  We made some pizza for supper, and sat around visiting and having a few beers.

When I got up on Sunday morning, just before dawn, the temperature was still at +5C.  We headed over to the guest cottage and spent the day installing aspen panelling to the high ceiling.  We took a beer break in the mid afternoon, and following that both of were totally lacking in ambition.  We shut things down for the day around 3:30 but not before we had nearly 2/3 of the ceiling finished.  The work progressed much faster than when we installed to the other side of the ceiling before Christmas.  Partly we just became more efficient based upon our previous experience.  But, this side of the cottage was also a little easier to work on as there are two loft areas to work from, and we really didn't need to move the scaffold that was set up in between.  I borrowed an extra platform from my neighbor and set it between the scaffold and the small loft.  This allowed us to move back and forth without having to go up and down.

I made a roast chicken dinner for us that evening as we had skipped lunch, and we were both quite hungry.  We enjoyed a hearty supper, and then sat around visiting in the evening.

Burnt Trunks in Infrared

This shot was taken on Kodak High Speed Infrared Film in 4x5 format.  I used to shoot this film a lot, and really liked it.  It was discontinued by Kodak back in the late 1990's.  I stocked up on a whole bunch of it, and had more given to me by some friends.  I still have a number of boxes left in my freezer.  By, the film is very susceptible to fogging, and used to be shipped by Kodak in dry ice.  The last that they produced had a best before date of 2001.

I have a bad habit of loading this film in film holders, and then not shooting and processing it promptly.  That has led to some badly fogged negatives that are unprintable.  In the future I will be more careful with my remaining stock and see if I can salvage some usable images.  This one was a little fogged around the edges, and I fixed up the digital file a little.  I think this would also be printable in the darkroom.

This shot was taken in October of 2021 out along the David Thompson Highway near Saskatchewan Crossing.  This burnt area is the Spreading Creek Burn.  I shot this with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and used a long focal length 300mm lens to compress the perspective.  The lens was fitted with a #25 Red Filter.  Development was in Kodak T-Max developer, 1:6, for 6:45 minutes at 22C.

Petrified Tree

Another shot taken on Rollei IR film.  This one was taken down in the badlands near Drumheller, in October of 2020.  I used my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a 75mm wide angle lens.  This is a large chunk of a petrified tree that dates back to the late cretaceous.

Old House

I shot this image of the old house back in mid July of 2021.  My friend Arturo and I were out exploring on a day trip out to the northeast of the city.  This image was taken on Rollei Infrared film.  I used my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Nikkor 75mm wide angle lens.  I also used a #25 Red Filter.  The film was recently developed in Kodak T-Max developer, diluted 1:6, for 11:00 minutes at 22C.

On the Road Again

I got up at 5:45AM on Monday the 17th.  I quickly packed up everything at the cottage and shut things down.  I managed to hit the road for Rocky Mountain House shortly after 7:00AM.  The roads were good and I made it to Rocky Mountain Dodge shortly after they opened at 8:00AM.  They were very helpful and friendly and booked me in right away.  My truck was in the shop a few minutes later.  It turned out that it was only a programming fix that was needed to resolve the DEF issue.  There was also a recall for a programming fix on something else, and they did that at the same time.  I was out of the dealership and back on the road by around 10:00AM, and made it back to the city by just after noon.  

The skies were sunny and the roads were dry most of the way to the city.  Once I got north of Highway 13 the roads were a little wet.  As I got closer to Edmonton, near Leduc, it started to rain.  It rained most of the afternoon and then turned to snow.  The temperature plummeted over ten degrees in an hour, and be evening it was very windy and quite cold.  The roads will be treacherous for a day or two, but then it is supposed to warm up again.

Making the Best of It

With my stay in Nordegg unexpectedly extended, I decided to make the best of it.  It was overcast and around Zero degrees on Sunday the 16th.  Later in the day the skies broke open a bit and temperature rose a couple of degrees.  

I went to work in the guest cottage and tried to take advantage of the extra time.  I had nine boards that were about 9 feet long... just the right length for the ceiling of the second bedroom.  I cut these all to exact length and installed them on the ceiling.  This completed about a third of the ceiling.  Then I started installing a few boards to the high ceiling.  I installed the first row of boards, as well as a few more up on the mezzanine.  This was about the extent of what I could reach and properly install by myself.  But it is a bit of a start, and when my helpers come out with me in a week or so, we will be able to carry on.

Later in the afternoon I visited with a couple of the neighbors.  In the evening I went back to the cottage and prepared for my departure.  I did the dishes and tidied up a bit.  I want to get up very early on Monday and hit the road for Rocky Mountain House.  I'm hoping that if I get to the Dodge dealership first thing in the morning, then they can deal with my truck issues sooner rather than later.  My neighbor Dan offered to come and pick me up and bring me back to Nordegg if there are any issues with them being unable to fix my truck.  This would allow me to take my old truck home, and come and pick up the new one at another time.  A very generous offer, but I'm seriously hoping that I don't have to take him up on it.

Outside Hockey

I've missed a lot of my hockey games with the Renegades recently, due to being out at Nordegg.  They put in new boards, lights and a heated change shack out at the rink in Nordegg last year.  I wanted to go and play over the Christmas break, particularly for the New Years Eve game.  But it was just too cold and everything was shut down.  I found out that they have adult drop in hockey at the rink every Wednesday and Saturday night at 7:00.  So I headed down there on Saturday the 15th.  A first there were just a couple of other skaters there, and we hung around shooting pucks for a half hour or so.  But later five young people from Frontier Lodge showed up.  So, although we didn't have any goalies, we had enough players to play 3-on-3 for a while.  We ended up playing for almost two hours straight.

It was a beautiful night... starting out at about -2 at 6:45 when I arrived.  By the end of the evening it had only dropped down to -5.  There was a full moon, and no wind, so it was a great night for a skate.  When you are moving around that much, its almost too warm

I wear shin pads and hockey pants when I play pick up hockey because my old knees and hips don't take well to crashing to the ice.  I didn't fall down once during the game, even though the outside ice was a lot more uneven than the arena ice I'm used to.  After the game I took my gear off and then promptly wiped out on the ice in the parking lot as I was walking to my truck.  Bruised my knee and cut my ankle on the ice... go figure....

But I really enjoyed the exercise and look forward to getting back out there again a few times before winter is over....

The Renegades have a league game on Sunday morning.  With the truck issues I have experienced, and the resulting delay in my return to the city, I will not make it to this game.  But the outside skate was a nice substitute.

Messed Up Day

Saturday January 15th was sure a nice day.  It was partly sunny, and the temperature got up to about +6 by mid afternoon.  But other than the weather it was a lousy day for me...!

In the morning I went over to the guest cottage and got everything ready for installation of the aspen paneling to the east side of the high ceiling.  I sorted out all the aspen boards that I finished and separated the 8', 9' and 10' lengths, and then stacked them out of the way.  I moved a few tools and supplies out of the way and then set up the scaffold.  It is a tight squeeze to get it in between the door, the walls and the wood stove, but I made it work.  Hopefully we can reach all sections of the ceiling from where I have it as there is little room for movement.

After that I took a drive up to Abraham Lake, hoping to get out with my camera for the first time in 2022.  I should have known better than to attempt this on a mild Saturday.  Not only did we have mild temperatures, but wind conditions up at the lake were better than usual, with only a stiff breeze.  But the lake was just crawling with people.  At every lake access point there were 10, 20 or even 30 parked cars.  And people were all over the place out on the ice.  You can see some of the hoards in the background of my Bighorn Sheep snapshot below.  Frustrated with this I decided to head back to Nordegg and gave up on photography.

Just after I turned the truck around, my check engine light came on and the screen on the dash flashed a warning.  It advised that in 200km the truck would be disabled to a maximum speed of 8 km/h and that I needed to service the DEF system.  DEF is diesel exhaust fluid and it is a urea based solution that is injected into the exhaust system to reduce emissions.  DEF freezes solid at about -10C, so the reservoir on the truck is heated.  This recent cold snap must have seen it frozen solid.  Now with the mild temperatures it has started acting up.  By the time I got back to the cottage the count was down to 160km before the truck goes into limp mode.  So I called the Dodge dealership in Rocky Mountain House and have the truck booked to go in on Monday morning.  Although this will be covered under warranty, it is a major inconvenience.  Not only does it delay my trip back to Edmonton, but it just messed up my whole day.  For someone like me that regularly does a 600km round trip to the cottage, a 200km warning is not sufficient.  I am less than impressed...!

Finished Finishing

I spent most of January 14th applying lacquer to the last of the aspen boards.  I never did do an exact count of how many I brought out at Christmas time.  Somewhere around 110 boards.  I got four coats of lacquer applied to all of them, and finished up the last boards on the 14th.  I should clarify that this is not all of the boards... just the last of the ones that I brought out here to Nordegg.  There are still over 300 more to bring out at some point in the future.

Once this current batch is all dry I will need to get the workspace organized.  The sawhorses that I used to lay the boards out on will need to be put away.  The boards themselves will all need to be stacked up out of the way, and sorted by length.  The scaffold will then need to be moved into proper position for installation of the boards to the east side of the high ceiling.  The next time we get a mild spell of weather I will bring out a couple of helpers, and we'll get busy.

Back at it

On January 12th I headed back out to Nordegg.  This was a solo trip.  The cold snap recently came to an end, and daytime high temperatures were in the range of +4 to +7 on the drive out.  There is a lot less snow in Nordegg than there is in Edmonton, and what remains is melting significantly.  I wonder if I will ever get my snowmobiles out... first it was too cold and now its too warm...!!

I arrived at about 2:30 in the afternoon and quickly put my groceries away.  With the mild temperature and a couple hours of daylight remaining, I headed over to the guest cottage and put several coats of lacquer on some more of the aspen boards.  It is my intention to continue with that over the next couple of days until all of the boards that I brought out at Christmas time... about a hundred of them... are finished.  Then I will be ready to bring some helpers out to install the second half of the high ceiling.

While I was back in the city I ordered the light fixtures for the main area of the cottage.  They should be available in a couple of weeks.  It is my intention to install them while I still have the scaffold up.

Just before dark I emptied all of the ash out of the wood stove.  It was pretty full, as we had a fire burning almost continually for the two weeks that we were out over the holidays.  It took two five gallon pails full to pack it all away.

On Thursday the 13th I spent the entire day in the guest cottage working on finishing of the aspen boards.  It only dropped down slightly below freezing overnight.  I got a fire going at about 9:30AM and started working about an hour later.  I got four coats of lacquer put onto 40 boards.  This put a big dent into the project.  I will easily finish up over the next couple of days.

Finished with 2017

I finally finished processing all of my 4x5 Black and White Negatives taken during the 2017 Calendar year.  There were a total of 442 of them.  I almost always expose at least two sheets of each scene... occasionally three.  This means I set up the camera around 200 times that year.  I used 17 different kinds of film through the year, and 15 different lenses, on three different 4x5 cameras.  I can now file all these negatives away, with the appropriate notes, and move on to newer stuff.  With the turning of the calendar to 2022 I found myself six years behind in processing, so its nice to have this done.

I was not nearly as active photographically in 2018 and 2019.  I was still working then and was very busy trying to keep my business running, while it was up for sale.  I only shot 135 sheets in 2018 and 280 in 2019.  Most of those are already processed, so it won't take me long to catch up on these and be a little more up to date.  With my reduction in work hours in 2020, and full retirement in 2021, my annual shooting volume is up to more typical levels.  Plus in 2021 I bought a new 8x10 camera and starting shooting fairly regularly with that format as well.

Game Camera Photos

Before I returned home from Nordegg on January 5th I pulled the memory card out of my game camera.  It turns out the batteries froze up and the camera stopped working on December 23rd.  Then it started up again briefly on January 1 and 2, and then froze up again.  This coincides with the bitterly cold weather that we experienced over Christmas.  Between the 23rd and the 31st, and again after the 2nd it stayed consistently between -30 and -40, without the windchill.  I didn't end up with nearly as many pictures as I usually get, but these two shots of the deer are kind of cool...

January Calendar Image

This is the image that I selected for the January page of my 2022 calendar.  I shot this in January of 2021 when I was out on a day trip with my friends Arturo and Fred.  I shot it with my 4x5 view camera and a slightly wide 125mm lens.  I used a #25 Red Filter to increase contrast and darken the sky.  This old Meteor has been sitting here for a long time.  The aspen trees are growing right through the engine compartment.  This was beside an abandoned farm yard up in Barrhead County.

Little Reprieve

The cold stayed with us pretty much right through the holidays.  Back in the city conditions were about the same.  Hailey came back out on New Year's Eve with her Uncle Shawn.

I wasn't able to do any work in the guest cottage through most of the holiday week.  It was so cold that it just took too long to get the place up to working temperature and when I finally did, it was getting too dark to work.

On New Year's Day the temperature rose up to about -6.  It was really windy outside, and not very pleasant, but with the warmer temperature I was able to warm up the cottage.  I worked inside for most of the day and got a bunch more of the aspen boards lacquered.

On January 2nd it was sunny and warm and the temperature got up to near freezing.  I worked most of this day as well and got a bunch more boards finished.

Margarit and the girls decided to head back to the city on January 2nd.  Shawn and I stayed out for a little longer.  But that evening the wind really picked up, and the temperature dropped right off and overnight we found ourselves back down in the deep freeze.  It was not as cold as it had been, but -25C is a little too cold to do any work.  Shawn decided to head back to the city on the morning of January 3rd, and I found myself alone at the cottage for the first time in a long time.  Originally I planned to go home on the 4th, but the road reports indicated the highways were not in great condition.  Mostly I wanted to spend a day and do some housekeeping at the cottage, so it is not a mess whenever I'm able to return.  It only made it up to about -25C on the 4th.  It looked quite nice outside as it was clear and sunny and the light looked warm.  But the wind was brisk and it never really warmed up.

Here We Go Again...

When we went to bed on December 27th, it was -34C outside.  But, when we got up the next morning, the temperature had risen overnight to -24C.  I went out in the morning and plugged in both vehicles, started a fire in the guest cottage, and brought in some firewood.  By the time I finished all that the temperature had risen further to around -20C.  It felt like a heat wave... almost tropical... after the temperatures of the last few days.  The only good thing about this cold snap is that it should set back the advance of the Mountain Pine Beetles.

I let the fire burn in the guest cottage for an hour or two and then went over to try and do some work.  It was about -18 inside when I started the fire and two hours later it had only made it up to about -12.  I brought out another hundred aspen boards for the second half of the high ceiling and wanted to start lacquering them.  But when I applied the water based lacquer to the boards, it almost froze on contact.  Eventually by mid afternoon the outside temperature got up to around -16, and I got the inside temperature up to around zero or plus one.  I managed to get a few boards finished with lacquer.  Hopefully it dries properly in the cold temperatures.  These boards will be used up high on the ceiling so if the finish is not perfect, no one will be able to tell.  Now that I have the deep chill out of the guest cottage, hopefully it will be faster and easier to get the place warmed up tomorrow.

We left both vehicles plugged in for a few hours, and then started them in the late afternoon.  My truck hadn't run since the drive out on December 23rd, and Margarit's hadn't run since she went to the candlelight church service with Hailey and my Mom on Christmas Eve.  But they both started fine and we took them out for a spin to make sure the batteries stayed charged up.

The Romulan

On Christmas Day I took a panoramic snapshot of Margarit and the girls opening their Christmas gifts, with my iPhone.  When I originally posted that image on Christmas Day, I cropped Margarit out of the shot.  She moved during the long exposure and I ended up with an image that showed her looking very much like a Romulan.  Romulans were a humanoid species, from the planet Romulus, in the TV series Star Trek.  They had huge prominent foreheads, and strange facial features.  I got permission from Margarit to post this image of her, as she sees the humor in it.  We all need to be able to laugh at ourselves....

Forest Edge

Back in November I made a stop on my way home from the cottage.  The edge of this evergreen forest, along Highway 53, has always intrigued me.  On this particular day, with the low clear fall light, it was particularly photogenic.  I stopped and set up my view camera and took this shot on Ilford FP4+.  This time around I processed the film in Rodinal developer 1:50 for 11:45 at 24C.  I have been having serious issues lately with the anti-halation dye not properly washing out of the film when I processed in Perceptol Developer.  This is my first attempt at using Rodinal as an alternative.  I shot this with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Fujinon-W 125mm lens.

Valves

These old valves are in the wash building at Brazeau Collieries.  It was fairly dark in there and I needed to use a 30 second exposure to properly capture the scene on Kodak Tri-X Pan film.  I was using a long 300mm lens to get in tight on the subject and create a little compression.  Plus development in HC-110 pumped up the highlights nicely.  Its hard to imagine that it has been almost 70 years since these valves were operated......

Old Yard

Another shot from the recent mixed batch of film.  This image was taken back in 2020 on one of the Fall Photo Day Trips.  This trip was intended to compensate for the fact that COVID prevented the Monochrome Guild from going on our usual Fall Photo Weekend to the mountains.  This was an old farm yard in East Central Alberta taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan film and given plus Development in Kodak HC-110 Developer.  We discovered this old yard when we were looking for an old orthodox church that I had previously photographed.  Unfortunately the church had been torn down but this image sort of compensated for that loss.