Cellar

This is the last of my recently processed film from the Monochrome Guild Fall Trip to Drumheller.  I actually shot this one after the other guys had already left and headed back home to Edmonton.  This was a sheet of Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 film, rated at 400 iso and given N+1 Development in PMK.  Development was on my new Jobo Processor for 16:40 minutes at 20.

I exposed this sheet on October 18th at about 1:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a wide Rodenstock 90mm lens, with no filter.  The exposure was F25 and a shutter speed of 1/30 second.

There are several of these old cellars in the former mining town of Cambria.  There is still a little junk left inside some of them, and it appears that the locals were once using them for storage.  I really have no idea as to their origins.  Were they originally constructed as storage units, or did they have something to do with the coal mine...?  The mine site was just a short distance away.....

Potato Hank

A few days back Margarit was cooking dinner.  She made a dish with chicken, potatoes and vegetables in a cream sauce.  While preparing dinner she dropped a bag of baby potatoes on the floor.  She thought she had picked them all up, but it turned out later, that she had not.

The whole family had dinner and everything was fine.  There was even a little left over to share with Hank.  The next day, Hank was quite sick, and was continually throwing up.  We knew it was nothing to do with the food, as everyone else was fine. 

On the second day, Hank was still throwing up everything that he ate... even water.  Margarit was very concerned and took him to the vet.  Good thing she did....!!

The vet took a stomach X-Ray.  Initially they found a lump in his stomach, and thought that it might be cancer.  But then they did a second X-Ray, with barium, and discovered that it was a foreign object in his stomach.  He was booked in for immediate emergency surgery.  It turns out that he swallowed one of the raw baby potatoes that Margarit had dropped on the floor.

So, after a large vet bill, Hank is fine.  He just needs some time to recover.  In the short term, this cancelled Margarit's plans to join me out in Nordegg.  But other than making sure that Hank doesn't get too active and rip open his incision, he will be fine.

December Calendar Image 2024

Here we are at the beginning of December.  The year is already over 90% behind us, and we have the busy holiday season coming up.  In recent weeks I put together my calendars for the upcoming 2025 year.  The David Thompson Country one was done first, so that I could have it available at the Beehive Artisan Market for the Christmas season.  My personal calendar that I share with family and friends took the back seat.  I'm out at the cottage right now, but understand that the hard copies were just delivered to the house yesterday.  So I will begin the process of distributing these in the next couple of weeks.  With Canada Post on strike at the moment, some of the long distance ones might have to wait a little while.  I spend over four hundred dollars per year just printing those calendars that I hand out for free... so I don't have much of a budget left for distribution, and mostly try to deliver them in person.

Back to the moment....  This is the last image from my 2024 calendar.  I'm always lacking some winter images, as I just don't get out as much with my big camera in the winter months, as compared to the summer and fall.  So some of my interior shots end up getting used for the winter pages, and this past year was no exception.  I was out exploring with Arturo and we found these old chairs and this table, along with these playing cards, in an abandoned community hall.  This was the perfect image to use as it really has no indication as to the time of year.  I hope everyone that got one, enjoyed my 2024 calendar.  I will try to get the 2025 version distributed as soon as I can.