First things first

A few more photos from our recent trip to Longwood Gardens:

Three weeks ago, the renowned knitblogger Franklin came to the Philadelphia area to take pictures for his 1000 Knitters photography project. His shooting location: Wool Gathering, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Kennett Square is the Mushroom Capitol of the World, just down the road from the Brandywine River Museum (more Wyeths than you can shake a stick at), home to a Revolutionary War sites, and only about half an hour from my house. So of course I had to go.

Five people from my local knitting group (plus the mother of one of them) arranged to meet at the shop at 11:30. I got there first and found a very interesting performance in progress. The tiny store was packed with people (Franklin and his setup, though not huge, did take up a good chunk of the inside space next to the storefront window), and the sidewalk outside was covered with knitters, chatting away and knitting on various projects.

After I put my name down on the list, I looked around inside the store for a bit, hoping to find something that would work well for Sylvia’s sweater (I didn’t). Fortunately, just next door was a terrific cafe where my friends and I (and Jan and Sylvia, who’d tagged along for the outing) grabbed lunch while we waiting for our numbers to be called. Good thing the cafe was there, too, because we had to wait about an hour and a half. Franklin was snapping away as quickly as he could, but there were a lot of people there (several of whom, as I overheard, had traveled from a few states away, even!).

When number 78 was called, I handed Franklin the model-release form, shook his hand, picked up the scarf, and took my place on the stool in front of the white backdrop. When I looked at the scarf, I was surprised to find that the stitches were all “backward” (i.e., the right “legs” were behind the needle rather than in front of it). My far-more-knowledgeable-than-me knitting friends explained to me later that the previous knitter had used a different knitting style; me, all I know is plain ol’ vanilla knitting and purling, so I didn’t really know what to do with those stitches. So I just knit into the left legs—and found out later that I should have knit into the right legs. (Fortunately, my friend Debbie, who was number 79, said she had no trouble working with the stitches I’d left for her.)

So what was it like to sit in front of Franklin’s camera for three or four minutes? I’m fairly self-conscious in front of a lens and don’t feel particularly photogenic. But he did a great job of putting me at ease, and what impressed me the most was his ability to conduct a coherent, engaging conversation with me while I sat there. He posted in his blog later that he’d photographed 131 people that day (wow), and although I certainly didn’t see all of them I did get to see him interact with several people. And in all of those interactions, he was grateful (we are, after all, providing him with free material for this project, which he hopes to turn into a book), gracious, and actually interested in what knitters had to say and the stories they told him.

It was a very warm day (one of those too-warm days that hit before the air conditioning is turned on), and he was working at a pretty steady clip. But I was really impressed with his interest in the knitters as people, not just as photographic subjects. And the fact that he was able to talk with each one of them is pretty amazing.

So if Franklin and his photography project make a stop in or near your hometown, I very much recommend spending a few minutes in front of his camera. Aside from the opportunity to meets lots of knitters and participate in an interesting project, you also get a chance to meet a nice person. And you know, that sort of opportunity doesn’t come around every day.

Our new neighbors are growing like gangbusters! Jan’s mom thinks they are house finches. That’s the best guess so far, though both of the parents who frequent our porch have near-identical coloring.

In a matter of a few short days, the babies have lost almost all of their baby fuzz and are now sporting adult feathers. They’re practically crowding each other out of the nest, and I’m sure they’ll be taking their first flights any day now.

April 30
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May 5

About three weeks ago we noticed that some birds had built a nest in a copper hanging thing (I have no idea what to call it—I think it may technically be a bird feeder that we have never gotten around to filling with bird seed) on our front porch. We think the bird is some sort of wren. It’s small, and it is totally terrified of humans. At least, it flies away immediately whenever anyone opens the front door from the inside or approaches the porch from the outside. So we figure it’s either scared of us or it somehow thinks that by flying away it will convince us to leave the nest alone.

We have left the nest alone, of course. The day we noticed it we took a quick peek inside to confirm that there were three little eggs in it, and since then we were very careful to avoid the porch so we wouldn’t scare the bird. Having birds nesting on the porch has done wonders for motivating pokey toddlers to go inside or outside; Sylvia, too, rushes through the portal “so the mommy and daddy birds will come back right away and won’t be scared any more.”

Earlier this week, Jan announced that the eggs had hatched. He knew this because, as he put it, “I saw the parent puking into a baby bird’s mouth.” Yup, that’s a pretty good indication.

Today I managed to get a few pictures of the nest and its inhabitants. I didn’t spend much time fiddling around with the camera or positioning to get good quality. The parent bird gave me plenty of dirty looks when I snapped the first photo from just inside house. I didn’t want to stress it out any more by lingering too long near the nest while it went to get more food. But I did manage to catch a glimpse of three little ones snuggled up together.

April 15
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April 23

Via Boing Boing I just came across an extraordinary set of photographs of people before and after they die. The photos are accompanied by the subjects’ thoughts on death—and life, too.

The photos will be on display at the Wellcome Collection starting April 9, but if you can’t get to London to see them in person you can see them at the Guardian’s website here.

This is round three of the paperwhites I’ve been forcing on my kitchen windowsill all winter. The bag of bulbs I bought last autumn was one of my best investments of the years, I think. I still have enough bulbs to get me through the rest of this winter and well into daffodil season.

And I’ll need them, too. Our recent snowfall (nothing major, but enough to close area schools and require shoveling out driveways and sidewalks) reminded me that there’s still a fair amount of winter left…

Via Neil Gaiman, I’ve just discovered the site of Yeondoo Jung, a photographer who takes drawings done by children and recreates them as photographs. Take a look at them—they are amazing.

It always seemed odd to me to celebrate the start of a new year when we are still locked in winter’s embrace. Yes, I know there’s that whole “now the days are getting longer” thing. But frankly, whether or not the days are getting longer doesn’t seem any more important to me than whether or not the days after getting colder. And on the first day of January, there’s still a lot of cold weather ahead. Brrrrr!