r ransom

Back when I was knitting, I really wanted to make this handkint parasol



I suspect there are different levels of sun protection.

Shade is infinitely better than no shade.

Some fabrics like linen and cotton have their own natural spf.  Same too with different dyes like indigo and kakishibu.

And then there are the parasols (sun umbrellas)  my friends use from japan, china, korea...and other pacific asian countries that have extra layers of spf blockage.  They all seem to be two tone, with a light shiny outer layer and a dark inner layer.  They say they work for rain too, but are designed for sun by being smaller, lighter, and fold up smaller than a rain umbrella.  Someone gave me one once and it's smaller than a modern cellphone when folded up.  I've been trying to figure out where it is for this weekends experiment.

That's my first instinct.

And yet, google seems to believe goldfish can't survive to hatching, even in perfect conditions, without both parents.

And also, if it was a salmon, I would think that one new fish was very much a male with the way he is courting big orange. Swimming next to the poop hole and doing his quiver dance.

But, I need to get photos. Maybe I didn't see it right last night.

I have a puzzle for you all.

Do goldfish need both mummy and dady fish to make new fish?


My watergarden has been growing along fine. We have a shallow pool for mostly plants.  A 4 or 5 foot deep but narow opening for the fish and water iris that is difficult for fish eaters to get in.  And one, something like 500 gallon giant pool for the lily pads.  We haven't set it up yet that the spillover intermingles between the pools.  They are close but don't share any water (this part is important)

Well, 2 or 3 summers ago, one of the fish from the deep pool got beached in roots of the iris and in a panic, i scooped it up wth my hands to get it back in the water.  Not expecting fish to feel so fishy, I got surprised and tossed him in the big pool.  Since then he has grown like crazy.  He is easily 10 times the size of the fish he left behind.  It's hard to tell in water, but he's at least ready to be eaten as a snack for two or main protine for one. About 2 or 3 inches wide and at least 10 inches long.  If he was a Koi fish instead of a gold fish, he would be well past the $600 mark.  How big do goldfish get?  Considering he was half an inch long and 17cents when I got him...

I always ment to get the other fish together, but he's so big now, I figures he would eat them.

Anyway, he...or possibly she... has been alone in that tank for a couple of years.  

Alone

The fish stores all closed and we haven't been able to find more feeder fish to add to the pools.  I had always hoped that the tank with five remaining fish would make more in their fishy way.  But alas, I think it's not going to happen.

So I'm feeding old orange giant goldfish, who lives alone, his koi food.  Watching him eat it by the dozen because he's so big.  He loves his food.

But beside him, or possibly her, hovering beside the tail, is a tiny fish.  I sware it's swimming like a boy fish courts a girl fish.  About the size of Bigs top (dorsol? shark?) fin.  Maybe an inch long?  Water makes size difficult to tell.  Far smaller than the fish from the other pool.  Not much bigger than one gulp from this guy.  Watching closely, there are more fish under the lilly pads trying to nibble at the food that is way too big for them.

I can't be certain they weren't there yesterday or all the days before as big is only just getting comfortable with me watching him eat.

I counted the fish in the other pond and they are all still there.


Possibly one
Now, people do donate animals to the farm when we aren't looking.   It's normally pet rabbits for the owels to eat.  But the water gardens have an 8 foot privacy fence and are hard to see if you don't know it's there.  I can think of maybe 6 people who know where the water garden is.

The fish are very dark colour like goldfish were when we got them.  Sort of calico wth hints of orange and grey.  They also aren't quite the right shape for gold fish like we got before.   Probably gold fish or gold fish family.  Maybe.   I need to sit there with my camera and try to get some photos as they move pretty fast.

But there are nowhere to get goldfish in town now.  
None of these people would do something like this without asking first.


Possibly two
Lonely goldfish gets so lonely he/she makes more goldfish?

I know some ducks and frogs can do it.  For some reason i read in a book when I was a kid, I firmly believe fish cannot.  Can they?

Possibly three
?
Some other strange and crazy thing?  Bird brings fish from far off pond? Fish eggs came on plants we bought years ago when setting up the water garden and only started growing now?

My friends use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun all the time.   I always thought they were a bit um, hmmm... well, my thoughts were incorrect.  

Parasols are really cool!


A couple of days ago I was at an outdoor antique fair and it was lovely.  So many people enjoying themselves.  So many pretty things.  But boy, oh boy, was that sun hurting me with it's icky hotness.  So I bought this:



Sweet little, hand painted, silk, antique parasol from what was once Burma (Myanmar now).

Mostly I got it for a photography prop, but as a joke, I started using it while we walked around the market.  And wow!  It was better than ice cream at cooling me down.

I expected it to be either too small to keep the sun off - it was just the right size - or too big and take someone's eye out - it was just the right size to not do that.  It did stop people pushing against me which is something I dislike about these kinds of markets and opened up a couple of inches of personal space that allowed air to flow between me and the other market-go-ers.  But it didn't have anywhere near as much awkwardness  as an umbrella.  It was also light weight and well balanced, so I could rest it on my shoulder and not really need to do anything with my hands except reposition it between me and the sun as we changed walking direction.  Both my hands remained unincumbered.  

In the end, I returned and bought a less fragile parasol for future outdoor events.  



Why is a parasol better than a hat?

This will depend if you are a hat-person or a not-hat-person.  

I am very strongly a not-hat-person.  I'll wear them, but sunhats trap the heat in my head and I've only ever found one that isn't excruciatingly painful to wear (it's a bit too far gone to wear to most high end public events these days even if I still proudly wear the neigh 20 year old hat around the farm).  Anyway, pain of wearing a hat plus trapping the hot air against my crown and not allowing wind to blow past my face.  I find it difficult to remember my hat.  

Sunhats really only focus on the top part of my head.  The parasol can shade my shoulders and head at the same time but isn't much larger than my going-out hat when extended.  The small modern parasols are about 6inches by 1 inch when folded up.  

I think it's worth experimenting more with this idea.  Maybe get a very light weight, fold-up small sun umbrellas I could keep in my bag or car.  They usually list their spf rating too.  It feels like the sun gets stronger and stronger each year, so it might be worth investing in one before everyone else finds out how cool these are.


As for my new, old parasol.  



A deep dive into the history shows it's almost impossible too date as it could range from 1820 to current day.  Often the same families still make the parasols in the same techniques and materials.  

This one, I know comes from Myanmar because it has some script on the handle.  The translation software can't help me, but it says it's written in Burmese.  The fabric is rough silk that has been patched together to make the parasol then dyed.  The painting is in something like tempura or perhaps the local watercolour tradition.   I wouldn't want to get it wet.  On top of the fabric where each spoke is, is a firm cloth or leather to help keep it strong.   It's giving off strong 1880s to 1910s vibes.  

It feels like not enough light and-or not enough wind.  Wind makes the stems stressed so they have to grow stronger.  It also prevents damping off where the plant sort of rotts alive.  It doesn't need much, just some sort of air flow.

The best luck I've had growing poppies is to plant the seeds this time of year where I want them to drown out some weeds.  Disturb the soil a bit where the seeds fall.  The seeds seem to overwinter well here.  But try both to see what works in your climate.

It's time for me to start planning my winter veg.  I was wondering if there were any winter flowers.  That's a great idea!

Wildfire smoke season began for our little island yesterday morning.  It's not so bad here, just a haze making anything 50 feet away or further look washed out and out of focus.  The smell of burnt sugar.

Not so bad yet it got my lungs but enough to avoid cardio activity.  Basically extremely mild smoke for us.

It will get worse now the smoke found us.  It's a constant reminder of how greatful we are to those fighting the fires.


And it got me thinking how normal it is to have a smoke season and how dramatic it must be for people new to wildfire smog.  It was like my first typhoon, I couldn't understand how this was normal for asia!  Nature isn't like that where I'm from.

So I got thinking, if I had to distill most of my lifetime dealing with wildfire smoke, into just one piece of advise, it would be: get out of the cities.  Smoke does something weird when combined with car fumes that makes it about 20 times worse than the two alone.  If you can't escape, do what you can to not add to the exhaust. Maybe use this to motivate the city to improve public transportation so it's too much bother to drive most places.

I'm so grateful I live away from the city now.  Even in a bad year, the smoke is less awful than the city plus smoke on a mild year.

Trying the ashphaultum for the first time today.  

Finally, a rich, mostly transparent, medium drying rich brown.  First few brushstrokes, colour me impressed.  I cannot get over how much I enjoy painting with kama oilcolours.

Boo!

I never did anything with this yet.  The more I try to do my own composition, the worse I feel I get.

But maybe this is worth trying?

Any suggestions to help me get over my fear of failure?