The Value of Free

6FPS V5#3: March 13, 2023

chuqvr@gmail.com • @chuqvr@fosstodon.org • chuq.me
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Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS.

The weather has been beyond weird. Where California has been literally deluged by rain and snow, more or less wiping out years of drought (for now), and closing Yosemite indefinitely because of tens of feet of snow, here in our enclave in Silverdale (500ft of elevation), we’re just melting out of our third significant snowfall. I must say I am ready for spring.

The weather has really limited my birding at times, and honestly, just leaving the property for any reason. I do think we’re seeing the last of it for the season, but snow in March is beyond unusual here. That said, we’ve been watching California get plastered by these atmospheric rivers, and wow. None of this is remotely normal

The weather nerds have just issued a notice that they expect the La Nina — in place since 2020 — to switch to El Nino by fall. In general, this should mean warmer temps here in the Northwest, but can also bring drought to Australia. But it may be our winter snows might end for a while.

Maybe we shouldn’t have broken the planet for short term profit.

Overall, though, the birding has done pretty well. I’ve logged 70 species for the year, as opposed to 30 last year. Neither matches my California numbers, but I’m happy with the results so far. There are Sandhill Cranes about 90 minutes from here I’ve gone chasing, but got fogged out. I’m hoping to try again this weekend.

Choosing not to Volunteer

An issue or two back, I mentioned I was starting to look for a volunteer opportunity to get involved in. Well, I found one that would have been with a good group, a good use of my skills and a minimal time involvement — < 10 hours a month.

I did what I normally do with these things, which is sleep on it, and after having thought about it for a day or so, I started writing an email introducing myself and suggesting we chat.

And then I stopped. When I step back and think about what my primary complaint in life is right now, it’s that I’m constantly juggling where to spend time, whether it’s going out birding, grabbing the camera, working in the shop, or kicking back and relaxing. And yet here I am, looking to add another time commitment to the mix.

I love doing volunteer work for good organizations, and I intend to do so, but clearly, now is not the right time to add this to the mix. So I deleted the email, and I’m putting my idea of volunteering on hold for a while. We’ll revisit it in a few months and see how things are going.

I bring this up here because I think it’s worth calling out this idea of “sleep on it” as a practice we should all get in the habit of using when making decisions. Give yourself some time to sort through the implications of the decision a bit, because sometimes, you’ll figure out an issue that wasn’t obvious initially.

Slow down a little, think it through, and I think you’ll make better decisions most of the time.

This Year’s Projects

I spent some time this week with the owner of the landscaping firm, going over some plans for the property this year. It’s pruning season, and all the trees need some cleanup. We came through pretty well on storm damage, with one tree down at the edge of the yard and a few downed branches here and there. I did some initial storm pruning of the fruit trees, but they’re going to come in and clean all that up, and we’re going to clear out more of the damage in the path in the other woodlot we own. Right now, the top half is accessible, and I want to be able to get all the way down to the property line.

It also turns out that path has been used by the neighbors who keep horses to ride without needing to be on the road, which we found out when they came over to make sure they had permission from us after they learned the property has been sold. So as we clean up that path, we’re making sure the brush is cleaned up high enough to give clearance to the riders as well. I’m planning this year ot do more exploring out in that property, since there are some really interesting trees that might make nice photo compositions, and I’m hoping I can find whatever water source is occasionally giving me bird calls from things like Green Heron and Wood Duck.

But the big projects for this year are updating and doing some major planting in the yard; last year we started renovating by removing a lot of old, overgrown juniper and the roses framing the front lawn, but got sidetracked into the big irrigation upgrade project.

We’ve put in an order for about 45 plants. This is the first phase of the updates, and we’re putting in some nice grasses around the front lawn where we removed the roses, and pulling out the rest of the junipers. Going in will be some peonies and huckleberries. In some other areas we’ll be adding some barberries as well. Two small trees in the orchard are dead, and last year two dead Rhododendrons got removed, and we’re replacing all of those — the two trees will be ranier cherries.

When we moved in the front of the property was lined with tall junipers, some of which died because of problems with the irrigation, and those have all been removed. There’s a nice spot at the entrance now that needs something in it, and we’ll be adding a japanese maple (we have two others already) and then building some rock works around it to frame the entrance of the driveway. The area where the junipers were on the edge of the orchard we’re leaving empty.

Second phases will involve rebuilding and planting the beds along the edge of the driveway (all former juniper plantings). We haven’t decided exactly what yet. And the area around the back deck and my office will get replanted as well. I have a couple of places where I’m going to be installing some raised planters for annuals, where I’ll finally start planting some dahlias. Here they are best if they’re pulled up and stored in winter, not quite annuals but we shouldn’t leave them in the ground.

I’m getting quotes on putting a new fence around the veggie garden. we’ll be replacing a couple of aged planters in there, and getting the whole thing mulched as well. Currently it’s surrounded by an old (and ugly) wire fence, and I want to put in a nice wood picket fence. it’s intended to keep the bunnies out, and it won’t slow down raccoons much, or the deer we occasionally get, but I don’t want it to look like a fort.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this place looks in a year.

Not Blogging

You’ll see when you look at the empty place where I should be linking to me new writing that I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing for the blog again. A few reasons for this, a major one being that I’m really busy at work writing, and after a day of that, I just haven’t been in the mood to keep writing.

There also haven’t been many topics I’ve really felt I could add to the conversation about. When I decide to post on a topic, I want to bring something new to the discussion, not just join it.

Sometimes, of course, someone else writes the piece for you. That happened this month when Brent Simmons did a really good piece on why he refuses to take any money for maintaining NetNewsWire. His reasoning matches mine almost exactly, so rather than write a fresh piece saying the same things, allow me to point to it instead (see below).

I have been tossing around talking about social media in the post-Twitter universe, but I haven’t really figured out what I have to say anyone might be interested in hearing. I will probably figure this out down the road, but until then, I’m probably unlikely to blog often (or at all) until I start finding topics that really motivate me to write. I’m just not that interested in filling empty space for the sake of filling it these days..

Free Prints to Subscribers

Anyone who’s interested in a free 8x10 print of one of my images si welcome to it. All you need to do is check out the images in one of the four portfolio galleries on my photography page, and then send me an email with the request, including the title of the image (or URL to the image), your name and a mailing address. My only requirement is that the email the request comes from must be a subscriber to 6FPS when I get the request. I will mail these out at no charge worldwide for any request I get during November, as quickly as I can make the prints and get them packaged up.

What do you want to hear about?

Since I’m done with the e-book projects, I expect to put more time on writing for the blog again, and while I have a number of topics in the to-do list, are there things you want me to talk about and write about? I have been asked recently about how I produce the e-books, and that’s on the list, but what else do you want me to cover? Drop me an email and let me know.

And with that, see you next issue!

What's New from Chuq?

  • Yeah, it was that kind of month…

The Value of Free

Brent Simmons is someone I’ve known going back to my days at Apple. He’s the developer of a great RSS reader app called NetNewsWire. He recently wrote On Not Taking Money for NetNewsWire and discussed why he refuses to take any money. It almost exactly mirrors my thoughts on why I’ve kept my photography purely a hobby, where I give away as wallpapers or prints instead of charging even nominal fees.

The reality is, as soon as a dollar is passed along, you have some kind of business, and managing that takes time. To me, the value of any kind of income I might generate will overwhelm the time it would take to build out, maintain and manage any infrastructure needed to accept that money, track it, etc.

We haven’t even started talking about the thought that if you’re going to start selling things, you need to start marketing them so you have buyers, and trust me, that’s it’s own time sink.

I think if I really wanted to try to generate income from my images, I could. But would that income be worth the time and energy needed to generate it?

Honestly, I’d rather spend that time doing other things, like taking more pictures.

Recent Photography

As I create new images and re-process older ones, I post them on my site in the Recent Work area. Additionally, every Wednesday is Photo Wednesday on the blog, where I post one of my non-bird images, and the bird images are posted on the blog each week as part of Feathery Friday.

February was more or less a wash for photography, but as I write this, I have an outing planned for Saturday, and maybe I’ll have something new to post here. If not, enjoy the return of this nice Bald Eagle photo.

For Your Consideration

Photography

Birds and Birding

Science and Technology

Interesting Stuff

Recommendations

This month let me recommend to you an interesting new birding book I just finished reading: Slow Birding by Joan E Strassman. Often birding is protrayed as a high energy, competitive endeavour — think about the coverage of big years (or the movie starring Jack Black). In reality, for many of us birding is a slower, more methodical activity, and Strassman’s book celebrates the idea that birding is often best when you slow down, sit a while, and enjoy and study what goes on around you.

She covered a few of her favorite birding places, and then goes into detail on a few species she finds at each location. These species discussions are deep dives into the research and knowledge we have about each species and their behaviors, with a lot of heavily researched info on things like how they choose mates and how often they sneak around behind their backs. Never would I have thought I’d suggest the idea of brood parasitism to be a fascinating concept, but Strassman makes it so.

It’s both a fun and pleasant read and a deep dive into some of the details about various birds that we see when we go out birding. And it’s a nice reminder that it’s perfectly okay to just sit down and watch what happens.

About 6FPS

And with that, I'll see you in the next issue. I'd love feedback on this, what you like, what you want more of, what you want less of. And if you have something interesting you think I might want to talk about, please pass it along. Until then, take care, and have fun.

Chuq

6FPS (Six Frames Per Second) is a newsletter of interesting things and commentary from Chuq Von Rospach (chuqvr@gmail.com).

Coming out monthly on the 2nd Monday of the month, I will place in your inbox a few things I hope will inform and delight you. There is too much mediocre, forgettable stuff attacking your eyeballs every day you're online; this is my little way to help you cut through the noise to some interesting things you might otherwise not find.

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