In the forest

We have spent a late afternoon in a near by forest called Bazos this Saturday. The three of us went there with Oti, my childhood friend and her daughter Maia. This forest is a really pretty place for relaxing in the nature, it’s more like a park with beautiful old trees and neat alleys, so no stressful hiking for me :). We mostly sat on a blanket, draw plants in a little notebook, played games and ate a picnic. Oti made red pesto pasta, Maria made baba ganoush and eggplant and onions salad and we also had store bought vegan cookies. I took a few photos with my Zenit E camera and also some with Welta Weltix, but I still have many frames on the Welta film. We definitely plan to go back soon, especially as autumn progresses and makes everything even prettier.

Two more pinhole photos

They are from yesterday. The second one is a really long exposure (I have left the pinhole opened  for more than 8 hours). The ironing table appears three times in the image, as it was moved around the room. I have hoped that my friend, which at some point was sewing at the table for half an hour or such, would appear in the image but she cannot be spotted.

Rooms

I’ve taken pinhole photos these days. Very long exposures (between 4 and 7 hours) of the rooms we live in. The black and white, the wide angle, the perspectives of these images are so different from the usual ways I perceive these familiar spots. The mysterious life of the objects in our rooms and our presence captured only in slight, ghost like shadows.

Druh Synchro camera

This was one of the first cameras I bought with the intention of collecting cameras (I already had a Zenit E camera, some point and shoots and of course my digital camera, but these were bought/received for practical reasons). I really wanted a medium format camera and the price was right for this one. It is a Polish camera made between 1956-1960, with some very basic settings. The lens can be screwed back in the body and the camera is quite light, easy to carry around. I don’t have many examples of images taken with it, as I don’t use it often and also the camera is not very reliable. But on these autumn images, the light leaks are nice, in my opinion.

Druh means friend in Polish. I also have two Hungarian cameras from the same period whose names mean friend and companion. I will also post those soon.

Junk store finds

Visited a junk store yesterday, after a long time. It was more crowded with stuff than usual and really overpriced since our last visit (I guess the business goes well and they can afford to raise the prices). But we are always looking for sewing notions there and the guys running the store don’t think much of these :). I found these three boxes yesterday at an ok price. The black one with orchids is cardboard, it was a chocolate box and it is definitely old (not sure if forties old or seventies, but I like the design a lot, and it is nice and clean). Inside there are old zippers, saved from other clothes, but they work fine. The tea tin holds some nice colors of darning thread that  I use for my weaving. The pink tin with little kittens and yarn balls is definitely new but it has a knitting doll inside and it is very cute.

Also, I found an old embroidery scissor (very good and sharp) and a crazy plastic button (from the eighties, I guess).

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

Purslane

One of the things I enjoy a lot since becoming a vegan is that I have stopped being a picky eater. I eat a lot of stuff that are actually not just very tasty but good for you, too. Things that before being a vegetarian and later a vegan I wouldn’t have even considered  tasting. Now, I actually crave leafy greens (which is much better than craving sugar :). I’m not a vegan for health reasons, my and my friends’ reasons are ethical, but taking care of your health is also important (even if only for reducing in this way as much as possible the necessity for drugs that are heavily tested on animals, etc.). And also nice, healthy food helps me be more mentally balanced (I have noticed that my anxiety is many times diminished if I eat nutritious food).

My friend Maria is obsessed with a weed that is very nice and nutritious. It is called purslane and it is a very banal weed, you can see it all over the city. But it is difficult to find it in a place clean enough and not so polluted, so you can eat it. Most of the times it grows next to car roads and in driveways and parking lots, in yucky places from where you wouldn’t want to harvest anything. Once a friend gave us some purslane from a garden (usually people just weed it out from their vegetable gardens) and we ate it in a salad. It’s quite nice, with a subtle taste but a rich buttery texture. Our neighbors have a garden too, and my friend takes purslane from them from time to time. It is very good for you, without any toxicity and it has Omega 3, which is quite rare for a plant.

This dish contains purslane from our neighbors.

It also contains: 7 potatoes, 2 onions, 1 green and 1 red bell pepper, 2 smaller buds of garlic, 2-3 spoon of apple vinegar, a few kale leaves, some rosemary leaves, one tea spoon of turmeric and a pinch of cinnamon, salt and pepper.

Maria boiled the potatoes with some rosemary in the water. The sliced onions, peppers and kale were cooked in a bit of oil. After the onion is just a bit translucent and the kale is soft, you add some water, the boiled potatoes, the minced garlic, the purslane and the vinegar and let them cook for 5-7 minutes. After everything is cooked, you add all the spices (turmeric, cinnamon, salt and pepper). It was very, very tasty!

The plate is a vintage Arcopal from the flea market.

Art Nouveau lockets

I have found two more pieces for my collection yesterday at the flea market. These Art nouveau pieces are  easy to collect in my city and I find them from time to time for cheap. Actually, just the rectangular one opens like a locket, the circle is just a pendant that looks like a locket. I would really like to find at some point one that still has the original photos inside, to have an idea of its initial owner, but this didn’t happen yet.

I took a photo of all my Art nouveau lockets (they are all gold washed brass) in the warm light of an end of the summer evening.

Bakelite and silver necklace

We have spontaneously decided to go to the flea market this morning, as it was so nice outside, and I had a great time. Among other things, I have found this bakelite and silver necklace. The bead is quite big and the chain is short (till the collarbones) so the proportion is a bit unusual to me, but I love it.

Weaving

Among other serious things that I have to do these days (some of them very boring, some interesting but still taking up lots of brain space) it is very relaxing to weave. I make this very simple stripes for a small zippered pouch. I use some darning yarn I have found at the junk store in different occasions. Its thickness is really good for what I need and I love the vibrant seventies colors. I’ll probably make another one when this is finished, using more of the neutrals.

Rainy days

It’s finally raining. I need a sweater when I go out in the morning and a blanket at night. My mind feels fresh and alert after the numbing of the endless blue skies and the heat of the sleepless nights. Fall has always felt to me as a return to myself, even when I was too young to put this into words. Picking up wild chestnuts while my grandfather was holding my other hand. The first rainy days, the foggy, misty mornings, the golden light, the reds, oranges and browns in the park. Of course that every new season is good for your soul, the joy of the first snow, the high of the beginning of summer, but for me nothing is like the gray skies and the first leaves on the wet asphalt.