Making our Meadow Blog

Other orchid starting to suffer

Meanwhile in the meadow the remaining pyramidal orchid has put on a lot of growth but it is now starting to suffer from serious slug damage. I have beefed up the defences a bit hopefully that will help.

Good orchid news

After all the other orchid disasters I had expected the Dactylorhiza fuchsii to perish as well but it has just started to resprout. I have moves it nearer to the house so I can monitor it more closely but this has brought it closer to another destructive force of nature: my 2 and a half year old son!

Time Lapse Issues Again

We
went out and installed the camera in the field on Sunday, which seemed to go
fine until Max exploded into tears for no apparent reason, so we had to leave
before I had a chance to test it thoroughly.
 
I am
trying to devise a set up for filming time lapses of installations of our
products for our website. Generally these would be day long projects lasting
about 8 – 10 hours. I have found that I can use some old Nikon software
with my Nikon D70 to control the camera and run a time lapse sequence and save
it to the hard drive (as usual this type of software is free with Canon cameras
and now costs several hundred pounds from Nikon…grrr) I was doing some
tests yesterday using the camera plugged into that Netbook I have. It ran find
for a bit but would crash every so often which is obviously pretty disastrous
if you are doing a time lapse…
 
This
is a bit of a pain in the behind I am nearly ready to go. It does seem that
whenever I use any sort of peripheral device for any length of time it crashes,
and the error report links though to a page about drivers not being compatible
and removing all hardware etc. I have never had as many problems like this with
any other computer. Basically, as long as I do nothing more complicated than
briefly look at webpages, it’s fine.
 
So
what to do, I know I could reinstall windows and everything and start again,
but that’s already been done and it is still as flaky as a Hollywood bimbo. Obviously there are other ways of
achieving this:
o Get another pc: this looks promising: http://www.aleutia.com/products/T1
the only thing is it runs on Ubuntu and the Nikon software I have only runs on
Windows. I don’t know whether a Linux OS can also run windows inside it
(like Macs can now). Cost: probably about £300 with all the higher specs. BUT
would then have a very cool off grid PC.
o Rig up some sort of arduino based
intervalometer gizmo. Aside from the fact that I have looked into this on
numerous occasions and never done it because I’m an electronics dunce,
the D70 does not have a shutter release input port, only an IR shutter release
(another great Nikon innovation…) so rigging up a custom made
intervalometer is out of the question, unless it is IR, which I know could be done
but not by me!
o Forget the D70, get a high end Canon
compact camera, load up a CDHK script and a suitably massive memory card and
hey bingo! Probably the cheapest option about £100. Need to be careful though,
I had problems with this when I did the meadow cam. But it is so annoying
having to buy another camera. No, really, it is!
o Some sort of off the shelf intervalometer
product . There are a few around, such as the Digisnap from Harbourtronics, but
the lack of a port is an issue again. This guy seems to make one: http://www.bigmike.it/ircontrol/intervalometer.html
and I have got in touch
with him to see if he is still working on them.
 
Obviously
there is still the battery and the voltage inverter to add to whatever solution
I find to the intervalometer/storage issue. I wanted to start making a film of
an installation going on right now, but it looks like we have missed that boat.

 
 
 
 

Leek experiment underway

Following on from my earlier observation that the leeks I dug up were all
associated with large numbers of earthworms (Lubricus terrestris) which are
apparently considered impossible to farm. This got me wondering whether
there is a potential method here: anyone who grows leeks inevitably ends up
with lots of waste material, so when I cleared out the last part of a row I
kept the trimmings and I have buried them in a hole 50cm x 50cm x 10cm,
covered them over and put a bucket on top. I counted 11 worms of various
sizes (I should have weighed them really, but time was not on my side). Of
course this might be simply down to the presence of plant matter so I will
do a comparison nearby with whatever else I have to hand (probably comfrey
leaves) and another one with well rotted compost. I'll leave them for a
couple of months, then dig them up and see what differences there are (and
this time I will weigh the results). If there is a difference I will redo
the trial in a more systematic method. I must reread Darwin's monograph on
the earthworm...

Frogspawn

First frogspawn of the year.

Sent from Chris Went's iPhone

Leek experiment

I noticed when digging up the leeks for harvest that each one had a large number of earthworms underneath. I wonder if there is a correlation. I will try using leek cuttings to farm earthworms...

Project for time lapse trial

Initial experiment for time lapse camera trial: assembling small ladder frame garden rail track in garden.

New time lapse project

Time lapse camera set up:

Aim: time lapse system capable of running for no more than a day at a time under supervised conditions for recording installations of dipping platforms etc

Resources:

I have an Asus Netbook running Nikon Capture 4.3 with a time lapse function and also allowing the images to be stored directly on the hard drive. In terms of power the it shoudl last reasonably well, certainly a good 6 - 7 hours, but I do need to find out how long battery lasts and options for topping it up. In the longer lerm this seems like a promising option: http://www.lowpowerpcs.co.uk/

D70 - I used Opanda to find out the number of Shutter Actuations: 11,196. Given that an average short film could take 3 -6000 images and the shutter life expectancy is apparently anywhere beteween 35000 to 200000 shutter actuations, there is plenty of scope left. I have purchased an EH-5 AC adapter on Ebay and will either attach it direactly to a car battery via an inverter or cut off cable and attach to a bit of custom circuitry.The former to begin with, but the latter does allow a greater element of control.

Depending on the length of the ac adapter cable, it might be worth looking at using a USB extension lead, if it works. This would enable the the netbook and power supply to be located remotely (if necessary). Alternatively the dolly I developed for the Moving Meadowcam (see here) could also be used if a longer cable were available. By not using it for more than a day at a time this does become a more viable project again. I can also run the motor software on the Natbook at the same time. However, i might need another battery in this case!

The current tripod I have in mind is my heaviest duty Manfrotto aluminium 190c with the heavy duty head I use for digiscoping. This should have enough weight to accomodate buffeting by the wind etc - a heavy bag attached (perhaps with the battery in it?) undernaeath should also improve stability. In the longer term, if I do decide to use the dolly and make a more complicated rig, a differnt type of tripod set up will be required, obviously.

However, it is spring, I have spuds to plant and lots more to do, so I won't do anymore on the moving time lapse rig until winter, I think.