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Monday, 15 August 2022

Mid-August photo catch-up - Jakubowizna

The next village south of Jakubowizna is called Widok - which literally means 'view', 'sight', 'vista' or 'scene'. Like Jakubowizna, the village is rapidly modernising - this is now the last remaining piece of traditional Mazovian village architecture left intact. Note the flowers in the window.

Near the top of the hill, the forest at the end of my road. The trees are less dense as a result of the logging that took place here last summer (see this time last year, below); some more trees are due for the chop (they have 'LP' as in Lasy Państwowe or national forests sprayed on their trunks in green paint).


Apologies to those who've seen this image on my Twitter feed, but it's so good, I have to place it here for posterity. One of the XII Canonical Prospects of Jakubowizna (though it's just round the corner in Chynów); just after sunset, the farm road running parallel to the railway line between Chynów and Sułkowice.


Below: on my way to the sunset, I passed this view - note the passing rain on the horizon streaking down on Piaseczno. The sun is now setting one hour earlier than at its latest in mid-late June.


Below: apples, soon. Not quite ripe; another good harvest - fingers crossed. No summer drought (we had one in spring that negatively affected the soft-fruit and berry crops). A good mix of sunshine and rain - we've been spared deluges, but with two or three prolonged showers a week interspersed with sunshine, the apples are growing larger and redder. So good to be here!


Below: yesterday's storm. I'm just outside my działka, watching as the leading edge of the front passes over Jakubowizna. From here, it's a 150 paces to my front door - I made it into the house just as the heavens opened. The lightning flash-to-thunder count got down to three before slowly becoming more distant. A brief (one second) power cut occurred at the peak of the storm.


Left: self-portrait of my shadow on encountering an anomalous qualia memory moment. Looking into the sun, squinting slightly, the wind blowing in my face, and the act of placing my phone in the right breast pocket of my denim shirt, which felt exactly like it was a packet of cigarettes. The ground beneath my suede desert boots - a dusty dirt road, tan chino trousers. This is exactly how it felt before - and yet how could it? In these times of quantum uncertainty, anything is possible. Exomnesia, xenomnesia. Consciousness as a fifth dimension of spacetime? 

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6 comments:

  1. adthelad15 August 2022 at 06:41

    Artificial flowers by my reckoning. Quite typical. Is this what you wanted to point out? I wonder how long they've been there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adelaide Dupont15 August 2022 at 07:26

    I wondered about the flowers in the meadow.

    Nasturtiums and cosmos?

    And mostly pink and yellow and orange.

    ***

    I do remember the logging - more or less.

    ***

    Did you think of making the sunset image a header for the blog?

    or something else?

    ***

    It looked like shadow-you was listening to the radio.

    And the shiny light in the forest.

    ***
    Had read about protected land and forests of national significance in Poland in the last few months.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Adelaide Dupont15 August 2022 at 07:28

    And the tubulars in image 4 of 7:

    [the one with the P sunset].

    What trees/plants grow in that groove in that section of the week/month/year?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael Dembinski15 August 2022 at 11:05

    @adthelad

    Quite possibly artificial flowers... blowing up the image suggests they are - the stalks seem improbably straight.

    @Adelaide

    Flowers - the signature wild-flowers of Mazovia are goldenrod (nawłoć) and tansy (wrotycz).

    Tubes - these are young apple trees, planted earlier this year. Protected in tubes from the nibbling of hare and deer. The whole area is becoming a bit of a monoculture, with apple displacing other fruit-growing - apples are easier and more predictable.

    Selfie - my camera is in my right hand, could be mistaken for a radio!

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  5. Adelaide Dupont18 August 2022 at 10:33

    Apples as monoculture - I sigh.

    [though I do undeerstand why it is necessary].

    And the bigger point about predictable trees and the supply chain.

    Always good to know the Polish names for wild flowers.

    I do see the goldenrod in my imagination [if often and only as a Crayola crayon colour].

    [And now it will be nawłoć].

    My aunt takes a great interest in my Polish life as of last Wednesday. I found myself blossoming in a cafe.

    With tansy I find myself syllabilising the whole thing.

    wr-o-ty-cz

    [hopefully not Germanising it or Russifying it - tempting as it is]

    Oh - yes - the hare and the deer and the seeds they love to eat.

    [that may apply to birds as well - birds are loving the seeds].

    Very easily mistaken especially in the anomalous experiences you talk about and write about and generously share with us.

    And oh so very straight!

    How far did you blow up the image to get that effect?

    If they did not bend and they did not break at so many vulnerable points like real flowers and trees so often do...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Michael Dembinski21 August 2022 at 22:11

    @ Adelaide:

    Glad you liked the post!

    "How far did you blow up the image to get that effect?"

    If the shadow photograph, it was one of about five or six, the others all rejected, this is pretty much all of the frame, lens set at 18mm (28mm equiv on 35mm/full-frame sensor).

    ReplyDelete