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http://www.kaceyltd.com/index.asp

 

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Welcome to Kacey Limited, manufacturers and distributors of 100% recycled plastic products, an excellent alternative to timber. We’re working towards a greener future.

 

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- Boardwalks & Jetties

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Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeze check this out, it is fantastic plastic

Picture Perfect, Old fashioned

I wasn't going to post a PP this week and then i realised this picture from the Crombie Park album would be just  perfect for this theme. My dream is to one day find my self living in a little house that looks exactly like this with the front door looking out onto the sea. I would sit at my door and watch the sun rise over the sea.  The only sounds; the sea crashing against the shore, the sand being dragged back into the sea and the gulls screeching above the wind and the waves, no company, no conversation, no nothing except me and my house and the sea. …… Oh Navada

Nice healthy birthday outing to the park

 Healthy birthday in the park, well..... healthy except for the angel cake, chocolate brownies and gingerbread men!!

My Birthday Outing to Crombie

Because it was my birthday yesterday my daughters, their children and the dogs all came to take me out. No grand or fancy restaurants for us, we went to Crombie Country Park. We walked the couple of miles around the man made loch, let the children play in the adventure playground, picked up our picnic from the cars and then headed to the enclosed marquee for a splendid birthday tea. They toasted my with fizzy apple juice, sang happy birthday over shop bought angel cake  and tucked into cheese and onion quiche, chocolate brownies, ginger bread men, cherry tomatoes, crisps and cuscus salad……….not necessarily in that order. None of us have very much spare cash at the moment but this was one of the nicest birthdays I can remember.

 
Crombie Parks Past
The park has its origins in this areas growing need for water during the mid 1800’s. A nearby reservoir at Moniki was completed in 1854 but found to be inadequate for the growing needs of the area. In 1866 work began to develop the former quarry and part of Crombie Den as a reservoir, with the construction of an enormous, earthen embankment with puddle clay lining.  The whole thing was completed in 1868 but the combined supply of water from Moniki and Crombie was never really sufficient to meet demand. In 1871 work started on the Lintrathen scheme, which remains the key supplier for Dundee plus much of Angus and Perthshire.  Crombie was last used to supply water to Carnoustie in 1981, and for almost 100 years its future was uncertain.

Crombie Park Today

The Park was officially opened in September 1983. It has 102 hectares includes Crombie Loch as well as broadleafed and coniferous woodlands; it is a welcome haven for wild life and waterfowl. The woodlands are home to red squirrels, woodpeckers and roe deer.

My own personal favourite part of this vast park is a tiny unused crofting cottage. It has been left exactly as it was when it was used by crofters during the last century. My dream is to one day find my self living in a little house that looks exactly like this with the front door looking out onto the sea. I would sit at my door and watch the sun rise over the sea.  The only sounds; the sea crashing against the shore, the sand being dragged back into the sea and the gulls screeching above the wind and the waves, no company, no conversation, no nothing except me and my house and the sea. …… Oh Navada

 

http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/photos/album/185/Crombie_Country_Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crombie Country Park

Nice healthy, open air, fresh air, birthday walk. Better than any fancy restaurant.

the blog to go with the photos is here
http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/168/Nice_healthy_birthday_outing_to_the_park_

Art Sunday, Hill and Adamson, the photographs

These are some of the early photographic images of hill and adamson

Art Sunday; Hill and Adamson

Art Sunday; The Photographs of Hill and Adamson

 

Thank you for dedicating Art Sunday to Scotland but it made me think I had better do something a bit special this week. I hope you like it. This; basically, is the history of Photography. A big chunk of photographic history happened right here in Scotland and this is the story. There is quite a bit of reading, but if you enjoy photography hopefully you will find it interesting. Next time you are out and about with your little digi camera, no bigger than your mobile ‘phone, stop for a while and think about the origins of what you are doing.

 The work of Hill and Adamson is important to the whole history of Photography and to the history of Scotland. This early photographic work provides a source of social commentary from a period of change AND evidence of the developing technology from that time.

                           Sir David Brewster

Chemical experiments in preserving the images of the camera Obscura began in the seventeenth century but did not have significant success until the nineteenth century. The partnership of Hill and Adamson came about thanks to a network of prominent people and events cantered around St Andrews and Edinburgh during the mid nineteenth century. A central figure to this was Sir David Brewster. Brewster (1781-1868) was a leading physicist who had specialised in the study of light and optics.  He was also Principal of St Andrews University. He was interested in recent developments in photography and, along with other associates at St Andrews University, had participated in early photographic experiments using the technique of the French theatrical designer Louis-Jacques-Mande’ Daguerre (1787-1851).  A technique known as Daguerreotypie. This involved a silvered copper plate being sensitised with iodine vapour, exposed in a camera and developed with mercury vapour that was heated over a spirit-lamp. This method resulted in a photographic image being preserved on a copper plate that needed to be protected from damage with a glass cover and sealed to prevent tarnishing by contact with air.  The exposure time of 20-30 minutes made this method unsuitable for portraiture but it did provide a way of producing high quality images of landscapes.  Brewster’s friend, Englishman and scientist James Henry Talbot Fox (1800-1877) had been working on different methods of reproducing photographic images around the same time as Daguerre, and Daguerre’s public announcement encouraged Talbot Fox to make his own findings public sooner than he had intended. Talbot fox’s technique was known as Calotype meaning ‘beautiful image’; it used good quality paper coated with silver iodide, sensitised with silver nitrate, developed with gallo-nitrate of silver and heat then fixed with potassium bromide. The disadvantage of Talbot Fox’s method was the relative poor quality image, but the advantages were the ability to reproduce more than one identical image per exposure and the possibility of faster exposure times allowing for photographic portraits. The Scottish scientist James David Forbes (1809-1868), friend and colleague at St Andrews of Brewster, examined both processes and favoured the French over the English method. The chemical process invented by Talbot Fox was difficult to control until Brewster introduced another of his colleagues, Dr John Adamson (1809-1870) to it. Adamson began working with the process and successfully managed to produce the first Calotype portrait in May 1842. Dr John Adamson introduced his younger brother, Robert Adamson (1821-1848) an engineer, to the chemical processes of Calotype photography, and it was Robert Adamson who went on to refine and develop this technology, enabling the Adamson /Hill partnership to thrive.

At this point several things happened, Sir Brewster (remember him?, he started the whole thing) took himself off to Edinburgh to the AGM of the Church of Scotland; Robert Adamson (engineer turned early photographic chemist) arrived in Edinburgh hoping to find premises for a new photographic studio, and David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), well known Scottish landscape painter, came to witness the expected protests at the AGM.  Hill, was commissioned commemorate the meeting with a painting. He planned individual sittings  partly due to the people involved and partly due to the enormity of the task of sketching every single member of the synod, Hill was introduced to Adamson with a view to using the   Calotype process to cut back on the sketching.  These two men initially came together to work on the painting commemorating the formation of the new Church, they continued working together, in partnership over the next four years. The partnership lasted from 1843 to 1847 and ended with the premature death of Adamson in January1848. From these few years over 1400 of their paper negatives survive; these are possibly only a fraction of the total that were actually made. It was the collaboration between Hill and Adamson on the photographic ‘sketches’ that began their partnership. Initially Hill thought of the process as a means of obtaining fast accurate ‘sketches ‘ from which to produce his paintings but he very quickly became enamoured with the medium and recognised it as an art form in its own right. This particular painting could be considered the forerunner of the Hill and Adamson ‘social documentary’ photographs because it was the first time the photographic process had been used to record an important event in history.      

What the scientifically minded saw as the imperfections of the Calotype image, Hill welcomed as positive attributes. Initially Brewster saw the images as flawed because they had a ‘stippled’ effect as opposed to the clarity of the daguerreotypie image.  Hill saw these variables as adding to the quality of the images rather than detracting from them. The Calotype process produced images of a deep red/brown hue, the process naturally lent itself to a slightly out of focus ‘fuzzyness’, it had a ‘grainy’ texture.  To those from a scientific background, the photographic process provided a means whereby images from life could be recorded in a clinical, accurate manner; anything detracting from that accuracy was perceived as a flaw in the process that should be avoided. Hill used the process to produce images that were ‘art works’ and Adamson refined the method to accentuate the natural properties of the medium not to eliminate them. Hill provided the artistic inspiration while Adamson provided the technical expertise. They expanded the boundaries of science and technology while at the same time produced images that were unique. These images are our evidence of how, in a relatively short period, the seemingly impossible dream of preserving a mirrored or reflected image from life suddenly became possible. These images are unique in being the first photographic social documentary evidence of the lives of everyday Scottish people and the world in which they lived. They are uniquely the product of combined artistic and technical inspiration that came into being thanks to the cooperation of an interdisciplinary network of scientists, artists, academics, theologians and other prominent people who converged together at one particular time and place in our history.

The partnership began with the calotype image being used as a substitute for sketches for the painting ‘The signing of the Deed of Demission’, but in the space of four years the partnership recorded many images that were not related to this painting. Hill and Adamson recorded a series of images known as ‘The Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth’, many of these images have a quality more usually associated with paintings than photographs with attention being paid to the composition and overall effect rather than to the accurate recording of detail.

 

This series of images, the bulk of which were taken in Newhaven with a few from Prestonpans, Leith and St Andrews, were used primarily as experiments in the effects of light and shade taken at different times of day. These images may have begun as a means by which Hill and Adamson learned how to manipulate the calotype process to their satisfaction but, they have become valued and valuable images in their own right. They record an extinct way of life in images, in a way that communicates to the audience a ‘feel’ for the way things were. They are more than an accurate recording, photographic images are accurate recordings of what lies in front of the camera, but the content of a photographic image can be manipulated as much as the content of a painting can. The image ‘Newhaven Fishermen: Rutherford, William Ramsey and John Liston ‘Fishermen Ashore’ is a composed portrait of three local fishermen. The image records accurately what was before the camera and leaves us with perfect insight into how these people dressed for their work but the composition itself is contrived. These people would have needed to hold a set pose for some time in order to achieve this result. This was no natural ‘snapshot’ of people at work. This image is a combination of new technology in the hands of a talented technician and the artistic input of a well-known and respected artist. The result is an image that passes to future generations as part social documentary evidence of a lost way of life and part art work using a new medium.

 Hill and Adamson also recorded the progress of the building of the Scott monument between the years 1843-1845. They recorded the monument itself in different stages of completion but they also recorded the craftsmen working on the monument.

Hope you enjoyed this rather different art Sunday, I'm going to post the photographs in an album where hopefully you will be able to get a better look at them.

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Song Saturday, Neil Young

Neil Young

Born; November 12, 1945: Neil Young is born in Toronto, Canada.

 

The multi talented Neil Young has performed vocals, guitar, banjo, keyboards and harmonica. He has produced solo albums but also worked with, among others, Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame. At different times in his long career he has leaned toward folk, country and rock. No two of his albums are the same. Harvest (1972) showed him as a gentle, laid back singer/songwriter, but Rust Never Sleeps (1979) was more like a loud unruly homage to Johnny Rotten of the sex pistols. Harvest (1972), a brilliantly polished and professional album was followed by Time Fades Away, which was uncommercial and with an almost raw feel to it.

For a while he joined the band The Mynah Birds and in 1966 the band Buffalo Springfield was formed as a result of collaboration between Neil Young and Stephen Stills. This relationship between Neil Young and Stephen Stills has endured the passage of time and resulted in several albums by Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young. (1970’s Déjà vu, 1988’s American Dream, 1999’s Looking Forward) and with Stephen Stills (1976’s Long May You Run, credited to the Stills-Young Band).

From 1969 onwards he has maintained the same backing band, Crazy Horse, time and time again he has returned to this band as the perfect base for his unusual and distinctive vocals. Young is quoted as saying of his association with Crazy Horse “the essence of my musical life. This is the core, the smouldering thing I come back to over and over again....If I had never done anything else, the Crazy Horse stuff would just stand on its own.”

He has not always had an easy ride in his career, he survived the death by drug overdose of his friend and Crazy Horse member Danny Whitton in 1972; he also survived bitter arguments and lawsuits with his recording company Geffen records.

 In 1985, Young performed at the Live Aid concert and then became one of the organizers and participants in Farm Aid, a yearly concert and consciousness-raising event. Young and his wife, Pegi, went on to become founder members of the San Francisco’s Bridge School, a learning centre for handicapped children with communication disabilities.

And for today, because it is a lovely song and because there is a harvest moon soon, Neil

Young singing Harvest Moon

Poetry Wednesday, To Autumn

Paintings by Connie Tom , contemporary American artist painting in the style of the Hudson River Painters.

The Paintings shown here are from

http://connietom.com/

And this is Connie Tom’s own Blog

http://connietom.com/blog

Poetry Wednesday, Autumn

THE POEM I HAVE CHOSEN FOR TODAY IS TO AUTUMN BY JOHN KEATS

ILLUSTRATED WITH PAINTINGS BY AMERICAN ARTIST CONNIE TOM

  Link back to the Poetry Wednesday Tour on Lauritasita's Page

 

 

 

John Keats (1795-1821)

TO AUTUMN.

1." SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.



2.Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.





3.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."

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Today’s paintings are by Contemporary American Artist

Connie Tom

 

The Paintings shown here are from

 

http://connietom.com/

 

And this is Connie Tom’s own Blog

 

http://connietom.com/blog

 

The Hudson River School of Art

The first coherent school of American art, the Hudson River painters, defined the uniqueness of the American landscape. The movement began with the works of Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) and grew into late Romanticism, landscape painting was the prevalent genre of 19th century American art.

It’s roots were founded in European Romanticism and exhibit similarities to European painters, for example;  the Nazarenes and Friedrich in Germany or Constable and  Turner in England. Dispite this obvious influence the Hudson River painters followed Emerson's dictate; "to ignore the courtly Muses of Europe" and defined, for the first time, a distinct School of American Art. The Hudson River painters delighted in the wilderness that was still America, a vast expanse of untamed land in which man was small and vulnerable in the midst of unbridled beauty.  

Having said all of that…………this Artist is NOT a Hudson River Painter. She is a modern day painter who says of herself,

 ''I'm artist from Missouri who paints luminous paintings after the manner of the Hudson River School of Painting.''

I chose her work for today because of the way she portrays the vivid colours of autumn, a perfect companion to the poem Autumn. BUT………….I’m sure I’ll revisit these Hudson River Painters sometime soon and devote an entire blog to their work.

Herb Thursday; Carrots and Carrot cake

MY LAST ENTRY WAS FOR CARROT SOUP. I THOUGHT IF WE HAVE CARROT SOUP, WE JUST HAVE TO FOLLOW IT WITH CARROT CAKE.

Carrots have been included in sweet recipes in Britain since mediaeval times. Because carrots provided a cheaper and more easily available alternative to other sweeteners, their use was encouraged during the Second World War and rationing. Carrot cake didn’t really gain in popularity until the last quarter of the twentieth century but now it’s found in just about every coffee shop and tea room.

Apart from the fact that it tastes delicious, there’s an air of wholesomenesss about carrot cake, it has that …’this is good for me’ feeling.

 

The Basics

Fat

The fat you use will determine the method – creaming or all-in-one. Butter or margarine is one option but more usually oil is used. Olive oil is too heavy; a light vegetable oil - groundnut maybe - is the best choice.

Flour

It’s got to be wholemeal – organic stoneground is the healthy option. Self-raising is best, with baking powder and spices (cinnamon, mixed, nutmeg) sieved in. Most recipes call for some extra bicarbonate of soda to help the raising process.

Sugar

Dark and brown for a lovely rich colour as well as that moist sweetness that is associated with carrot cake. Weightwatchers UK use runny honey as an alternative – yes, there is a diet version of Carrot Cake!

Carrots

Find the easiest way you can to grate them! If you have a food processor, use that, otherwise it’s a time-consuming job. When you put the grated carrot in the bowl you might fear you’re going to end up with a cake full of bits, but don’t worry: they soften as they cook and become unrecognisable.

Eggs

Last but not least, the number of eggs, free-range large are best, you can use from 2 to 4 range, add a pinch of salt to draw out flavour.

Added Extras

The zest and juice of a lemon or orange add their own distinctive zing to the cake, or you might prefer to drop in a teaspoonful of vanilla essence. Think of what flavour topping you want and use the same for the cake.

Desiccated coconut adds a distinctive taste and texture to the cake, as do ground almonds. Or you can add chopped walnuts or pecans to the mix, using the same nuts to decorate the topping.

Topping

Most recipes agree on the topping: a mixture of cream cheese and icing sugar, sometimes with unsalted butter. Where the recipes disagree is on proportions, this just comes down to how sweet or creamy you like your topping.

Include a flavouring of your choice, beat it all together, adding a little milk if it’s too stiff and you’ve got your topping ready to spread on the cooled cake. Decorate with nuts, zest or leave simple.

And Now; The Carrot Cake

Ingredients for the cake

•       12½ oz carrots

•       2 oz pecans

•       4 oz self-raising wholemeal flour

•       4 oz plain wholemeal flour

•       2 teaspoons of cinnamon

•       1 teaspoon ground ginger

•       ½ teaspoon nutmeg

•       1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

•       8 fl oz vegetable oil

•       6 oz soft brown sugar

•       4 eggs

•       2 tablespoons’ golden syrup

Ingredients for the topping

•       7 oz cream cheese

•       2 oz softened unsalted butter

•       2 oz sifted icing sugar

•       1 teaspoon vanilla essence

These quantities make a 9” round cake.

•       Start off by grating 12½ oz carrots and chopping 2 oz pecans. Put to one side.

•       Sieve together 4 oz self-raising flour and 4 oz plain flour (both wholemeal) with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon nutmeg and 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda. (Tip the bran bits left in the sieve into the mixture.)

•       Whisk together 8 fl oz vegetable oil, 6 oz soft brown sugar, 4 eggs and 2 tablespoons’ golden syrup. (Heat the spoon first and the syrup will slide off easily.)

•       Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until it’s nice and smooth. Stir in the carrots and pecans.

•       Tip the mixture into a greased lined tin and cook at 160oC for an hour, or until cooked.

•       For the topping, mix 7 oz cream cheese, 2 oz softened unsalted butter, 2 oz sifted icing sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, until smooth.

•       Allow the cake to cool and then add the topping

 

THE CARROT

Parts Used Medicinally

The whole herb, collected in July; the seeds and root. The whole herb is the part now more generally in use.

 

Medicinal Action and Uses.

Used as a Diuretic or sometimes as a Stimulant. An infusion of the whole herb was considered a valuable remedy in the treatment of chronic kidney diseases and affections of the bladder. The infusion of tea, made from one ounce of the herb in a pint of boiling water, is taken in wineglassful doses. Carrot tea, taken night and morning, and brewed in this way from the whole plant, is considered excellent for certain types of arthritis or gout. A strong decoction is very useful in gravel and stone, and is good against flatulence. A fluid extract is also prepared, the dose being from 1/2 to 1 drachm.

 

The seeds are said to be  very useful in colic, hiccough, dysentery, chronic coughs. The dose of the seeds is one teaspoonful, repeated as necessary. They were at one time considered a valuable remedy for jaundice. They have a slight aromatic smell and a warm, pungent taste. They add an very agreeable aromatic flavour to malt liquor.

 

Old writers tell us that a poultice made of the roots has been found to ease the pain of ulcers, and that the leaves, applied with honey, cleanse sores and ulcers. An infusion of the root was also used as an aperient. A humble veggie with an impressive history.

And this is a wild carrot.

 

Picture Perfect, Joined

This is where Cowie Water JOINS the North Sea at Stonehaven. The water has a reddish/brown hue due to all the tannins picked up as it passes through Dunnotter woods