When we were up at Mom’s house, I finished a roll of 120 film that had been sitting in the Yashica since 2017, and I sent them out to be developed last week. From the results I see here, it’s pretty clear I can’t leave film in the camera for that long.
That having been said, some of the defects in these photos are kind of cool.
I can easily photoshop out the two dark spots around Zachary’s head.
This one is from the winter of 2017 when Jen was making galettes with Finn.
This is the last shot on the roll, from up at Mom’s house.
While I was in New York, I fully intended to load up the Ikoflex with film and shoot more. But looking across the internet I found a bunch of conflicting information about how to load it, what film to use, and what film it was designed for. The big issue is loading the film into the camera and aligning it so that the frames align up with the shutter. The Rollieflex and Yashica have two arrows on the back that align with markers on the film. The Ikoflex doesn’t have that set of arrows.
Further investigation is obviously required. I’ve got a couple of rolls of ooooooold film that came from the Mildew House along with the Yashica, so there is some sacrificial film I can use to practice.
We split up Dad’s remains on Mom’s front porch into small Tupperware containers while Finley sang Funkytown. Don’t ask me to explain.
My bones are creaky this morning because Finn and I camped out in the Chic Shack last night. Before dinner I built a screen for the second window so we could open them both and have a little cross breeze, and that was just right until about 3AM when the temperature dropped. I put fuzzy blanket over Finn’s sleeping bag (and took a corner of it for myself) and fell back asleep. I would have slept sounder if I hadn’t needed to pee at 4AM, but oh, well.
+1, Recommend, Would book a stay again
Yesterday was my fall cancer checkup in Baltimore, so I drove in to Hopkins for a CT scan and consult with my oncologist. Everything looks OK on the scan, and my bloodwork is trending upwards—I’m still not in the normal range for white blood cells but I’m knocking at the door for the first time since 2018.
My stamina has reflected the low blood cell count; I’m still not at my pre-cancer ability to crank on house projects for two days straight, but I can go for about 4-5 hours solid before I have to stop, and it takes me most of a Monday to rest up before I feel back to full strength. This is all good news, though, and I’m going to continue to push myself in the belief that the work I’ve been doing is making me stronger.
It’s 4:20 in the afternoon and I’ve just showered after working on Finn’s new fort? House? Vacation property? Think shed?) for the third time in three days. We put walls all the way around to the porch and braced them at the floor and ceiling. Yesterday we drove in to Second Chance and browsed the store to find a pair of reclaimed Andersen double-hung windows that would fit the south and west walls perfectly. Today we cut two holes in the walls and braced everything to set them in place. When that was done (and Finn was napping on the couch) I set up the compressor and sprayed the interior with white Kilz primer to clean everything up.
Now I’m sitting on the couch on the front porch, feeling the breeze blow through the windows, sipping a glass of homebrew, and feeling exhausted but content with the weekend’s accomplishments. The fort project hasn’t been free, but I’ve been able to re-use and salvage a lot of material from the prior iteration and older projects—and to have Finn hug me fiercely and tell me she loves me in the middle of a long day makes everything worthwhile.
This is Finley, on the platform of her new fort, using Grandpa’s Swiss Army knife to whittle down a stick into a sword and hilt, held together elegantly with tree bark.
