anke

We’ve had cloud cover for a week now, which might be not the best light for photographs, but I’m trying to get the hang of consistent adding, anyway. So I played around with staged-in-my-room photos, too.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

In case you didn’t know yet, I like insects, spiders and the like. So, bit of a themed post.

A short video I captured of an ant dragging a rather hefty lunch home:

Bits of my stuff:

Links:
Moths Use Sonar-Jamming Defense to Fend Off Hunting Bats
Dancing caterpillars put off predators (cute photo, found via neatorama)
a bug sculptures photoset on flickr

Origami arthropods found on deviantart, different creators:

That artist of the last one has a lot of other great models in his gallery, only with the thumbnail links disabled.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Well, what with cold and otherwise induced brainfog, this was a dead month, blogging-wise. Let’s start the next one off, then.

I’m way more proud than I should be about finishing the Zodiac Chickens series. If you want to see all on one view, try the “Zodiac” tag.

Insect Photos:

Stag beetles are supposedly very rare, yet we keep finding them in our garden. I think it’s because our family tends to leave treestumps in the earth; the beetles’ larvae feed on rotting wood.

Flowers and other Nature stuff:

And some old-ish buildings:

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

I thought some people might find this amusing. It’s a photo of a section of a road map at a bus stop in Neuwied.

Block is a village between Neuwied and Engers, the next town upriver on the Rhine. I have no idea why the street is named “Im Tardis”. (“Im” means “in the”, in the masculine or neuter form. However, the TARDIS is grammatically female in the German version, which would require “in der Tardis”.)

Originally posted at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

All right, so I’m a bit slow. Last Friday I went to the Historienfestspiele (history festival) at Ehrenbreitstein. The old castle was a great setting for such an event. It’s sort of stretched out at the top of a mountain or hill or rock, and has several yards. It was quite a surprise thinking I’d seen most, and then coming across a Roman military camp again as big as the market I’d seen already. XD

The whole thing started on Thursday, a holiday, and ended on Sunday, but on the other days I had to help prepare my grandfather’s ninetieth birthday. Since the workday-Friday had no presentations or shows planned at all, it was quite slow, which wasn’t the worst for me, since it meant no huge crowds.

So what was left? Market stalls and a few people in costumes, and the decorated tents, mostly, but sometimes you get lucky.

The knights who on the other days did showfights were there, and talked to people about their gear, including handing around swords, helmets and a chainmail shirt so you could tell how heavy it was. At some point when I was there, along with a gaggle of (other) small kids, two of them spontaneously did a short fight. So, Central Europeans duel…

…Huns loon on…

…Romans are on holiday…

…and Vikings test out the baseball bat.

The Roman camp, as mentioned, was pretty big; I didn’t count, but estimate about thirty tents. The fact that you could only walk past, not between them, and that there was a VW Passat parked in the middle somewhat ruined the effect, though.

I forgot going back to the Prussian camp (just half a dozen tents, and smaller, at that) and take a photo. Oh, well, maybe next year. Apart from one man watching the stalls, the Celts were not to be found.

As to the commercialism, A silversmith had a decoration that worked on me…

…an honest-to-god ratfur. Conversational piece, that. I asked about it, joined in a chat a bit later about how business was going, and ended up buying a precious stone doughnut disc – that’s the first piece of jewellery I bought in ten years or so.

I also had a chat with someone helping to run a stall that sold glass pens and leather masks, and, since I had found instructions for making leather masks online and had wanted to try that, asked about the kind of leather used. Bad news, it’s so hard to get they have to order it internationally, but at least now I know.

Later I talked to a bowmaker, because I’d be interested in learning, but would prefer to find some people interested in the shooting side of things, and not with modern sports bows, too – building a range in my garden just for me is both boring and not really possible.mh, the yard might work, if the neighbours would park their car inside…

The stalls were pretty mixed, from “handcrafted leather works while you wait” through “mass-produced ‘magical’ amulets” to “sand-filled toy lizards you can buy in any toy shop and tie-dyed clothes in psychedelic colours” – the latter seemed quite out of place between the leather and whatnot.

Anyway, all in all, I’m glad I went, even if I got my first (not very bad) sunburn in years, on the back of my upper arms.

Originally posted at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.