Bloodplum Jam

I have this bloodplum tree growing in my garden

This year it had lots of flowers

and now it has a vast abundance of fruit.

cherry-sized and the same color as the leaves = hard to see

So many fruits that I harvested about 6 kg of them;

That's about 2 kg in a pot in this photo.

but only those that were within reach without climbing into the tree
or using a unstable ladder on uneven ground to get them.

May the birds and ants have the fruits that are still on the tree. =))

So, all that fruit was simply too much to eat for me alone before it would get moldy.
I decided to make jam from it.
Cutting the tiny fruits open to get out the stones was tedious work for the first two batches
(without photos and one with cinnamon and ginger spices, the other pure fruit).

So for my third batch I decided to try out something "new" to me:
I boiled the fruits first, complete with stones, but without any sugar or pectin for jelling.

I have not added any  water, it's all from the fruits from heating. 

It worked well, and after pureeing it and mashing it,
I had the pure juice and fruit pulp in the pot

and the skins and stones in the mesh. =))

(the yellow color is a reflection of the mesh, the true color is similar to the juice)

Now just and the sugar /pectin mix

using a 2:1 ready mix  (2 parts fruit 1 part sugar)

and cinnamon again (goes so well with plum flavor)

make it all boil until it starts to stiffen,
fill in twist-off glasses,

place them upside down to cool.

Viola - finished jam without time consuming work to get the stones out.

It tastes simply yummy - and I think the amount of jam I made will last a whole year.
Yes, I'm the only one that eats jam around here............

Night Desert Safari Dubai, 2014

During my one week stay in Dubai this year,
I took a night safari in the desert.
( http://www.dubai-reisen.info/ausfluege/wueste_nachtsafari.html - website from which the tour was booked)
We were a group of 4 with a guide (from Egypt).

Pick-up time was 19.30 from the hotel.
It had to be this late for the temperatures to cool down a bit AND for ti to be dark.
The drive to the desert took about 45 minutes through the southern parts of Dubai;
were the world Expo 2020 is being constructed (and the builders live in large fast constructed villages).
We also passed the "Arabic" Dubai - a settlement for newly web Arabic "native" Dubai residence where each couple gets 500 m² for free (or a small house). So they don't die out. Dubai has now only about 14% natives. The rest are all foreigner workers.

Then we reached the Dubai Desert Conversation Reserve - yes, the tour is inside a reservation, to make sure the animals stay inside and no "hunters" (2- and 4-legged) come inside. There is also an extra part fenced off inside the reservation for intensive study on the animals and their food.

Entry gate to the reservation: more information in below links
http://www.ddcr.org/en/
http://www.ddcr.org/en/reserve/location/

It is better to have all the tourists concentrated in this one area - than have them wander off, alone or with guide, through the real desert, destroying the sensitive ecosystem there. But to have an exclusive and expensive resort there with a pool for each room/bungalow? That is a bit too much for the tourists. The managers there sure know how to make money ..................

Anyway:
We changed to the range rover - open and from the 1950's. It is a loan from the museum in private property of a sheikh to use until it breaks down. (There are about ten of those for those desert tours.) And the guide handed each of us 2 half liter bottles of cooled water - which we had no time to drink until the snack camp, where we got two more half liter drinks.

the car

We drove for a bit along desert roads, the guide pointing out bushes and trees that the nomads used for remedies and food. (Sorry, no photos from them.)
Then we went for a walk, about an hour and half. The guide had a torch and a UV light. The latter was very important as only with that you could spot the sand scorpions.

Sand Scorpion

in UV light and torchlight

in UV light

in torchlight with flash

The we also saw beetles:

This one kept putting the butt up and head down -
to protect its most sensitive body part

And we saw some bigger animals, like gazelles and antelopes (I don't remember their specific names):

Best of all I like the Gecko:

Then we had a small snack in the desert with a look at the major stars, like big and small dipper and the North star. And see the setting half moon through a telescope. 

Nope, I didn't use the sischa.

They even had built a toilet house out of stones in to the desert at this snack place for the tourists - with running water in the wash basin and water-flushed toilet like in a hotel room!!

By 23.00 it was time to go back - not without "bashing" some dunes with the car, the guide telling us to "hold on tight" for each deeper dip it took. It was fun, getting some hot dust into your face. Yes, it never cooled down really, temperatures stayed around 28°C. 

Just leaving the reservation gate I saw some more animals, ANTS.

Large ones - about 2cm long each, devouring some dropped fruits.

Tired, but happy tourist me at the reservation gate.,
camera ready for the paparazzi . 

This then ends my report from the night safari. If you ever get to be in Dubai - try and do one too. You won't regret it. =))

The Raven

I love my day job, I really do!

I get asked from customers to do something hand-crafty special for them there. Not just cushions, table cloth or curtains.
This time I was asked to make a stuffed raven from a photo:

She bought the material, and gave me the photo. The rest was mine to figure out.
So, first I had to make a plan aka pattern to get the 2D image into a 3D thing.

Luckily the photo was, although small, in the right angles to see some details of how it was formed. Having made stuffed animals from patterns before it was just an easy step for me to get the pattern drawn out on paper in the right size.

Fit the pattern parts on the different colored felt material and cut out. On the photo above you can see that step and the materials used.

Next step was to sew those parts together.

I only then realized that the beak was too small so I had to make a second, larger one. Luckily the material for that was enough.

After that came the stuffing. And only now could I be sure that it was the size it was supposed to be.

Finally, time to sew it closed and add the feet and eyes and feathery fringes on top.

And here the finished raven: 

Yes, it was perfect: =))
If you want to make one too, ask me and I can send you the pattern. This raven is 20cm high.

Low water in the creek - update March 2014

It's been some time I posted about the little creek running through the village where I live.
Last year the water levels were stable, although still low.
Only a few days they were the "normal" height. Those were the days right after we had downpours.

This winter has been the driest and warmest. NO snow except for a few days, and not much - maybe 10 cm at the maximum.

So, there is no Spring melt this year - the water level seems even lower than in the hottest Summer days.
Up to now Spring has been dry too; there is fire watch already for the forests.

The few times it did rain, the water didn't even rise. It only turned muddy for a few hours and then was clear again.

Here some visuals of what it looks now:

Merry Christmas 2013 and Happy New Year 2014

I haven't posted much toward the end of the year here. I was busy; who wasn't? :P
Guess, it's a time for a resume.
Mostly I was busy all year writing stories for an anthology series called Theme-Thology on G+.

We, as a team, even managed to get a book out this year. More had been planned, but this got delayed.
So, I am now looking forward to get those stories published with the others in their respective anthologies -
or, if it gets cancelled, will try to publish them on my own in the coming year.

Another story of mine will come out at the start of 2014 in another starting anthology series:
NovoPulp. This one will be a print magazine/book. I have not only contributed my story Journey to this,
but also helped a lot to get the project rolling and along to the finish line. What we did get done before teh end of the year is get some fan articles out.

I want to thank all of the others in those two projects for working together to get our "dreams" into reality.

What I did neglect a bit is the painting and drawing. I hope to get the two birds, I started at the beginning of this year, finally done - and do more of those kind of paintings during the year.

I did manage to regularly take photos - and take part in diverse challenges and communities about photography on G+: Scavenger hunts and Treasure hunts to name some. Not all of those photos are public though; they are not always the best to show. I did join a new photo site too. Viewbug -- with contests. Mine never will win against all those amazing photos, but it's sure nice to get recognition from total strangers on your little works.

And I did a lot of handicraft too: crocheting, knitting and sewing (which is also my work).

So, the coming year, switching from writing, painting, photographing and creating things with my hands, I just hope to have enough time to relax and rest and recover new strength for all my little projects. Oh, and to learn new things as well Coursera and Udacity are great online places to learn in your own speed most of the time - and with people from all over the world.

And keep up with reporting about my activities, of course. If not, be assured, I will have fun and laughter and happiness anyway.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2014.

Yes, I remember Mr Rabbit and his visit to me at the beginning of this year - and I really enjoyed taking those photos with him. 

Be happy, don't worry and keep the Love in your hearts.

Operating System (OS) Crash - Undone, Part 2

I was happy with new new set-up "clean" and nearly empty system on my fast computer.

Bookmarks were all saved by Chrome/Google browser. No need to hunt them down again (although I did in the first few days just to see how many of them I could find and /or recall). Attaching and booting the slow and small HDD to copy the needed files to a USB stick was easy too; just unplug and re-plug and back to the old "new" HDD.

Then I remembered that I had some unpublished photos on that other computer that I have not yet backuped (neither on USB stick nor the cloud). So, back to the old computer and switch it on. 

Too bad that I had forgotten to plug the monitor in after I had moved it back to it's resting place. Quickly, I made a shutdown, and turned all electricity off. You never know with Win XP what happens if you just plug the monitor in as it is running.

Only that this time the OS wasn't running yet, being an old slow system and me being used to that fast booting one. So, instead of a normal shut down, it was shut down half loaded. Which is not a good thing.

After I had the monitor attached I re-started the computer - only to end up in a black screen of options.

And no matter what option I chose I ended up in that same screen:

Windows can't boot correctly.

From my last experience with a non-booting computer, and not being able to describe in words to my helpful friends what actually went wrong, I took a video of that "loop" booting:

And then the batteries of the camera were empty.  Luckily I had a spare set, so I could just continue with the next boot "loop":

What to do now? I had this boot CD. So, after checking the CMOS/BIOS settings were correct for booting from CD: 

But nothing happened. 0.0 

I did have a floppy disk that said "boot" on it. I inserted that, only to find out that it had drivers for CD drives on it, but no other programs like chkdsk etc. And those drivers didn't work for my CD drive. 

Not because of the age difference or different system the boot floppy was made for. It also said windows 95/98 on the cover.

No, it was loose cables that stopped the CD drive from being read . headdesk

IT had taken me a week and a few talks with online friends to find that out. Now, with the cables reattached, I had no problem running that boot CD with all the checking programs. It had a min win XP on it - a nice visual for file checking. Albeit, very slow as it was using the Ram drive to run. 

This is what I found: 

Nothing on C:

Using a different program for file checking I saw this:

Something on C:

So, something was still on C: ; but it could not be read. I assumed it, as it kept wanting to boot with Win XP, thus it must have some files of that left on the HDD and in the "boot" sector. 

I was about to give up when I recalled my old computer times using DOS to run a computer. And I knew there was a DOS program on the boot CD. 

I found it and - wow- it had a nice mouse steered colored screen to navigate. No need to remember all those codes and orders to execute the programs. I chose the surface test.

Taken after the test just to show what I used as it stared too fast to take a before shot.

And it came up with 18 errors.

Those numbers don't tell me anything, but those are the errors. 

And when it found them, correct them automatically. More than deleting what was already "gone" could not happen anyway.

The repair in action. 

Doing one more test before "finished" - successfully. 

When it was finished I was surprised the file manager loaded so fast. It took me a while to realize that the old Win XP was all back, all files unharmed., nothing lost. I couldn't believe it, took the boot CD out and re-booted the system.

And yes, =))

It booted totally normal. I could get my few photos and now had a second system fixed and (after I delete some never used programs) will even have a rather fast computer again for backup should my "beloved" fast computer go crazy on me again. Or, I might even install a small LINUX system on that old computer. 

And if that all is not enough to feel happy about - I actually found the WLAN stick for that old computer again. and re-installed it too. Now, I do not have to go to that cold place with this computer just to get online with it over the router. 

Am I now a computer geek? Well, not an expert but also no beginner or "just user" too. 

For those interested in what boot CD I used:

Hiren Boot CD

A big THANK YOU to all the wonderful people on the internet out there that advised me and encouraged me over and over again this last month so I could "repair" this old computer without spending one cent; just a little time and patience.

Operating System (OS) Crash - Undone, Part 1

I haven't posted much in here for some time. I just didn't have anything to write about. It can happen; the world still keeps on turning.

Then last month I had two computers crashes. The operating systems (OS) just wouldn't load anymore.

One was the "new" (just three years old) Win 7 system (and will be described here in part 1):

On booting it again, it wouldn't even get to the "enter password" image.
The "winlogon.exe" is damaged was all the system could tell.

I asked my partner what he did last on this computer (we both use them): "It had been idle for some time and then I simply shut it down regularly."

There was no way for me to check what else was wrong, but let the Win 7 in-built checking programs run on boot. Like "chkdsk" (an old DOS program). That ran well - deleting files from bad sectors after copying them into some other places. Or so the screen kept telling. And then, more or less finally, the system told me:

System volume on data device is damaged. Error code 0x0 test successful, repair successful.

0.0

But I still could not boot the system.

I guessed all that equaled to this is nothing that the system can repair of it's own. But, we still have files on the computer (the HDD) that we had not backuped and that are important. A complete fresh install of any OS (or the WIN 7 again; if I had the original CD, which I don't as it came pre-installed) was out of question.

If I had made a recovery CD for that system I would have used that. But, alas, being me, I thought this would never happen and that the backup system files on the computer would be enough to restore it, should we accidentally delete an important file. In theory this would have worked.

At that time I was also enrolled in an online course that was time limited. So, I had no time to play around with this computer. I recalled a school friend that was into computers and he was still fixing them - now as a small business. With a big sigh I brought ours to him. He would look into it - and fix it, if possible.

I could use my older computer for the online lectures: over 10 years old, Win XP, and LAN connection to the router. It even still has a floppy drive. It worked fine, but it sure was cold where I had the router connection for this one. So, for email checking and surfing the basic pages in the internet I was allowed to use the laptop we own. But not install any new browser (that laptop was still using IE6 0.0 ) that would let me watch my online lectures. Sigh.

I did mange however to ask my friends online about what could have been wrong with my other computer. And thus was given the hint to use a Boot CD (or Live CD) to check and eventually repair the system; especially if the damage was only in the software.

Long talk short. After two weeks I had my fast computer back, but with new HDD and fresh installed OS (Win 7, but the 64bit version). The files though were on another HDD (slow and half the size) just copied over; it would boot but not connect to the internet wireless. That part was lost totally. (Still don't know exactly what is wrong with that system - but I might find out when I have enough time and then have a spare HDD).

Anyway, I could finish my online course in the set time and even pass the exam (different blog post maybe for that later on).

The only thing that still did not work as it should was the web camera. The new 64bit system kept telling me that it the camera needs a driver to run. I couldn't find the installation CD that came with it. So, again, I asked my friends online what to do and they found me a driver for the web camera type I had shown them in a link - searched for the image of the camera as I couldn't find a name imprinted onto it. (Was in the base that had ripped off ages ago.) All that didn't help though at all. Not even Google+ Hangouts would recognized the attached camera (it had the green "on" light running all the time). 

A week later I did find the original installation CD, and, after installing everything, the camera still had the same error. Incidentally I also noticed that my files and the ones from the friends were the same. 

Eventually, I had to realize that I would have to get a new camera. At the hardware store the sales persons went big eyed by all those questions I asked. One said that I seem to know more about computer hardware than he does - I should just go and search and find the one I think suits my system. Which I did:

a driver-less web camera. It even has additional LED lights to lighten up the spots it's aimed at (well, at web camera distance).

Went home, plugged it in and it worked fine. With no installation at all - only the short message that the newly attached device is now ready to use. =)

So far, I only used it once - the hangouts i had wanted it for were already over. There'll be new ones coming up. Or I might use it for web camera Wednesday - a photo theme on G+. Who knows, I'm prepared. 

During all this time I also downloaded and burnt a boot CD, so, should this computer fail again, I would have some other checking devices ready and not have to pay lots of money just for checking. Who know that I would need them so soon. 

to be continued in Part 2.......................

Older photo from my computer workplace.
Hasn't changed much, I guess, just the contents of the screen.