Macro Monday: Recipe: How to Bake a Camera

To my absolute horror--the nightmare on Ranch Road--this morning I discovered I'd left the camera outside overnight, and--in this land of so little rain--it had rained! (Guess the bets are off on which part of my body will conk out first!) I brought it in, toweled it dry, changed the batteries and took this picture. Let's call this one BO (Before Oven). Looks like a macro of a cloud.

I was crushed! How would I ever explain to Farmer Rick--now that I have gutted our main bathroom and uncovered unsightly, secret, chaotically wired chambers--I would rather have another camera instead and just finish the bathroom project in, say, 2011? That would only be a tiny inconvenience, right? Right? No, that would never do. Not when I'm the one always harping about follow through, like I had it tattooed across my...well you get the picture, no pun intended.

So, I googled 'what to do if your camera got left out in the rain', and I came across someone who said they actually baked their Canon Rebel (I can hear many of you cringing right now) and it was raised like Lazarus from the dead and it has continued working. I decided to give it a try. Even though my oven couldn't go as low as 120 degrees, I set it at my lowest of 170 degrees and baked it (without batteries or memory card) for 20 minutes with the door slightly ajar.

This way, I could at least peek in and see if it was melting. I would hate to have to explain to Farmer Rick how we suddenly needed BOTH a new camera and new oven! I'd really feel like Lucille Ball then. It got hot, way too hot to handle but held its shape. So I let it cool to room temperature. After replacing the batteries and card, here's the first picture.

For AF (After Oven) isn't this amazing? There's still a bunch of moisture under the digital screen of the viewfinder, but I'm hoping I can remove that with a little time in a plastic ziplock baggie and some silica gel. Or maybe it will need to bake longer.

Anyway, here's another vintage bird button and a maple leaf to go along with the recipe!

For more up close and personal images, visit Macro Monday!

Postscript: After a cozy evening spent by the fire with my camera (wish I could have captured this happy photo), and a night sealed in a plastic baggie with all the silica gel packages I could find from shoe boxes, and some Rainsorb thrown in, the last bit of moisture I was seeing in the display screen has completely disappeared! Whew!

Sunday Stills: Landscapes with Fall Foliage

Fall is one of our iffy seasons--sometimes we go from summer directly to winter without much color. I'm too busy today to dig through the archives for fall landscapes which are few and far between. Here are a couple of our calico cat Topaz with leaves from our "lost" maple tree taken many years ago with a not-so-great camera. The spin was physical, not Photoshop.

For some fabulous landscapes in lands where fall really happens, visit Sunday Stills!

Macro Monday: Leaving Impressions

It's neat to discover something I missed before, like how the agave plant leaves an impression of itself. I checked all our agave plants, and every leaf holds a record like this of its unfurling growth. Being succulents, they have saved up for the rainless days.

In Mexico the sap of this plant is fermented to produce a drink called pulque which is distilled into mezcal, or tequila. These can leave an impression on you, too.

Visit Macro Monday for more sights of the up close world.

Foray into Silversmithing

Yesterday I took my first silversmithing class and I'm hooked! This oak leaf is my very first piece, and I'm not sure yet what it will become. I'll be taking a connections class next, so perhaps will turn it into a pendant after I learn more. I am very interested in translating nature into jewelry.

A couple of years ago I took a metalsmithing class and made this Ruthenian Crown out of copper and tin. It was torch soldered, so I already had some experience with the torch.


I'll be posting more as I learn!