Posted to Ontario Barn Preservation – Spring Barn Fashion

This is the post I wrote about clothing choices for barn wear, for the Ontario Barn Preservation newsletter, March 2023.

Thinking About… Spring Barn Fashion

One thing you may not spend time really thinking about… barn fashion. But, here we are, approaching another Spring and you might need to consider fashion, or at least function.

First, you might avoid open toed shoes. No matter how cute they look before you walk around in the barn. Gardeners say “keep your knees dirty” but I’d change that to, “keep your toes clean, and not itchy”.

Do you wear that typical sort of lumber jacket look? How about that Buffalo check, the red and black plaid often used for rustic fashion? Denim is also a traditional must have, whether its jackets or jeans, or something else. One of my favourite fashion finds is a denim backpack. It goes anywhere, including the washing machine.

Then there are t-shirts. How many free t-shirts have you collected? Attending events is a good way to get more t-shirts. But, I find they don’t hand them out as often as before. Also, I’m not always keen to be a walking billboard for various products and causes. I still find sources for cheap t-shirts, plain shirts. Of course, a t-shirt never really dies, they make great rags. Really, if you took time to make a list there must be a hundred uses for an old t-shirt. Socks too.

You might think the topic of barn fashion is kind of silly, but almost everyone has a favourite old jacket, or jeans, or something they wear working around outside. It’s been weathered, time tested, patched, mended, washed more than a few times. What’s yours?

Barn Clothes: Life on The “fashion Don’t” List

Rube Goldberg Machines

Did you ever play the Mousetrap game? It’s based on the idea of making a convoluted contraption to catch a mouse. The part of the game I most remember is watching all the parts of the machine work one after the other (like all those rows of dominoes people construct) to end up catching the mouse. In the game all the parts were plastic and fit together well, there wasn’t so much engineering and rebuilding involved. But, building a Rube Goldberg machine is a lot of engineering, planning and rebuilding because things don’t all work out just right the first time around. No matter how well planned.

mousetrap game

There is a Rube Goldberg Machine category at the Curlie web directory. I found it today after my sister told me she and her children are building a Rube Goldberg Machine. I didn’t know what it is. If I had ever heard of the name I had forgotten it. So I looked it up and found sites and a lot of videos. I posted most of them to the Curlie category so people can find them there.

The best links I found were the site about contests for people who build the machines, Rube Goldberg. Also, a kinetic artist who builds them as art and fun, Joseph Herscher and his site, Joseph’s Machines. He has video posts of his machines on YouTube.

Ethan shows how to make the machines, ideas for steps and parts along the way. He also shows how the best plans don’t always work out. Which not everyone does and I think it is really important to know. Anyone building these contraptions will need a lot of patience and rebuilding. Ethan’s video was my favourite.

Sprice Machines also makes them, house wide and going outside even. Extreme patience, creativity and engineering. Fun to watch.

Start Looking for Hand Made Lettering

Here’s something you probably haven’t thought to look for, calligraphy or hand made lettering. Not just for the written page but chiseled into stone or carved into wood or painted onto walls. Where else? Visit the blog and see what you may have been missing. (It’s typography when it’s machine made lettering, calligraphy when it’s created by hand).

Source: Calligraphy as Seen From my Bicycle – Calligraphy in old churches and other places as seen during cycling tours around Europe. By Wlodek Fenrych.

Canadian Patriotic Butter Tarts

Found this recipe online but the link was broken to the source site. Tracked it down with the Wayback Machine.

These picnic-ready, personalized pies are a fun food take-away for your guests (now say that 10 times quickly).

You’ll Need

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1/4¼ cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup raisins or pecans

1 pie crust, rolled to ½” thickness

8 – 125ml jam jars, washed and buttered

Prep and Cook

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Combine the butter and sugar and place in a medium saucepan set over medium heat. Add the vanilla and raisins or pecans, and cook until the butter has melted. (This is the filling.)

Beat the eggs and whisk into the sugar mixture, cooking over medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until the mixtures thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. Be very careful not to overcook the filling.

Roll out the piecrust and cut circles of dough with the mouth of the jam jar—2 per jar. Press one into the bottom of the buttered jar, top with filling and cover with the second piece of dough.

Cut a steam vent (small slit) into the top piece of dough, and place all of the pies on a large baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before placing the lid on the jar.

Decorate with the O Canada Patriotic Pie label and baker’s twine or ribbon.

via Patriotic Pies – SavvyMom.ca.

I Remember BlogChalking

This is what I found from the Wayback Machine. The original link which most people refer to does not end with the .com. There wasn’t much left of that BlogChalking at that domain. But, I was pretty sure it had been a .com too so I looked, and found it.

Looks like it had it’s final days in 2006. From there it was abandoned, no updates. I took a screen shot from earlier (2003 which is the year it began according to the site), better times. Then another two images show the last final stages of decay from the Wayback in 2011 (but no changes to the actual site since 2006).

Daniel Pádua, the man from Brazil who began BlogChalking, died of cancer in 2009.

Use CAPTCHA and Word Verification to Make Art

Next time you’re stuck trying to read the lines of word verification (CAPTCHA) somewhere think of a way to turn those words into something funny. Add an illustration. Make the word verification part of a cartoon.

I’ve done it. I did cheat a bit. I refreshed a Blogger blog until I felt inspired by the word verification that came up. Then I cut and pasted the letters, added my own text and my own art. I used a simple graphic program, nothing fancy.

It’s not terribly funny, the CAPTCHA art I created. I’ve found much funnier and far more clever art created with word verification on various sites online. But, I did it myself. Sometimes that’s kind of nice in itself.

CAPTCHA Art

CAPTCHArt
Captcha Art
Captcha Comics
captcha art | Tumblr
CAPTCHA Art | Word Grrls

The CAPTCHA Protest

I’m not a big fan of CAPTCHA and/ or word verification. It annoys me frequently. Many times I have chosen not to leave a comment on a site rather than deal with their word verification. It’s like going to visit someone’s house and being attacked by their dog at the door. Makes you feel unwelcome.

However, it’s not just blog comments that require word verification and CAPTCHAs now. If you register for a site, or sign up for an account you get stuck with verifying you are human too. (That’s the original purpose of CAPTCHAs and word verification). Well, as a human, I find I’d like a machine that could read and type in the word verification for me – cause I’m tired of trying to prove I’m a human.

I doubt anyone is ever glad to see word verification. But, we have come to see it as the standard pest we are forced to deal with. That’s fine when it’s simple, easy enough to read and understand. But, some sites really want you to jump through hoops.

I’ve had some ask me to do math. I dislike math and avoid it when I can.

Another asked me to do word verification, TWICE!.

Some sites will ask you to register – I never (or very rarely) do this. Why register for a site you have only visited once and may never come back to read again? Meanwhile, you give them your email address and any other information they expect from you. They can now take that information and sell it. Registering for one site to leave one comment can leave you getting a lot of spam in your email.

Other sites stick you with word verification and even then they hold your comment back until someone moderates it and actually lets it post. That is a bit much. Pick one! Either moderate your comments or leave on the auto pilot. I’m a bit insulted at your laziness in moderating the comments to your blog. Be assured, I won’t be leaving another comment cause I probably won’t read your site after that.

The latest trend I’ve noticed is the double word. Two words in one word verification. Now, it would be some small help if the two words made sense together. You might be able to use them to figure out what you need to type in. But, they almost never do. They are two random squiggly words instead of just one.

The irony of people relying on word verification is that it stopped working awhile ago. Comment spammers and others who want to post junk on your site have found ways to do so. They can get past word verification. Some use newer technology and others pay real people (they hardly pay them in reality) to type in the CAPTCHAS so the spam computer can leave comment spam. So the whole thing is a lost cause.

Petty Revenge for Annoying Word Verification | Word Grrls
“…that gave me the idea of telling every blogger what their word verification says. If they want to inflict the thing upon me I will give them updates about how it is working.”
The Official CAPTCHA Site
CAPTCHA – Wikipedia

Alternatives to CAPTCHA