Sod Party - Time Lapse

One of my favorite non-maintenance landscape jobs, is putting in sod. I love transforming a space and I love turf, so combining the two makes my day. I schedule this job to coordinate when Matt would be home for Easter. The shady backyard needed to be replaced with Zoysiagrass and came out to about 6 pallets. It also needed some topsoil, so we brought in 10 cubic yards. The backyard had limited access so that meant everything had to be carried by wheelbarrow into place. Since it was also on a pretty steep slope we had to staple a good portion of the sod so it would stay in place. We had a two hour rain delay on Thursday and also made things pretty muddy. Dad came out for a couple hours that afternoon to help out. The rest of the project took all Friday and an hour on Saturday to finish up. It all went really well and glad we got to be a part of it.

Mr. No Shoulders

Mr. No Shoulders with no head.

I set up the camera to do a time lapse of the project. Since its Rebecca's gear I had to be extra careful with it and so I put a ziplock bag over the camera and lens to protect it from dust and rain. That's why its a little hazy and has trouble focusing in some. The third guy in some of the pictures is the homeowner who was working on his back patio. The camera battery died in the afternoon on the first day so that is the reason for the big jump in progress.

Merry Christmas Again

We've been in Jackson the past couple of days visiting Rebecca's family. We opened presents the other day and did the stop motion again. The vantage point is a little higher on this one which I think worked out better. It was another fantastic time with everyone and a great reminder of how fortunate we are. I am so thankful for both of our families.

One funny thing to look for in the video is in the bottom right of the screen, Rebecca's granddad falls asleep and appears motionless for a good many frames. We also did some rearranging of seating positions that looked pretty neat.


Christmas 2011 - Stop Motion 3 from Brett Long on Vimeo.

Christmas

Merry Christmas!

A common topic during this time of year is Christmas traditions. We definitely have things we do every year, but lately our schedule is one thing that never seems to stay the same. Each year we have to rearrange how our families get together in order to maximize time together. This is getting more difficult as our families are expanding.

This year our schedule worked out to:

• Friday night: Rebecca and I open our gifts to each other
• Saturday morning: Rebecca and I with my parents
• Christmas afternoon: Rebecca and I with my parents, grandparents, and family from Minnesota
• Tomorrow evening: Rebecca and I with her parents in Jackson
• Tuesday evening: Rebecca and I with her extended family

It is a hectic schedule but I love every minute of it and look forward to it each year. I love seeing everyone, relaxing, exchanging gifts, eating, and so on. This year I decided to set up the camera and do a stop motion video of us opening presents. We've done two so far and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but we'll continue to tweak them. The Christmas afternoon one we played toward the camera a little more. 

Saturday Morning

Untitled from Brett Long on Vimeo.

Christmas Afternoon

Christmas 2011 - Stop Motion 2 from Brett Long on Vimeo.

Mom requested the song.

Moving-In

We are still very much still moving-in. Its nice to have all our stuff in one place and be able to eventually put it away. This past weekend both of our parents were so gracious to come and help us. We spent the first half of the Saturday cleaning up the house sitting house. Then the second half of the day moving/unpacking at our new place.

One idea I had was to do a stop motion of us bringing things in. I thought of it a little late as it would have been cooler to have started with an empty place and watch it fill up. As you'll see we already had a lot moved-in, so its more of unpacking. It covers several days and I think we'll keep it going until we reach the finished project. So more to come. We used Rebecca's camera and if it does stop motion automatically I couldn't figure it out. So everytime you walked by the camera you pushed the 'button' to take a 10 second delayed picture. The lens is a 14mm f/2.8.

My favorite part is the frames with dad sitting on the couch as the rest of us are moving things in. Looks like he was being lazy, but he had just finished putting up some shelving so it was a much deserved break.