In the oak he maketh pictures

Young Kullervo has not perished,
Has not died among the branches
Of the oak-tree where we hung him.
In the oak he maketh pictures
With a wand between his fingers;
Pictures hang from all the branches,
Carved and painted by Kullervo;
And the heroes, thick as acorns,
With their swords and spears adjusted
Fill the branches of the oak-tree,
Every leaf becomes a soldier.

Kalevala, Rune XXXI, translated by John Martin Crawford

Three pictures today (click the “Image One”, “Image Two”, and “Image Three” tabs to switch from one to the next), for largely geeky reasons:

1. Between my neighborhood and the Mississippi stands an oak savanna, a tiny piece of the kind of land that existed before the Europeans arrived. It’s a fascinating chunk of land, perfect for my current experiments in night photography. Maybe too perfect–my little audience doesn’t need to be subjected to a whole roll of pictures of oak trees in the snow in the dark.
2. The contractor I’m working with at the day job mentioned the YUI JavaScript framework; lately I’ve been pushing paper instead of writing code at work (and loathing every second of it…), so this was a chance to take a look at this framework and try it out in a new context. It’s pretty easy to use, and I may tinker with it a bit more in coming weeks.