2026, animals, Farming Update, pets, Science, Theatre, Uncategorized

Shades of Grey?

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 This week’s farming update from Ben

Everyone has survived the cold spell. The chickens have even started laying some green eggs again. Maybe the worst thing coming out of this cold spell is how stir crazy our dog Luna has gotten.

We do go out and play fetch for a while, and she is so excited she can’t wait for me to get my coat on. Isn’t if funny the clues dogs / pets will pick up on? Just like Renee wrote yesterday. They figure us out fast.

At night, if Luna hears the click of my pill box, she’s there and ready to go outside. Well, really she’s there to get her nighttime treat, but she knows we go outside before the treat. I can get up off the couch twice and she won’t move, but the pill box and she’s there.

C’mon Ben!!

And if I’m getting ready to go outside, she’s watching, soon as I put on my hat, her excitement is ramping up. And I reach for my coat and she just can’t help herself. I know I should probably work on her training but she’s just so dang excited! Bouncing on her back legs and jumping up and down and bouncing off the walls. She just can’t wait! And it’s hard to contain that much enthusiasm! Once outside, and I have the ‘chuckit’ ball and stick and she is just full run getting the ball back. Unless she misses the throw. I’ve never seen a dog so bad at finding the ball. It’s a bright orange ball. In the white snow. She’ll walk right by it. She’s sniffing for it. Takes her a while to find it again.

I lost the ball Ben!

Which led me down a rabbit hole of how dogs see.

And this scene from the movie ‘UP’:

Research shows dogs have bi-chromatic eyesight, while humans have tri-chromatic eyesight. Meaning we can see three colors (and combinations) but dogs mainly only see two colors.

And after the first couple throws, she doesn’t like going over towards the machine shed to get it, because there’s a little ice over there. And I don’t blame her for that. Thursday morning after a few throws, the ball went over there. She trotted over there a bit, slowed down, and came back, like ‘What else you got?’. Thursday afternoon we went and got the ball. She grabbed it, and took off across the field to follow Bailey sniffing out some deer tracks. She left the ball lay in the snow again. I get more exercise going after the balls than I get from throwing them.

Still doing farm bookwork. Finally started a 2026 set as I don’t want to let that pile get too far ahead of me.

I had a crew come to the farm shop one day and install a large bathroom fan. I need to get electrical to it yet, but the fan is installed. They said they were looking for inside work this week. Glad to be of help.

At the college we got a new computer in the sound booth. Trying to hook that up and all the connections have changed. And the jumble of wires under the sound board finally got to me. Over the years, things have been changed, and new wires added and no one ever pulled out the old. I asked one of the managers come offer advice. Are we ever going to back to this video connection that is old and outdated? Do I Have your permission to cut it off? Yes. Cut it off, no, we’re not going back. But some of the wires go through the wall and up into the catwalk where the projector is.  They said just cut them off close to the wall and this summer, that crew will pull up what they can.

I didn’t think to take a before picture, but here’s after.

Before was all these cables, but half on the floor.

There’s one area of my shop that’s a dark corner. Looking for something one day finally upset me enough I ordered an outlet with a remote switch. Found an LED light bulb with a mogul base (looks like a regular household lightbulb base, but bigger) and a socket to fit that and put that back there.

Let there be light!

And after we talked about plumbing the other day, wouldn’t you know I was doing some plumbing at another theater. It’s an old sink with two faucets. One faucet is for washing paint brushes, the other one I have a hose on it for filling the mop bucket. Then I added a gizmo for washing out paint rollers. I have one at the college and I love it! It need some modifications here.

ANYBODY COLOR BLIND?

EVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH COLOR?

58 thoughts on “Shades of Grey?”

    1. my wife was a big monkees fan when I met her me not so much, but I did take her to the date or the Orpheum theater for the monkeys concert or three of them showed up. Davy had died. It was a fun concert.

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  3. I am aware that Robin and I don’t always perceive colors exactly alike. She’ll often see subtle undertones, especially of green or pink in otherwise neutral colors that I don’t. It’s no matter, since she has stronger opinions about colors than I do. I yield to her preference.

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      1. I took a language class at Carleton and on the first day the professor held up several swatches of color, one after the other, and asked us all to write down the names of the colors. The men in the class consistently went with basic names: blue, red, green, yellow. The women all wrote down a wider variety of names: coral, violet, lemon, lime, periwinkle. At first we all thought that this meant that women and men had different genetics and saw the colors differently, but the point of the lesson was that from a very early age women are taught many different names for the colors and men are not. A fascinating class.

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        1. When you say women are taught many different color names, I would guess that “teaching” is largely at the hands of fashion and marketing aimed at them

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        2. I also wonder if that was the correct conclusion. Perhaps the men, if asked to be specific about the color, would have provided a more nuanced answer. Have “fashion” colors, like coral or periwinkle become culturally feminized so that, though the men know those color distinctions, they are reluctant to use them in a social setting? It’s not, then, about vocabulary.

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      2. I’m not saying I see fewer colors or less nuance. We just interpret them slightly differently. It’s especially noticeable with blue/green and green/blue.
        When I describe colors beyond the basics, my reference is often to artist colors, as in Prussian blue as opposed to cobalt or ultramarine or sap green as opposed to chrome green.

        When I worked as an art director, I had thick Pantone swatch books I could use to specify ink colors by number. One swatch book was for special ink colors and the other was for colors achieved by mixing the usual four CMYK.

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        1. Color mixing. A whole complicated practice!
          Paint uses additive, while lighting uses subtractive. Most lighting fixtures use CMY color wheels. (Cyan, magenta, yellow) But LED’s can vary and age and output changes and sometimes they don’t match. And I can make some real ugly stuff using LED’s due to the wavelengths of light and color. Red’s and purples, LEDS can make it look like mud.

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        2. Well now that I think about it. In the old days, with gels, it was subtractive. Now with LED’s, I suppose that’s not quite true. Bill?

          Another little quirk, some light fixtures were called ‘leko’s’ because the reflector in the back was ellipsoidial shaped. But now with LED this same fixtures may not have a reflector anymore. Do we still call them leko?

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        3. Likewise with paint. You learn by experience and develop an intuition. If you were going to make purple, for example, you would not use cadmium red.

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        4. I don’t know why LEDs would change the basic calculation from gels. Light is light.
          Designing on a computer on has to be mindful that the image on the screen is light and not pigment. One calibrates the screen color to match as well as possible but there are some colors, especially orange and purple, that CMYK doesn’t do very well.

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        5. “Interpreting” is probably more on target.

          I wouldn’t put it down to marketing but I would put it down to cultural conditioning. It’s just one of the very many things that young girls and young boys have emphasized for them as they are growing up.

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  4. Rise and See Red, Baboons,

    I am not color blind, and I love colors, as well as studying color. Husband would tell you he is not (but both his brothers are–it kept one of them out of Viet Nam), but I will tell you he sees colors differently than I do.

    After my cataract surgery in April, I noticed everything was brighter, and colors were more vibrant. That is the upside of this surgery with which I have not been satisfied. I have been problem-solving with the Ophthalmologist, so that is improving, but color is not a problem following it.

    I love how colors are used to describe emotions: See red, green with envy, purple passion, black rage, feeling blue. And on and on.

    OT: Friends and I attended the musical, Chicago last night. It was costumed and framed entirely in black, so no other color was used, but the performances and dancing were riveting. It was a welcome and wonderful evening.

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    2. A recent staging of The Mousetrap at the civic theater here in Holland, MI was also done monochrome. After the play concluded, but before the actors left the stage, the house manager came out, dressed in scarlet. It was great stagecraft.

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      1. i love chicago the musical
        i looked into going but the ticket prices are prohibitive. i get sad that everything is so high today. glad you guys grt to enjoy it theater is special.
        i have always been a color freak. strong opinions and sensitivities.
        the identity icon i chose years ago next to my name is hans hoffman. he is one of my favorite abstact expressionists. when i painted more and hung with artists they commented on my use of colorful pallette choices.
        color blind must feel like being robbed. like not having taste or feeling or hearing
        is it insects that have a million colors than us?
        i have seen the eire runs in buildings ids included ans its nuts an evevator shaft of historic wires , cant cut trace or follow it. gotta be a way

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    5. Just home from seeing the musical Chicago. While the costumes were black, the lighting was a wonderful mix of Reds and teals and blues. And did you notice Amos, was in Brown. The only one not in black.
      The song Razzle Dazzle was GORGEOUS with the chorus lit in shades of red, purple, and orange/amber from the sides and back.

      All framed in a huge gold picture frame looking thing.

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  5. For the past few weeks, I assumed that when I couldn’t focus on the “black on white” screen of my bedside digital alarm clock, I was having trouble with my eyes upon waking. Then, one morning last week, the alarm failed to beep and I almost missed breakfast with my buddies. Coming home, I pulled off the battery door and couldn’t recall WHEN I’d ever bought that brand of batteries, so I switched them out for some others from the “recycle pot”, and now I see clearly again. Alarm works, too. The story of the light in the shed rings very true with me.

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  6. Tetrachromacy is a rare genetic condition, primarily in females, where a fourth cone class in the eye allows individuals to perceive significantly more colors and hues—potentially hundreds of millions—beyond typical trichromatic vision. It often manifests as enhanced sensitivity to colors between green and red, enabling the identification of subtle,, often unseen color variations.

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  7. I don’t know anyone who is colorblind now, but my parents had a friend who was colorblind when I was young.

    Loved the clip from “Up,” Ben. It’s one of our favorite movies–Husband and I have matching grape soda badges.

    Our cat, Charlotte, loves playing her own version of “fetch” with wadded-up paper balls. She loves chasing them around the wood floor and bouncing them down steps, but her new variation is to bat them under a piece of furniture or some other tight space and wait for me to retrieve it. I have a bamboo back scratcher that does the job well, and for some reason, the whole procedure just fascinates her. No sooner is the paper ball retrieved, she is off to bat it under something else. She’ll even pick up the wad of paper and carry it to the desired spot. The bending and stretching gives me a good flexibility workout.

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    3. My brother-in-law is color blind. He’s an engineer, and was in the air force in the ’70’s. He wanted to be a pilot, but can’t do that if you’re colorblind. Last Christmas he was trying to explain it to some other family members. It’s sort of like the dog’s vision example. He still sees a color, it’s just not the same color we see.
      I always enjoyed the spots of color at the optometrist office to test for color blindness.

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  8. Well, if the Orange ball looks Gray to Luna, I can sorta see how she misses it. Still…
    I’m really glad I’m not a dog – that’s not many colors to have available.

    I too am more articulate than Husband with colors… but don’t know anyone currently who’s completely color blind.

    As Jacque said, colors can be paired with emotions, and there are some people who have this “condition” or capacity – Synesthesia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
    I’ve read a novel about it, fascinating – will post title if I can find it, but Goodreads has a whole slew of novels about this.

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    1. I see numbers as colors. Eg: 1 is black, 2 is blue, 3 is pink, 4 is red, 5 is light blue, 6 is dark pink, 7 is yellow, 8 is orange, 9 is brown, 0 is white. Some letters are colorful for me too, but not all.

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  10. As a psychologist, a standard question to men before I did any cognitive testing was “Are you color blind”? as that condition would skew any testing results, leading to erroneous conclusions. I also asked if they had ever been hit by lightning. You would be surprised how many men have been.

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  12. In the old days of lighting, meaning before all the colors of LED, I had several versions of gel swatch books.

    Think of the wall of paint samples, except this is plastic to cut and put on the lights to make the colors. It was a whole big thing!

    Talk about 30 versions of blue and how so many are not quite right…. But then that one, that I just loved! It was such a perfect blue! Made by Gam. And I can’t even remember the number anymore.
    And it was a big deal that lighting designers knew all the numbers of their colors.

    It was crazy.

    https://thetechcloset.com/products/ap

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        2. Ken Nordine did a lot of programming for public radio. Back in the 80’s I often listened to Word Jazz on the satellite feed. He had a long and varied career, and lived to be 98, according to Wikipedia.

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    1. Well, there’s the answer to why Luna doesn’t see the orange ball. She doesn’t have red-sensitive photoreceptors. You need a blue ball, or black, or white.

      It’s all explained about ten minutes into this episode.

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  15. Like many others, I am sensitive to color choices. That’s why I prefer very neutral paint colors for walls. I can’t tolerate being assailed by a color I don’t like day after day. This is the reason I had three rooms painted before I moved in to my new place.

    I’m not color blind, but my mom was. It was really hard for me to understand when I was young. She couldn’t the tell difference between green and blue.

    Color evokes emotions in me. Blue shades create peace; lavender is peace with happiness. Purple is respect or awe. Red is growing on me – I never really liked it but I find myself attracted to some shades, like a rose petal pink or a really purplish burgundy, which is a deepened, respectable shade of red. Fire engine red still makes me nervous, as it does many people. Forest green makes me feel stable. It’s the color of the earth. Brown shades have the same effect.

    Today the lake is the color of stainless steel, and the sky is a washed-out gray. White snowflakes fall. The balsams stand like sentinels for stability and peace, while the riotous red osier dogwoods demand attention by leaping out of the neutral background. The white birches rise amid the balsams, adding a gracious counterpoint to the depth of the forest green.

    The lake has such color in the waves that crash onto the shore. It’s more green than blue, and so translucent that you can see where the sunlight touches the rocks far beneath the waves.

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    1. The paint I chose for my bedroom was a soft gray with the barest hint of lavender in it. It looked perfect on the color swatch, but on the walls it looks much more lavender than I bargained for. I don’t mind it so much. I would prefer it closer to the dove gray, but I can stand it. I like to use neutral colors. They allow the colors in the artwork or textiles that are used in the room to stand out.

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      1. We happened upon a paint color once for our bedroom that was somewhere between a light peach and pale pink, with a little tan thrown in. Very unobtrusive, but a little warm, and we ended up using it in another room too. Have never seen it again, but I wish it was in our living room, to replace a pale dove gray that doesn’t really go with anything we have – though it hasn’t been a big enough deal to repaint.

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  18. My brother-in-law is color blind. He confuses grays and greens often. I sometime wonder what that makes the world look like. Greens can be very vibrant, and grays are the opposite. If most greens don’t stand out, does everything look sort of grey? or maybe everything has a soft green hue?

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  19. Naturally, we have a shelf of books about color. I looked to see if the Hennepin library had The Colours of Our Memories by Michel Pastoureau but it seems not to carry that one. There are, however, several other Pastoureau books listed that deal with individual colors.
    Other worthy volumes are The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair, which is a history of the science and culture behind 75 different colors and Color, A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay.

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  21. My granddaughter had complained that, in her colored pencil set, which is extensive, she had used up the blue. One of the things we gave her this Christmas was a zipper pouch containing 24 colored pencils, each a different blue.

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