I said thank you so much to my old phone and traded her in without a qualm.
When I was working at the mill I had a bit more money. And I bought a decent phone. Mainly for the ability to take a decent image with my phone.
Then a few weeks ago I came across a trade-in offer for my old iPhone and the new iPhone. It literally cost me $7 a month. They look pretty much the same but the new one has a lovely depth to the images and a really good microphone.
And I made the swap yesterday.
(By the way if your screen protector has cracks in it get a new one put on – the screen is already compromised and every resulting fall risks cracking the actual screen. My man in the store told me I should have brought it straight back in – oops).
There are probably a ton of features I will discover as I go along but with a new super sturdy case I am ready to embark on a new idea I have.
Background Barnyard Sounds. (I need a good name for this). Did you ever wonder what happens in the barn when we are not looking?
I place the phone – set the video to run for a hour – then leave the space. It is amazing how much noisier the barn is when a human is not in there. Though I guess that is not too amazing.
I could make a new vid each week. Something like this.
But an hour long. I made a thirty minute one but even compressed it took way too long to load into utube. My internet connection is such rubbish, apparently I need to do more research (or I need a better compression app). So this one is only 16 minutes of background sounds.
I am always looking for new ways to fund the farm other than selling the meat so let’s hope for the best. I still want a donkey to live with the cows but don’t have the money for her yet. And all the rescue pigs have sponsors that cover some of their food. The farm has to pay for itself or it is just not sustainable.
Marketing this idea and making money from the videos will follow. Possibly the weekly videos will be on substack for paid subscribers along with my podcasts. I am going to load this experimental vid there next. To see the response. All and any ideas are welcome.
As usual.
Ideally I would like the video to be an hour long so they run for a full writing session or as relaxing background sound for a yoga session. Or simply company while doing chores or even to put up on a screen as a barn window on your wall. Oo I like those words ‘A Window into the Barn’ I might work on that.
Have a lovely day!
Celi.
The Kitchen's Garden 
29 responses to “Trading in the Old Phone”
I love the video!! It’s fabulous.
Ooh, I use those YouTube vids as background noise to write to all the time. I’d love a series of farmy ones. I’m already a SS subscriber but I imagine lots of people would like the addition of videos.
Yes! I think so. But it will not load into substack. (Boring) Not sure why.
Great video
Love the kitty!
Lulu was on my bed last night for the first time ever – winter must be coming.
Such a sweetie
I finally broke down and upgraded my iPhone as well. The camera is really nice, and it’s great seeing things without squinting between the crack lines…
Yes!! 😂I think a whole lot of the clarity is due to the new screen!!
If you have enough coverage out there, you might be able to set it up on IG Live and at the end of the time hit “share” before you turn it off which should save it to your feed for future watching. I don’t know anything about the YT part.
Instagram does not share with others so well – I think I might just have to do the research and learn some stuff! 🙂
You can change the compression settings on the iPhone, i.e. you can shoot at different resolutions. The standard compression used by most people is H264, but there is a newer and better one called HEVC (also known as H265). The reason why H264 is still popular is relative to computer speeds. Older computers may struggle with H265 – the video could be jerky or the fans will ramp up and make a lot of noise.
All compression reduces quality. High Quality H264 looks very good, but settings can be reduced and the video will become more pixelated.
The video displayed on your blog is reasonably small so you could shoot at 720 (as opposed to 1080 HD) and nobody will notice the difference. Do not use 4K if the iPhone has a setting for it. It’s for very large screens of 40 plus inches.
Ask me if you want to know more.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/lights-camera-action-how-to-shoot-video-on-iphone-like-a-pro
Beware of the iOS 17.1 update is you have an iphone 15, it has a very serious overheating bug – wait a couple of weeks before updating – they should have fixed it by then 😉
Huh. Ok – diving into this
Link right now. I will adjust to 720. Substack will only take to 20gb ( I need to check that). So that platform may not be ideal – but they do have a paid subscriber feature.
I just looked at your YouTube and it looks like you are shooting at 480 (or reducing to 480), which is smaller than 720. No matter what some apps and applications claim, compression reduces the quality of all video.
20GB is quite a lot of video. You can have a very good quality 720 video that runs for an hour at a size of 1GB.
You may find it easier to shoot 1080 on your phone and them move it to your computer to compress it. You could do a very high quality 680 video, reduced from 1080 that would come in at about 20mb for 2 minutes, using H264 (which should be built into you phone and computer).
If you start with high quality and reduce it, it’s much better than trying to reduce low quality 😉
I gotcha. But how do I move it to my computer. Email says my files are too big to attach. Learning fast.
You should be able to do it wirelessly from iPhone to Mac, using AirDrop:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphcd8b9f0af/17.0/ios/17.0
…or using a USB cable, connect the iPhone and Mac. You should be able to access photos and video in the Mac Photos program:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201302
Forget about the iCloud, that requires a good internet connection.
Using a cable is much faster than wirelessly.
Then you can edit the video and export at a format of your choice with iMovie.
Loved the language of the animals ❤
Good advice from Mad Dog. I was also thinking about using the phone’s Voice Memo app. You could record long duration without the video. The iMovie app can use the audio file along with a still image of the scene and then save it as a video file. That can be uploaded to Youtube saving you storage space. Just some thoughts.
We both got very good trade in offers for old iPhones too so we took the plunge. So far we are really liking this model, the camera has always been my most used app and I have only had an iPhone for photos for about 10 years. As per Mad Dog, they have already posted an update to reduce the overheating problem. Have fun with it!
I like the idea of FarmSound. People post sound vids on YouTube all the time, designed to help you relax or sleep or work. I’d fancy the idea of falling asleep to the sounds of the barn.
FarmSound! I love it.
RE Donkeys … you really should always have at least two. Although they will hang with other animals they are very attuned to another donkey. Your cattle tend to come and go. So they don’t get to have a long term relationship with them. In our part of the world there are SO many donkeys needing to be adopted. I think you are in Michigan? There is a donkey rescue at https://turningpointedonkeyrescue.org/. There might be two donkeys there that would suit your place …
I have been looking for a donkey rescue place. Thank you! We are in Illinois. I would love two. Though I have yet to offer this suggestion to John. 🤭
Noticed one in Illinois called “Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue”. Perhaps they’d have a suggestion. Perhaps John wouldn’t notice … 😉
They are closed now. But I did notice in my reading that I can’t put donkeys with cows due to watching their weight. They should be 75% barley straw. All bi have Fischer straw. So I would have to buy their feed. That is probably not sustainable.
That was always a conundrum here. The experts said feed them straw. The donkeys said ‘Are you nuts!’ Ours were on pasture and then had timothy hay for in the barn or in the winter. Our local sanctuary used to have straw bales out for them to eat. But they just didn’t. So they put the straw down as bedding. Then they were nibbling at it. I tried that. And that IS where our donkeys ended up eating their straw too.
Yes. And if they run to fat the pasture I grow here to literally fatten my cows may not be the best.
True. They are rather ‘specialty’ critters and much harder to keep than one might think.
The Kitchens Garden and the Barns Window 💕