summer blooms and model making

Thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and support while I've been dealing with this issue. Now I'm trying to determine what my new normal is. I feel good but subtly different from before these two conditions kicked into gear last November. The flutter is gone and I'm not having afib episodes like before with a definite start and stop but rather an ongoing slightly irregular rhythm that is far less noticeable. Afib, btw, is the most common health ailment in the world. Well, enough of that.

I wander out in the yard in the mornings with the dog before it gets too hot and we got a little sprinkling of rain off and on yesterday. Plenty of blue sky with big white fluffy clouds out there today but thundering in the distance (which moved closer and it's now raining). The plumerias are blooming really well, the white orchid tree 

and the star of india also. The mexican bird of paradise too. And the zinnias. Oh, and the flowering senna is also in full bloom.

And two of my banana trees have sent out bloom stalks.

Too hot to work outside and I'm not really motivated to get out there so, ta da! I pulled out my model making stuff Monday

and I'm trying to get back in the groove. I need to finish the heron box because I promised it to my gallery for their anniversary show in September but I'm having trouble settling in. I work for 30 minutes, get up and piddle around or run an errand, like going to the Peach Creek Market and getting more peaches, work for 30 minutes, find something else that needs my attention, off and on all day. Perhaps today's the day if I can work around the rain since a lot of what I wanted to do required going over to the shop and digging around in my already made wax components, my stick molds and making waxes, or more stick molds. (Done.)

The reason the model for the heron box has remained unfinished and languishing is that I didn't have an image in my mind of it finished. I had the box part but the feet and the top remained out of reach until yesterday. I had in the back of my mind a memory of some stainless steel feet a friend had turned for me way back that have been hanging around so I tried to find them. No luck. I know where they were before Harvey but my son-in-law packed up this room for me after the flood and I have no idea where they are now. I did run across some gray feet that would have sufficed but could only find three.

And then I came across these

which I made probably 20 years ago for the very first attempt at a box which failed and so they were never used. I think they'll go fine with the heron box. I would have wished for something a little more creative but these will do and save me a step. But the real ah ha moment came when I figured out the top. I already have the heron feather I made with the modeling glass and I wanted to include a couple of eggs but in my search to find out how big heron eggs are I saw pictures of nests. Of course! So the top will have an arrangement of sticks to suggest a nest, two eggs, and a feather. For the inside I'm going to print the little vignette from my River Stories posts on vellum about chasing the herons downstream.

OK, I think I can finish it now.