Friday, November 29, 2019

random stuff


We had a good Thanksgiving with the family at our daughter's house (our last Thanksgiving in the city) and I didn't take a single picture...my sister, Marc and I, our daughter and her husband and our son, and all four grandchildren and we got to meet Jade's boyfriend for the first time. So now we have a Mike, a Mikey, and a Michael.

I took my remaining pecans in Tuesday to sell. The boxes and bags completely filled the trunk of the car. I had 232 pounds of pecans which got me $162 and change. Not too shabby.


Sunday night one of the TV stations showed The Princess Bride which is probably the most perfect movie ever. I always watch it whenever it comes on because...perfect. Not one of those where you can just have it on and only pay attention to your favorite scenes because the whole thing is seriously funny and...perfect. I read a while back that they were thinking of doing a remake. NO NO NO NO NO! No remake! You do not mess with perfection.

Saturday, there was a Tom Hanks marathon on another TV channel and Forest Gump was on when we sat down for lunch. Tom Hanks is one of my favorite actors. The man is phenomenal. I don't watch this one when it comes on except for one scene which I will watch every time. It's the scene near the end when he arrives at Jenny's apartment and learns he has a son. It makes me tear up every time.


Remember scavenger hunts? Do people/kids do that anymore?

There's a possum that lives under our house and being nocturnal, it only comes out at night and it drives Minnie nuts. Usually it stays outside the fence that encloses the little backyard which is the only outside Minnie is allowed in after dark but the other night her usual barking turned into high pitched frantic yipping and when I went out to investigate the possum practically ran over my feet in it's haste to climb the chinese fringe flower tree while I tried to catch the dog.

And what is with the Charmin toilet paper commercial? A bunch of naked bears refusing to pick up a pair of tighty whities. Why do they even have underwear when they all go around naked!!!

I just saw 6 or 7 large noisy groups of cranes fly overhead going east northeast.


There are a couple of words that I mis-type (I say mis-type because I know how to spell them) 99% of the time. 'Out' for 'our'. For some reason my left index finger always reaches for the 't' next to the 'r'. The other one is 'twon' for 'town'. I have no idea why my left ring finger wants to hit the 'w' before my right ring finger hits the 'o'.

Today, I have only one week to finish stuff and be ready for the open house. Will I make it?




Monday, November 25, 2019

the state of preparations, the state of the yard, the state of the union


Plodding along with the preparations, what gets done, gets done. What doesn't, doesn't. As long as the heron box is finished and the feathers mounted in their frames, everything else is extra. I do wish I had been a little more focused on getting the planned lizard with lichen (on the log I posted about making the reproduction mold for earlier here) with the lichen made from the modeling glass and the lizard and log cast but I wasn't so, a project for next year. This has probably been one of my least productive years. The last two days I've been making more snowflake ornaments but I ran out of the liquid medium (more on the way) and now am trying to fill the rest of the kiln shelf with stuff I can make from what I already have mixed up and still I have no idea what to do with any of it once it's all fired, like the pansies. Saturday I made 3 pansy leaves but one I squished back up. Maybe I'll do a butterfly or make another pansy.

It's a gorgeous day yesterday as was the day before and today is shaping up to be as well. The gingko trees finally turned yellow but not before already losing many of their leaves and in just two days (seems like although the trees have been steadily raining down leaves for weeks), the tallows and the pecans have become bare.

     
The picture of the gingko on the left was taken at 3 PM, the picture on the right two hours later with the lowering sun illuminating it.

My pecans trees are still holding onto some of their leaves but they've dropped enough to carpet the ground making picking up the nuts impossible, impossible to see them. No worries though as I think 99.9% of them have already fallen and I am weary of picking them up anyway. I'm going to take one more small bucket to be cracked even though I'm sure I have more than enough shelled and then Tuesday, I'm selling the rest.

Wandering out in the yard I've noticed the early spring bloomers are already starting to sprout...the woodland petal pinks are shooting up like giant blades of grass; the baby blue eyes, the rocket larkspur, the love-in-a-mist all sprouted and starting to put out their first true leaves; the bluebonnets spreading out, the sweet little yellow oxalis is blooming.


Later (yesterday)...I just closed up the shop for the day getting less accomplished than I wanted or think I can. As usual. May be done with the cold work on the heron box, just have to wash it and check a couple of things before I start putting it all together. The shadowbox frames are painted but I'm still indecisive on the color for the backboards for the feathers so today I'm going to the frame shop and pick my friend Margaret's brain since she has a good eye for that sort of thing. Made zero progress today with the modeling glass but I did get out the dragonfly and bee reproduction molds. Supposedly you can press this stuff into silicone molds and it pops right out after it dries. These aren't silicone but RTV (room temperature vulcanization) rubber but I thought I'd try anyway.

----------

The public hearings of the impeachment investigation are over. Now they review all the testimonies given and decide if there is enough evidence to write articles of impeachment though they are still getting materials turned over to them and an important court ruling on whether or not the White House must comply with subpoenas is supposed to come down today. It's plain Trump is guilty of trying to extort Ukraine, just one of his many corrupt acts since he has been in office, even though the Republicans keep trying to deflect to the debunked conspiracy theory against the Bidens, mostly they just ranted and raved during the public hearings, and refuse to accept Trump's guilt, demeaning and accusing dedicated state department employees and a decorated veteran whose loyalty is to America and the Constitution of lying. If the House votes for impeachment it goes to the Senate for trial. It's so disheartening to know that none of this will cause the Republicans to do the right thing and protect our democracy. McConnell has already said that the Senate won't impeach even before the public hearings and many of the Republican senators have indicated that they don't care what Trump does so long as they stay in power and they are prepared to do Putin's bidding. Never forget that 8 Republican senators including Devin Nunes, Rand Paul, and John Kennedy, 3 of Trump's most vociferous supporters, spent last Fourth of July in Russia and these men are touting Putin's party line and advancing Russian propaganda. As one tweeter wrote: REPUBLICANS ARE DEFENDING RUSSIA. LET THAT SINK IN.

As bad as the last three years have been, this coming year is going to be ten times worse, 100 times worse. The Trump cult is already circulating a fake image of Schiff with Epstein and last night Rick Perry, the Energy Secretary, said on TV that Trump is the chosen one and sent by god to do great things though as I recall god destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for being filled with people like Trump.

As hopeless and discouraging as it may seem, people are still coming forward with information and remember, Republicans were adamantly behind Nixon until the very end when suddenly they weren't. There are some Republicans that are willing to go down with the ship, maybe because they refuse to see the rising water but I hope there are plenty more who will run for the lifeboats.

If all else fails, vote blue no matter who for every office up for election in 2020.




Friday, November 22, 2019

new house!


Back in 2014 when we and our daughter and son-in-law sold our adjacent properties in the city, they bought 5 heavily wooded acres on the other side of Wharton from us with the intent to build a cabin in the woods. It would take a year or two but like all plans, life intervened with kids still in school and full time jobs and running out of money. First they cleared some of the land, then they got the well dug, set the piers and beams, got the sub-floor in and even framed a wall or two which took about four years coming out on available weekends when the ground was dry enough. We've had some very wet winters and summers are too brutal. Anyway, they decided to buy a manufactured home around the first of this year and get it on the property with plans to be moved out here by the end of October as they are both ready to be out of the city and all the kids are now out of public school so they got the initial survey to tell them how high the pad had to be (since the Harvey flood, all new homes have to be well above the 100 year flood plain), ordered their house, and built up the pad for the house. Again, plans get altered when you have to wait for services. The septic system still needs to be installed and they have to clear an area for that and they can't get their electricity brought in until January but the house was finished and set to be delivered. It arrived last Wednesday.

I joined them on their property to watch the show. Two men showed up early Wednesday morning with two (small to my way of thinking) remote controlled machines...one was a push/pull and the other was a lift. The house is 14'x 76' and the driver pulling the house got stuck on the last turn before arriving at their driveway, the first 'oh shit' moment, so these two men with their two machines left and before too long, the house arrived in front of the driveway.


Next they disconnected the cab pulling the house on wheels and the driver left leaving the two men and their two machines to back the house into the driveway from the narrow street with deep ditches on either side, the second 'oh shit moment' when it wouldn't make the turn because of two trees.

the corner of the house is inches from that tree and won't clear it...yet

Once they had it on the property, they had to turn it again and get it up the slope and onto the pad.


They didn't get it perfectly centered and while the pad was hard in the middle, it was really soft on one side and halfway up, the wheels on that side sank so deep the house would not move further forward or backward, the third 'oh shit' moment.

But these guys were good. They would push or pull, lift or lower, filled in the ruts and got plywood under the wheels and got the house all the way onto the pad.

success!

My daughter in her new house.


The guy who will set it on blocks and level it is supposed to come out sometime today (Friday).

They still plan to build their cabin once out here and not paying the exorbitant rent they pay for the crappy house in the city they have been living in for the past 5 years and once done, the manufactured home will become guest quarters for visiting children and their friends or perhaps for their oldest and youngest who are still living at home (the twins are away at college) if they still live out there by the time the cabin is finished.

So that was the big excitement for this week. I'm still plugging away trying to get ornaments made and getting the feathers mounted and still have a small bit of grinding on the inlay for the heron box and then I'll be ready to start gluing it all together.




Tuesday, November 19, 2019

better weather, cold work, and gun nuts


Last Thursday it was overcast and rainy drizzly and cold and other than my sister and I going out for an estate sale in the morning, I got nothing accomplished all day. I know, I know, I've said the same thing about the previous days and then listed everything I did but Thursday I was so cold I spent the entire day on the couch under a blanket under the heat vent with the electric heater on and I didn't warm up til 6:30. Friday was warmer and I did more cold work on the heron box and the snowflake ornaments 


and picked up more pecans, ditto Saturday though we had a Friendsgiving with our little social group on the street in the afternoon...chili and cornbread and a salad and several deserts. It was a pretty day and fairly warm until the sun went down and it got cold again.

Also Saturday my frames/shadow boxes from my brother came so Sunday and Monday I worked on those doing a final sanding and starting to paint them but I ran out of paint so that's on the agenda for today and did more cold work on the heron box. Weirdly enough, when we re-fired it I guess it consolidated more ie more air was compressed out because I lost an 1/8” of height after I reground the bottom flat (though I didn't take that much off the bottom) so I'm having to take an 1/8” off the bottom of the neck of the inlay piece. I also worked more on the line down the front where the flashing was. I'm happier with it, not happiest, but happier.

the white line down the front is where the flashing (raised line where the melted glass oozed through a crack in the mold) was, the white will be finished out but the line where the flashing was will still be visible under certain lighting

new mounting for these tiles from last year, took them out of the expensive stands and attached them on a piece of plywood that replaced the glass from these hobby store frames for hanging on the wall

We've been having some really nice weather, supposed to be in the mid-70˚s all week, sunny, a few rain showers later. My trees are still dropping pecans, I'm picking up about a gallon's worth every day. I've shelled all I'm going to shell I think, 14 pounds, so now I'm just waiting till they stop falling to take them in and sell the rest. The gingko trees still have not turned yellow which surprises me, getting there but still more green than yellow.

So I've pretty much stopped trying to engage certain people, MAGAts and gun nuts and by gun nuts I don't mean all gun owners, just those who don't feel safe without a gun at hand all the time, because what's the point. And to that end I did not directly reply to a new commenter on Steve Reed's blog who commented on one of his recent posts about encountering crazy but essentially harmless people on his walks with his dog. Anyway this woman commented that she lives in Texas and carries precisely because of crazy people and even recounted an episode when she reached for her gun because someone in another car flipped her off. Personally, I don't think a stressed out driver who gives someone the finger and maybe says fuck you because you cut them off or refused to let them in to be worthy of brandishing a weapon but that's just me, especially here in Texas where open carry without a license is permitted and too many people think a gun is the only solution to every annoyance. Because I didn't want his other readers to think that she represented Texas, I simply commented without directing it to her that I too was from Texas and didn't carry or own a gun, that it wasn't crazy people you encounter on the street that worried me but those who go around armed all the time. So even though my comment was several down from hers, she read it and commented again @ me specifically. First she lectured me on the gun laws here (as if I'm ignorant of those facts) and then this...You had better be afraid of us carrying a gun because we won't be playing with you and stupidity”...belligerence and threats. She made my point for me far better than I could. I'd feel sorry for people who live in so much constant fear that they have to carry a gun all the time if it weren't for the chance that they would just as soon shoot me as walk away if I pissed them off.

And so to end on a more pleasant note, the wrens have been very active the last couple of weeks screeching at the cat and poking around. I was ready to close up the shop last week and there were two wrens in there and they would not be shooed out so I had to wait til later and then the other night there were two in the garage when I closed it up for the night. They also would not be shooed out though they can get out of the garage when it's closed up unlike the shop and I've already found two dead wrens in there that got trapped. And they often come investigate this corner of the house where I sit and look out clinging to the screens, checking out under the eaves, looking for wasp nests I guess being the wasp and bee eaters that they are.

Alright, time to get busy.




Wednesday, November 13, 2019

baby it's cold outside


Since the wind blowing in the front Monday evening and night was sustained at about 25 mph with much higher gusts, coming back from yoga that night I pulled into the shop yard and aimed the headlights on the ponytail palm to check that it was still covered and...nope. The clothespins had not held the two tarps together and it was completely uncovered. Well, fuck. I was not getting out there in the cold dark wind to fix it but it wasn't supposed to get any colder than maybe 31˚ I figured it would be OK that night and it was. So I did get out there Tuesday midday when it was about as warm as it was going to get which wasn't very to my way of thinking and got the squeeze clamps from the shop and since the tarps were still anchored at the ground by the bricks all it took was to raise the tarps back up, do a little fold over pleat to connect them and then used the clamps to hold it all together and that worked fine. Of course, the wind had died down too.

Yesterday my day consisted of sitting under a blanket under the heat vent, trimming four snowflake ornaments and one circle, shelling pecans, walking the dog which she mysteriously was in favor of and even wanted a longer walk than usual, and cleaned the kitchen. Maybe read a little bit but I'm not into this book so much.

The weather people predicted being below freezing and way down in the mid 20s for about 7 hours but I don't think it got that cold because it was still below freezing if just barely when I peeked out this morning and there was no ice in the birdbath and the only 'done 'er in' frost damage seems to have been to the cosmos.

I've gotten even less accomplished today. I added the powder and frit to the snowflakes and re-powdered the blue jay feather which are now in the kiln, put another coat of black paint on the backboards of the frames for the tiles, walked the dog, ran to the store for cat food, picked up several pocketfuls of pecans on short forays out, weenied out on yoga tonight. I've only got about three more weeks to get ready for the open house so I would like to see me make more progress. Ha!

Well, the impeachment investigation went public today and the Republicans are staying true to form complaining and bitching, refusing to read the pertinent documents and trying to switch blame and misdirecting and lying about what the witnesses are saying, confusing loud angry voices with integrity. Their whole take is he didn't do it (contrary to what eye/ear witnesses said) and if he did, he released the aid without the investigation he demanded so clearly he didn't do it. Sorry, he broke the law, he got caught, the only reason he released the aid is because he got caught. That does not exonerate him from breaking the law in the first place. Meanwhile a White House source says their current defense will be to claim that it wasn't Trump but his underlings who committed the extortion. They don't seem to understand that directing your underlings to engage in extortion still makes you guilty.





Monday, November 11, 2019

preparing for the arctic blast


The arctic freeze that is supposed to break hundreds of records is going to slip it's icy fingers down to us tonight and tomorrow night. A drop of over 40˚ today, low of 25˚ish tomorrow night and then just regular January temperatures for the rest of the week. I'll have to get out there and cover the pony tail palm, the porterweed though I don't think it will survive 25˚ even covered, and the pink angel trumpet. I don't bother trying to cover the yellow ones anymore since they always freeze to the ground anyway but they do come back. The pink probably will too but I'm going to cover it anyway. That's first on my agenda for today after breakfast instead of leaving it to the last minute in the freezing wind like I usually do.

Then it's back to the shop to work on the heron box some more. I started regrinding the bottom flat yesterday. The inlay is fitted and I worked on the line of flashing down the front. I'm still not happy with the way it looks but I don't know how much more I'm willing to do to it or if I can even get it so it's not noticeable. Maybe it's just me and my eye because I know it's there.

Later...

3:40 PM and it's still warm but the rain has just started, not sure which has more falling, water from the sky or leaves from the trees. I've basically spent the day covering or bringing in the last of the plants, things that would be OK in the low 30˚s but not the mid 20˚s. It took me almost an hour and four freaking tries to get the ponytail palm covered while I sweated and cursed profusely and got bitten by fire ants. It's a two person job to cover it but it's only ever me doing it. I also covered the porterweed, the pink angel trumpet which has yet to bloom for me even though I beg it and threaten it but the cutting I gave my sister has bloomed for her, and the toad lilies which have just started to bloom but I don't expect they will survive either. They are root hardy though unlike the porterweed. 


Other things blooming that Tuesday night will put an end to: the orange cosmos, the white and yellow butterfly ginger, the purple and white Philippine violets, the penta. 


The wind has kicked up now and the temperature is dropping. The windows on the northwest side are starting to fog up.

What I did not get done was working on the heron box some more and I doubt I'll get over there tomorrow either. Still plenty of other stuff to do like finish getting the blue jay feather tile and the sunflower tile from last year mounted in their frames, snowflake ornaments to work on, pecans to shell, dishes to wash, a book to read. Plenty to keep me occupied til it warms up some in a few days.





Saturday, November 9, 2019

several false starts


After my excellent start this week on finishing up for the open house I got nothing done the last two days. After working over at the shop for about an hour Thursday morning, that afternoon my sister and I headed out to an estate sale in Richmond, the outer edge of our territory, but about halfway there we bailed and returned home. It had rained lightly that morning and started raining lightly again as we were leaving and the farther we got the heavier the rain to the point that it was difficult to see the cars in front of us on the highway and there was a gravel road involved at the end so we decided to postpone the outing til the next day.

The rain was the leading edge of another cold front and you know me and rain and cold. It paralyzes me (we got 3 1/2” on Thursday). Didn't want to brave it to the shop nor get out the messy modeling glass since I couldn't access the outdoors for cleaning hands or washing stuff off so I finally set up the metal shelving unit that I had brought over from the shop over a month ago and has been laying on it's side in my studio waiting for me to find floor protecting furniture leg cups that would work for the metal legs of the unit. The third set I purchased were finally big enough even if they weren't exactly what I wanted. Since the shelving unit belongs to our fused glass artist friend who has stored his studio in our shop while he moves and gets his new studio set up and he finally got the slab poured and the metal building up, I texted him...how goes the build out? Slow, he says. I figured that as soon as I set it up and filled it he'd be ready to retrieve all his stuff. In fact the other shelving unit in here is his as is the bakery rack. Anyway, I finally set it up and got everything off the floor. Of course, no before picture because...me, but here's an after picture. 


So Friday we headed out again for the estate sale telling ourselves that a. the rain would have kept everyone away and so the good stuff would all still be there and b. if it was meant for us to have it would still be there. Well, 'a' turned out not to be true and 'b' apparently there was nothing that was meant for us to have because we both left empty handed but then they had some pretty high prices on some of that stuff. This sale was advertised as 'three generations of collectors' of mostly 50s and 60s stuff...cartoon glasses and mugs, aluminum ware, salt and pepper shakers, beer steins, pottery vases and planters and decorative items, complete dish sets, fishing lures, jewelry boxes, toys, McDonald's Happy Meal toys, very tarnished silver plate, games, coca cola stuff, and purses...they must have had 100 purses...box purses, the big canvas/burlap heavily jeweled in animal and flower designs purses (my mother had several of those), and just regular ordinary ones. I'm not even scratching the surface here. We had a lot of fun with the hats though, what was left of them anyway. 


 Our favorite was the one with a row of white roses and green leaves that looked more like an artichoke.


Then I had to do the dishes which I don't seem to get done until all the plates are dirty which is about every four days. And since it had been overcast all day and it was getting dark earlier than usual, I fed the dog early, walked her early, and then settled on the couch with the bowl full of cracked pecans and started shelling.

It's sunny today and creeping into the 60˚s so I've got the car loaded with all the stuff that's getting taken back over to the shop that slowly migrated over here for one reason or another and going to try and make more progress.




Thursday, November 7, 2019

back to work


I finally did something proactive Tuesday toward getting ready for the open house. I drew up cartoons of the feathers in a frame/shadow box to determine shape and dimension and corresponded with my brother, a talented woodworker, who offered to make them for me. 


Now I need to quit procrastinating and get over to the shop to do the cold work on the feathers and the heron box. And I'm ready to try the snowflake ornaments again. I have frames for two of the pieces in stands which involves some woodworking and am having a frame made for the third one. I even made a list to tick things off of.

I spent Tuesday morning in the dentist chair getting prepped for the third of 5 crowns and the seating of the second. None of this is new damage but replacing decades old failing dental work and the resultant decay. Yay me. I'm putting off the last two til after New Year's. Since my insurance only covers x-rays, cleaning, and exam every six months and we are retired for the most part it's nice that they are only charging me what the insurance would pay instead of the walk in price but it's still a hefty chunk of money per tooth.

So yesterday I did get over to the shop and got the cold work on the feathers done except for the blue jay feather as it needs to be re-powdered and re-fired and started on the heron box again. This time I'm refitting the inlay, which no longer fits flat, first before I grind the bottom again. I'm trying to minimize the amount of grinding I do in the recess and instead mostly working on the back of the inlay. I got it pretty close before I quit for the day. The box is not as crisp as it was before we re-fired it but I hope it's pretty enough.

We've had a few really gorgeous days in a row and some outstanding skies


though a front with rain is coming in today and I need to get out there and clean out one of the gutters before it starts raining again and then head over to the shop.





Tuesday, November 5, 2019

the bitch was back with apologies to Tina Turner


My crazy fucking bitch neighbor showed up yesterday. Fortunately, I wasn't here and Marc had to deal with her. She came and knocked on the back door to tell us 'as a courtesy' that she was going to have a fence put up between us. Good, Marc says. Well, I'm not good, she says, and get your vegetation off my property and out of my airspace (I'm paraphrasing here). And I don't want you mowing my property (?) as we don't mow her property though the last time Marc mowed he did a strip that was over the property line to blow our grass off her property and onto ours and Marc told her so, 'which is more than you do', he says. I don't do that (blow her cut grass onto our property with the mower), she says, which makes her a liar as well as a crazy fucking bitch because we watched her do it the last time she cut the grass over there. She went on about her bricks, she's tired of our shit, she should sue us to make us pay for half the fence (good luck with that), and everything everybody has said about us is true (?). Marc called her a lunatic and told her to leave.

I asked him if she was going to get a survey and she said no that she was going to go by my impermanent wrought iron fence sections that I put up in the back years ago to show her husband about where the property line was because he would spray Roundup back there and he had encroached on our side by about a foot. Well, she better get a survey because when I see the fence people show up that's the first thing I'm going to ask for.

I'll be putting the number for the sheriff on speed dial.

I was warned about her but unfortunately the warning came too late. We should have just gone to the funeral for her husband with whom we got along great and then gone back to the status quo, which was no contact with her, instead of trying to be friendly and supportive of her in her grief.

Oh well. How does that go...no good deed goes unpunished.





Saturday, November 2, 2019

elbow grease, a tired back, an intact box, and a monster


We picked up the table and chairs Friday, moved the old table and chairs to the shop until Jade can take possession, and set up the new table. Later Marc pointed out that the top of the table was sticky. So I got out the Murphy's oil soap and cleaned it. Oh man, was it dirty, didn't look dirty, but the cleaning rag said otherwise. Cleaned it again with the oil soap. Still dirty and sticky. Wiped it down with a wet cloth, dried it. Still sticky. Damn, they must have decades of Pledge on this table. Switched over to Simple Green, twice and then wiped it down with water. Much much better but still a little tacky. Back to the oil soap and a scrubbie, twice. Wiped it down once more and dried it. Success! But I removed any finish it might have had (most of it anyway). Next I oiled it down with lemon oil and it looks and feels great but it's going to take several applications of lemon oil. We're not going to leave the leaf in as it is nearly twice as wide as the leaf in the old table and horizontal surfaces in this house soon become covered with stuff.


Today I went out to run some errands...get more pecans cracked (I picked up almost 6 more gallons yesterday and another gallon today and there are still many of the ground and they are still falling) and get more lemon oil among other things. So of course, the grocery store didn't have any, plenty of choices of Pledge though, so that meant a trip to the Evil Empire aka Walmart, the store of last resort, where they did have it but which gave me another reason not to shop there. On a busy Saturday they had two checkers, two. But they have at least 6 do it yourself stations with something I have never seen before...a conveyor belt like the checkers have. I had one item, there were lines at the two stations so I used the DIY which I prefer not to use because I don't work there and the machine shorted me four cents in change. Pissed me off. Since there was no attendant I had to go to the customer service desk. Four cents wasn't going to break me but it was the principal of the thing.

The weather has warmed up and we've had a couple of really nice days so I went out to finish my weeding and got it all done except for some nut grass in two small spots but while I was digging up nut grass in the bed where the poppies grow every year I unearthed this monster...


That's an earthworm, at least that's what I think it is, and it was about 24” long and nearly as big around as my pinky finger. I have never seen anything like this before and I'm wondering where the fuck it came from and it's lucky I didn't accidentally chop it in half with the trowel. It was one of those Whoa! What the fuck! moments as I initially just unearthed a four inch section.

The heron box came out of the kiln Monday and I just now cleaned it off after letting it sit all week.


The cracks appear to have mended though you can see where they were in a few spots plus the mold cracked in front so there's a bit of flashing (a raised line where the glass oozed into the crack) which will have to be ground off, the bottom will have to be ground flat again though not nearly so much as the first time, and the recess for the inlay has three blobs that will need to be ground out where there were bubbles caught in the investment. So we'll see if it survives the cold work.

Well, it's getting on to couch time. I have to brave the gauntlet and drive into shopping mecca tomorrow to get another one of the frames and another trinket box and a small piece of plywood and get serious about finishing some stuff for the open house.

Maybe Monday.