Friday, October 1, 2021

more progress, observing nature, and clueless people

Leading the yoga class on Mondays and Wednesdays is going well enough. I lead a different class than Abby does, more intermediate to advanced as opposed to beginner to intermediate, and people are still showing up though the number varies. Wednesday was iffy for me due to the thunderstorms we've been having this week but it cleared up in time and off I went. The thunderstorms seem to have passed but we are still getting rain, raining today, gentle but steady.

I made more progress on the mold yesterday, filling in the unopened flower but just to surface level. Still need to build it up. What you can't see is the green tones that went in first before I covered it up with the light yellow. I'm heading over to the studio in a few minutes to work on it some more.

I did finally get a good night's sleep last night. I woke up twice but was able to go back to sleep quickly.

There's a lot of racket out there this morning coming from the other side of the wild space between property lines. When I drove by to go pick up Robin and take her to work I saw that the house and garage of the junk man who gathered and recycled metal was being torn down. It's been fairly deserted for over a year now with someone showing up periodically to work and for a while the year before there was an RV parked in the front that someone seemed to be living in but not for awhile. I don't think they ever repaired that house after the Harvey flood and the guy had some health issues so perhaps he died.

Saw a dragonfly laying eggs in the water filled ditch the other evening slapping her tail against the surface of the water, dip down, slap, dip down, slap, while walking Minnie, a doomed effort as two days later the water had all been absorbed. And for the last couple of weeks when I close up the garage at night there has been one or two wrens in there, one of them the same wren I'm fairly sure judging by its sparse tail feathers. The other night when I pulled down the garage door it peeked out at me from behind one of the struts and I managed to get its picture.

A stroll around the yard and the confederate rose is finally putting on some buds, late from being frozen to the ground by the arctic freeze after it had started coming back after our normal winter, I'm getting no pecans again this year and have no idea why two years in a row, the bird of paradise has sent up a bloom stalk,

and the mist flower is blooming. The bees and butterflies love it.

Speaking of bees, the guy that bought Pam's old house completely cleared the yard of all her plantings and flower beds, most of which were bee friendly, and then he set up bee hives in the back yard after removing all the food sources. 

Today's progress on the mold. I know the frit in the small flower on the right looks pink but if my color sample and the formula for it are correct it will turn an orangey yellow after firing. I had considered doing it pink at one time but changed my mind. I just hope I have enough depth to get close to the sample color.



11 comments:

  1. People are so weird. Dig up plants the bees like, put bees in yard. I guess he figures they'll find something to eat elsewhere.

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    1. I'm told there are bee keepers and bee havers. Havers are just interested in honey instead bees, so they end up as late stage capitalists and exploit their bees to death. Then buy more bees

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  2. The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
    St. Stephen's day was caught in the woods...
    May account for its missing feathers.

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  3. Good thing bees have a large food collecting radius then. Not a knowledgeable keeper there.

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  4. The ways of bees and bee keepers are mysterious to me. I remember when we had a hive in a hollow tree here years ago. I often wonder if there is still honey in it.
    Sounds like you're keeping pretty busy, lady.

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  5. I'm curious about those wrens in your garage. Do they nest there? Do they have ways to get in and out? Have they been there a while?
    Love watching your artworks unfold. Looking forward to more updates.

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    1. wrens are very curious and we often find them in the garage during the day checking things out. and they do try and nest in there. there's an old nest on top of one of the motor housings for the automatic garage door opener which doesn't work anymore that gets reused sometimes and I found two other nests this year, one abandoned with 4 eggs in it which was my fault. spooked the mom when I put the big tarp over the tender plants wintering over in the garage before the arctic freeze. and another on top of the window screens stacked against the wall with the screen door in front which we remove in the winter so the windows can get washed. ha ha, as if I wash the windows. this one isn't in the garage every night, about half a dozen times lately and yes they can get out once the door is closed for the night. there's a big gap at the top of the garage doors. in the spring when I have the back door open, they'll come in occasionally, check things out, and then leave.

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  6. As always, watching and reading about your creative work is so wonderful!

    Such pity about the loss of the bee friendly plants, especially when considering that honey/domestic/beehive bees are actually a threat to wild bees, which are the pollinators we need to avoid extinction of native plants.
    I suppose he'll feed his hives with store bought sugar now?

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  7. That removal of plants for the bees is so perplexing. Well, there are other words that could be used. Stupid comes to mind. In the first place, think of all the native bees he's just deprived of food. You may start seeing more of the natives in your yard -- garden on!

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    1. yeah, really stupid. seems to be a lot of that going around these days. btw, I haven't been able to get to your Lagniappe blog today. Chrome keeps telling me the connection isn't private.

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  8. How bizarre that that guy would remove all of the bee's food source and then set up hives! Weird... unless he only wants them to gather from a particular area or plant (wildflower or ??).

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.