Monday, June 13, 2022

model making, watermelons, foxes, and other miscellania


Too hot to be outside. I go out in the morning and in the evening to water and check on things and admire and enjoy, take pictures. I walk the dog end of day 6:30ish, both of us satisfied with the short walk which includes a visit with her doggie friends if they are out. If I go out in between it's because I'm going somewhere. I've been going over to the studio after breakfast and working on the box til lunch.




The inlay in place on the front of the box. The side edges will get adjusted after it's cast in glass.



I think I'm done with the inlay now and ready to move on to the top sculpture and the feet of which an image is starting to form in my head.

To that end I made a cursory search in the big unairconditioned shop Saturday for a few specific reproduction molds. I found the one of the coral but not the little crab so I'll have to look again. I do have a wax of the little crab but it has a smushed claw arm that I can reconstruct if need be. I was in that part of the shop for about 10 minutes and it had me dripping sweat. Edit:  I found the mold for the little crab and poured waxes of those and some small rock molds to start building up on.

This is how my days go...lazy morning, work in the studio for a couple of hours, lunch, streaming Stranger Things in the afternoon though we caught up on Season 4 yesterday and must wait til July for the next chapter.

The Sahara dust storm arrived Saturday making the sky look whitely overcast but it was really just dust. It's still here yesterday but hasn't quite whited out the sky. I could still see some very very pale blue around the clouds, same today.

Thursday was a food delivery day at SHARE from the food bank in Victoria. Jan places an order once a month from a list they provide and sometimes we get everything ordered, sometimes not, and sometimes they just send something like a gigantic carton of watermelons which we received. We were busy but it just wasn't possible to give them all away. This is what we had left at the end.


I told them I would take four...one for us, one for my sister, and two for my neighbor. When I got home, I saw that they had sneaked in a fifth which I gave to another neighbor.

I had a little excitement yesterday around 6 PM. Went out to the big backyard with the dog, rounded the corner of the garage and looked up to see a fox and a kit crossing the far back end, were about halfway across when they saw me and turned and ran back into the wild space. I walked to the edge of our property and another fox came dashing out from behind the container on the Wicked Bitch Of The West's property. It ran across the field and paused at the edge of the wild space on the other side and we stared at each other until it walked into the tangle. I posted on the local chat group and lots of people responded that they too have seen foxes. I had no idea we had foxes here! These aren't my pictures but ones a local posted on my thread, definitely what I saw, grey foxes
.


More miscellaneous pictures. A better picture of my haircut.


Minnie crashed out for the day snuggled next to me and her bunny.


A little calico cat wearing a collar that has been hanging out around here for about a week and a half. She won't let me get closer than about 5' before she runs off and she drives Minnie nuts. Apparently the dog doesn't concern her that much even though Minnie has chased her up a tree at least twice as she is still here, always somewhere on the property. I put some water out for her though she seems healthy as near as I can tell. I wonder if she was abandoned.


A toad hanging out on the edge of container of the sword leaf I grow in water for turtle food.



The plumerias are blooming.





20 comments:

  1. Foxes! I assume I don't need to worry about Big Mama? We're getting Texas temps here - tomorrow the high is supposed to be 97. Ugh.

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  2. Gosh, those flowers are pretty. I have been watching the latest season of Stranger Things also but it is awfully gruesome lately! And so many story lines going at once, but I keep watching!
    I enjoy hearing how your box comes together and how you picture it in your mind...
    Stay cool! We will hit 99 tomorrow so summer weather has hit Illinois. I am so grateful for A/C!

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  3. I love knowing there are foxes there. Your art and garden look beautiful. I hope those temps cool down there.

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    1. Brutally hot here too and only getting hotter. It's bad. And I know absolutely I can't tolerate it like I used to.
      I love your foxes. Since you don't have chickens, you don't have to worry about them being around. They seem so curious when it comes to humans.
      Good luck with the cat. I hope she's just a visitor.
      I think that box is going to be very fine.

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  4. The fox family looks very healthy- Do you have chickens? Probably not any more...Watermelon, imagine that! we will not be getting watermelon up here until the usual 4th of July. Who knows screwy weather - everything is a surprise! and look at you with your cut curly hair do!!

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    1. No, no chickens here but my neighbor at the end of the street does. Those photos were taken 4 years ago by another resident in my town. The foxes took up residence in her barn.

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  5. Sweet kitty wants to adopt you! Maybe the foxes do, too. Love your work, as always. I always enjoy the cool of the mornings and evenings. Mid day is oppressively hot!

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  6. All the animals know a good thiing when they see one.

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  7. Watch your pets, foxes can be bad news. OMG! David brought home 2 seedless watermelons last week. I just cut up the second one this morning and it's sitting in 3 containers in the fridge. I do love watermelon in the afternoon. Your plumerias are so beautiful. They remind me of my grandmother's flower and veggie garden in Oahu. Sigh, better times.

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  8. I like calico's like that. Mine was named Xenia, Warrior Princess. We have so many red fox families in town they even parade down Main Street.

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  9. I like both photos of you with your haircut. Just right for that hot weather.

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    1. I generally only get one haircut a year. I get my summer cut and then let it grow out for the winter. Sometimes I'll get an extra trim late summer if I got my summer cut too early.

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  10. This box is a real work of art. I can hardly wait to see the finished object and can barely imagine the hours you will have invested in it before it's done. Thanks for the wildlife shots. The family of foxes looks very healthy.

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  11. Poor kitty! I hope you can eventually get close enough to read her collar. Someone may be worried about her. (Or maybe, as you said, someone abandoned her.) Those foxes are so different-looking from the red foxes we have here! Glad you found the crab mold.

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  12. The heat is just punishing. Tucson will hit 111 on Thursday, our weeks last year at 110 were just about enough to finish me off. The box is looking good, working with glass always seems like magic to me.

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  13. Magnificent silvery foxes. Ours are more reddish and since they have started to live in suburbs and cities, are losing favours with some people. I like the blue detail on your box and the haircut as well.

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    1. The blue is simply the color of the wax I used for those dots. It has no relation to the color it is going to be in glass.

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  14. We get foxes here... I've only ever seen them on the camera next door and they were prowling in our back yard at night. I see deer tracks up inside our garden railroad, but the only ones I've spotted were down below on their trail across the back of the property. So cool to see...

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  15. We have been lucky to have a few foxes now and again. they keep the rabbits at bay.

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  16. I'm just catching up a bit at last. Working even six hours in this heat has been pretty gruesome, although I think I've come to the point where I can try for eight hours a day next week: start at seven, work until noon, and then go back about 5. Mid-day's impossible. Those foxes are gorgeous. I have a friend who lives in the country outside Dickinson who's seen a couple at her place, but seeing that kit is really special. And I love the way the box is coming together. I imagined all sorts of approaches, but what you've come up with is going to be ever so much better than what I imagined.

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