careful what you wish for

Right?

Friday - We started getting some rain, real rain, Thursday night. Rained hard enough for long enough that there was standing water on the side of the house but none in the ditch. No problem, it will soak right in. Then another bout of rain around 6 AM this morning for an hour or so. And then it started raining again about 9 AM. Hard. And it's been raining hard mostly since and at 11 AM we are surrounded by water and the ditch in front is flowing. This is the west side of the house where my stepping stones are almost all underwater. 

The houses' yards at the other end of the street were completely underwater, not up to the door but spittin' distance. The part of my house on pier and beam I'm not concerned about but the part on slab worries me. I really need to dig some drain channels to the ditch or bring in some topsoil for the lowest areas or both. Of course I think this every time it rains hard for hours and then when it stops I never follow up. Noon and it's still raining but not hard, the kind farmers like that just soak in instead of running off. Needless to say I didn't get over to the shop today. Even if I had wanted to drive across the street to the door in the pounding rain the noise would be deafening on the metal roof. More rain predicted for tomorrow but I think we've got the worst of it today.

There's a frog outside my window, not a little tree frog and not a big bullfrog but a big frog that I only ever see in my peripheral vision as it leaps away when I'm poking around in the foliage in the little backyard. That fucker is loud!

It finally stopped raining sometime between 1 and 2 PM. My funky little rain gauge showed 5 3/4” so almost 6” in less than 24 hours.

CleoCat is recovering just fine from her visit to the vet. The first time I forced her into the carrier when I took her in for a general check-up, she howled and tried to claw her way out all the way there. This time there was no getting her in the carrier, she fought and ran off. I finally dragged her out from under the bed, threw the dog blanket over her while Marc took the top off the carrier and I plunked her blanket wrapped struggling self in and slammed that top back on and had a hell of a time getting it latched in place. And then she was fine. Meowed a little on the drive but none of that frantic let me out shit.

Saturday – Ugh. 5 o'clock and I am whupped but I got the excess off the bottom of the box, flattened the top rim, and removed the rest of the excess on the inlay. No picture because visually the box and the inlay wouldn't show any real difference from the last pictures I posted. So now it's down to the fine tuning of fitting the inlay and the feet and doing whatever polishing needs to be done and then gluing it all together. I ordered the bag of dead coral pieces yesterday that will go inside when it's all done.

Here's a close up of the yellow rain lilies which yesterday's rain beat into mush.

exploding heads and further progress

The Republicans are losing their fucking minds. Well, the far right wackos are, you know the usual suspects. They were on twitter non-stop for three days leading up to the vote and after, telling lies and trying to spread opposition and discontent about the Inflation Reduction Act to derail Biden, not only individual senators and representatives but the GOP Senate and House and GOP and RNC accounts as well, tweeting over and over all day long. It's astounding how they flooded twitter with their lies about this bill while failing to mention that they voted down the $35 cap on insulin for people on private insurance ie not Medicare or Medicaid. They are almost apoplectic that Biden and Schumer persevered, got Manchin and Sinema on board, and passed it in the Senate through reconciliation with only 50 votes and the VP tie breaker (the same way the Republicans passed their very unpopular permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, rich corporations, and their donors), incensed that they couldn't stop Biden's administration from doing something good for the average American, the country, and the planet.

And if that wasn't enough to give them all aneurisms, the FBI enforced a search warrant on Mar A Lago Monday related to the boxes of secret and classified documents Trump illegally removed from the White House when he left. The DOJ must have compelling evidence to get a federal judge to issue the warrant. Far right wacko republican outrage over the IRA forgotten, now they're getting hysterical. If they can do this to Trump, they can do it to anybody!!! Well, yes, it's called law and order and no one including Trump and his cronies are above the law.

Their tweets Tuesday were full of threats of political retaliation should they get control of Congress again while accusing the DOJ and FBI of political retaliation, calling the warrant a third world junta, calling to either defund or eliminate the FBI and DOJ altogether. An unprecedented attack on a former president in our nation's history they cry, should not be allowed to happen! You know what else is unprecedented in American history? A president who sucked up to tyrants and fascists, who refused to acknowledge he lost the election, tried to pressure election officials to throw out the opposition's votes or find new ones for him and when that didn't work, attempted a coup to get himself instated, and when he was finally forced to leave the White House, took secret and classified documents with him.

Maybe there will be some justice after all.

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Tuesday was grocery shop day and also my night to cook so I took a little break from sweating in the hot shop even though all I could think about through the night when I would wake up was finishing grinding the excess glass off the corals.

My Monday progress...I worked on the inlay until I realized I had removed enough of the white that I was losing my white behind the purple and green. 

Hmmm. Too much color, not enough white. Still had about 1/16” to go to get it down to the wax model thickness so I've put that aside for now. 

Then I worked on cutting and grinding off the disks on the four feet using the ring saw and the upright diamond wheel grinder (both use power!). 

And then I did one of the corals. Here it is in its place on the top.

Today it's back to sweating in the shop.

 

starting on the cold work

I did the vinegar soak Saturday and started in on the grinding even though it was hot in the shop, my sweat dripping down mixing with the silicone carbide/water slurry. Then we got a little rain for about 10 minutes which cooled things down some.

Turns out it was closer to 1/8” I had to grind off the bottom of the top piece. I think. It's really hard to judge. Took me a couple of hours. I think. I wasn't really paying attention to the time. The inlay looks to have closer to 1/4” to remove. I've already got an hour in on that one.

Went back after lunch better prepared, moved a fan to blow on me and a bandana to tie around my forehead which was wet enough to squeeze water out of by the time I quit.

I didn't have enough of one of the colors of glass I need to fill the mold for the body of the box though. Damn it. I could have ordered it when I ordered the color I needed for the feet if I had gone ahead with my first choice for the box instead of second guessing myself and wanting the inlay cast first. Well, I've ordered it now.

Yesterday I got the corals and feet out of the kiln and de-molded them and brushed them off. They look pretty good, everything cast well though I didn't have enough glass in the crab mold to completely fill the base the crab is sitting on but the crab itself is complete so I'll make it work. The brain coral piece came out really dark, way darker than I wanted but can't do anything about that unless I want to try and do another one which I don't. I'm starting to think using the white mix for the top and the rocks the corals are on was maybe a mistake but I wanted a balance to the white feet. Well, I can always use a bit of paint to tone it down if need be. Here are the corals in the grouping as they will go on the top.

And the feet which have a weird sort of greenish cast to them which I totally don't understand.

And then I worked on the inlay some more, less than an hour, have about 1/8” left to take off but I was hot, my bandana was soaked (again), and I was tired.

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Some sad news...I learned yesterday that Mage of the blog POSTCARDS finally succumbed to the cancer she had been fighting so valiantly for so long. Fly high Mage.

 

starting the finish work, a garden disappointment, and a garden surprise

Yesterday I started the finish work on the drowned feather piece. My intention was to use the upright grinder to even out and smooth the edges first but after I got the water hooked up and turned on the valve  between the hose and the wire mesh hose that attaches to the hood over the diamond grinding wheel and squirts water on the grinding wheel to keep the glass from overheating and the glass dust out of the air, water started spewing out from the valve. Upon inspection, the hose bib/valve has a big split in it, apparently another casualty of the deep freeze. Well, that's just great. Unhooked everything and so far Marc hasn't been able to get the damn thing off. 

the valve is the hose bib in the picture, the outside hose attaches to the hose bib with a converter piece that's already been removed

So instead of doing that, I started on the surface with the medium polishing point using the Foredom. 

I've made the first pass over all the rocks. And now I need to go to the plumbing supply and get all new parts so I can hook the water up to my grinder.

Sunday I worked on the drawing some and I'm starting to get it down on paper, made a little mockup of the size and shape of the glass out of foam core and slid it into the stand to see how the shape and proportion worked and I was happy enough with that.

Then I vacuumed the bedroom and swept the in house work room.

And I worked on the drawing more yesterday afternoon, one more element to add in.

This has been a weird year in the garden...a very early heat wave, the deep freeze, and then rain, rain, rain. You might remember I planted 6 morning glory seeds early spring and they grew very sluggishly for months. Well, about a month ago they really took off and here's what the vines looks like now and I have not gotten one single flower. Not one! And here it is August.

And really, nothing is doing well. The orange cosmos aren't even blooming except for a scarce few. Also, I've noticed several shrubs that have dying branches on them. One good surprise though. I had reported the few things that didn't come back after the deep freeze one of them being the star of india gardenia tree/shrub. It had been in a big pot which I didn't empty til May and all the roots inside were mush. Well, apparently it had sent roots into the ground through the bottom of the pot which I did not realize and I noticed a few days ago that it had come back in the same place the pot had been. It's about a foot tall now.

 

cleaning up and rearranging

First, thank you all for all the lovely comments on my work. I'm through showing off for now.

Friday, another day with no progress though I did go over to the shop and started cleaning up my cold work station. That shop is so old and has so many problems like active termites. There was a door in between the big bay and the little bay which fell off its hinges due to so much having been eaten by termites. Dragged that out and some auxiliary wood teeming with larva. Die you little bastards I said as I tossed the remains either on the burn pile or on the gravel in the hot sun. I do need to get some spray and treat the area. Fortunately 90% of the shop is metal and we didn't run into any active termites when building in the studio room. So I cleaned up debris and finally found the wand part of the shop vac that goes on the end of the hose that you actually vac with which has been missing since the shop flooded during Harvey which is four years ago! Apparently it floated out of the small bay and into the corner of the big bay where it was completely hidden by a piece of plywood and Gene's sandblasting cabinet and other items of his. I'm surprised we didn't find it when he came and got all his stuff. I've searched that shop at least three times over the years looking for it. So I did that, put things away, shoveled up a pile of silicon carbide (sandblasting medium that had been in a paper bag that disintegrated after the flood) into a big bucket, used the shop vac, and by the time I had done all that my panties were soaked, my thin t-shirt was soaked, my shorts at the crotch were soaked, my hair was soaked, all with sweat. I still need to come up with a way to hang the Foredom. I'll have to get up early to work for a couple of hours before it gets too hot when I start the finish work. I think when I get the last indoor room built out, I'll move all my cold work equipment in there.

More rain Friday, just as I was about to take Minnie for her walk. We missed the brunt of the rain we got a few days ago, while we only got 1 1/2” - 2” the communities around us got 4” or more. My neighbor tells me we've already exceeded our annual rainfall for the year.

Saturday I ventured out in the barn looking for something I could use to hang the Foredom on and spied one of my 6' garden stakes and a light bulb went off. My little work desk has holes running down the side, the stake has holes so I grabbed up the stake, the roll of copper wire I have on hand, the wire snips, a wire clothes hanger, and a 6' quick release tie down (from my river guide days) and went over to the shop and voila! I'm all set.

cold/finish work area

left to right: upright grinder, ring saw, dead flat lap

manual grinding station (plate glass, silicon carbide, water to make a slurry and round and round we go)

work desk with Foredom

motor and handpiece

Then I started cleaning up and rearranging the old mold making area, hopefully making it easier and more convenient to store and measure out the materials. It's neater and cleaner at any rate. And of course, no before pictures because...me but believe me, it was nasty. While that was happening, high wind and rain started happening so I had to close the roll up bay doors. Fortunately, it had stopped by the time I was done.

I thought I would work on the drawing some this afternoon but I may try and finish my book instead.

Finally, we just found out another one of Marc's brothers has covid, unvaccinated because he 'heard stuff' so instead of paying attention to what the doctors, epidemiologists, scientists, and virologists were saying, you know those highly educated people who have  dedicated their lives to the study, research, and mitigation of viruses, he listened to...idiots. He's pretty sick but not hospitalized so far and the hospital systems in the city are at capacity or nearly so. Hopefully he won't get worse. So, anyone out there reading this and not vaccinated, get your dumb asses vaxxed. This delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox, the standard everything else is measured by. And yes, healthy children and young adults are getting it and dying. Don't let your last words be...I shoulda got the vaccine.

 

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.

more of the same

It's hot. In fact I think we are having some of our hottest weather so far this year, at least equally hot...in September. And it's only getting hotter as the week goes on. My oft wrong weather app says 98˚ by Saturday but all the other predictors are saying 102˚. Plus even though the wind yesterday was out of the east it was hot and dry and you could almost see things getting desiccated. And still no rain. We've had three little pisses of rain all summer. Huge swaths of grass in people's yards are brown and dead if they are in the sun all day or even half a day. I'm back to leaving the hose on and moving it every 30 minutes or so all day. That week of cool mornings, and by that I mean in the mid-70s, is over. It was still hot, getting into the mid 90s during the day but the first several hours of the day were so nice while I've been working in the shop and I could hold out til about 1:30 or so.

I got the heron head fitted Tuesday. It sits in the recess but has a little bit of rocker to it which is bad as it could set up enough stress after I glue it in to cause it to crack and while I can locate the pivot point, nothing I seems to do makes it go away so I put it aside in frustration for now.

Most of the day yesterday I was back to grinding grinding grinding as the two gray slabs were out of the kiln and the mold was not level on one of them so it was thicker at one end than the other. I've about got it to a uniform thickness so now I just need to take it down a little more and then start on the second one which I'm working on today.

You might remember I reported that a huge limb broke off one of the pecan trees but hadn't disconnected completely being supported by a lower branch as it was. Well, Monday, it broke the rest of the way off and the heavy end has fallen into the crook of the trunk for which I am grateful as my azaleas could have been crushed. No damage to them but oh so bummed out to see that the fallen limb was loaded with nuts. Loaded.

And the rangoon creeper is doing its best to creep over to the cedar tree.

the nut at the wheel and other things

The latest piece of Trump's insanity that has come to our attention...he thinks nuking hurricanes to prevent them from hitting the US is a fine idea. What could possibly go wrong? He denies saying it of course, just like he denies saying everything people ridicule him for saying, which as far as I'm concerned only confirms that he did float the idea. And then, of course, he spent his final press conference at the G7 in France promoting his floundering bedbug infested property Doral in Florida for next years G7 meeting to be held in the US. 

We still have 17 more months of his insanity/inanity, minimum, because Congress won't get off it's ass for whatever justification and stop him so it's up to us, the American people. Vote blue no matter who.

Oh well, on to other topics. They lied again. They told us we were going to get rain this weekend. It rained in El Campo to the west, it rained in Houston to the east, it rained on the coast to the south. Us? We got a scant 1/4” of rain Sunday. But it was overcast all day and so stayed in the high 80˚s all day.

I took advantage of the cooler weather and got the last wax slab poured and basically all the cold work done that I can do for now. 

the last two molds to be made

I still have lots of fine tuning and grinding to do once the last three pieces are out of the kiln. I rummaged around and determined I have just enough glass to fill the box mold and the two gray slabs which I also got altered or trimmed down and ready for molds on Sunday.

I haven't filled the box mold yet even though time is ticking away because I've been waiting for it to dry out a little. The castings come out much cleaner when the mold is dry and I'm using dry frit  but that's on the agenda for today. 

And then this also happened Sunday (click to bigify)...

    

It's hard to tell but this is a huge limb on one of the pecan trees that broke but is resting on another big limb lower down preventing it from completely breaking off and crashing to the ground. So now we need to find a tree service to come take it down. My sister also lost a big limb on one of her pecan trees this weekend and driving through town I saw several others down, a result of no rain and high winds. Pecan trees are bad about self-pruning when they feel stressed. They've also been dropping lots of green nuts, big ones too.

Another miserably hot day out there. 9 AM and it's 83˚ and 85% humidity, high predicted to be 97˚. I'll be hanging out in the house today y'all.

working in the heat

It is so hot and humid out there I can/will only work outside for about half an hour and that's in the shade! The south wind coming off that field behind us is like standing in front of  a hair dryer on high. I finally got all the gone by easter lilies cut back and I was soaked with sweat by the time I finished, had to peel my clothes off me. Now I'm working on taking out a small flower bed around a tree along the driveway that I put in years ago that was too hard to maintain and it has gone to weeds and wild fall asters, cutting that shit to the ground and reclaiming the paver bricks that border it. Took two days to get this much done.

There's another area at the back of the property that I am trying to do the same thing to. It's the old burn pile turned brush pile that these 10' tall weeds have grown up around while the brush pile has composted down. I want to get rid of the whole thing and start mowing over that area.

I haven't been over at the shop to start the cold work yet because we are having some of our hottest temperatures so far, high today of 97˚ and the rest of this week and 98˚ half of next week and the chance of rain in the single digits...in other words no chance of rain. I can't imagine how hot it is in that metal shop building even with all the bay doors and the two measly windows open. I may have to start getting up really early gasp! I suppose I ought to get out my model making stuff and/or the modeling glass and start on the next piece I have in mind.

So that was yesterday. This morning I got up an hour early and went across the street to the shop and worked over there for about an hour and a half but not on the glass pieces. That shop is such a mess, I haven't even so much as hosed down the floor after the flood. My neighbor has a workbench to give me and I want to use it for my cold working since right now my setup is very makeshift (also since the flood) so I went over there and rearranged the kilns so I could pull out the big A-frame on wheels that we used to move glass around during our etched glass days. It's going to be dismantled since we don't need two keeping the smaller A-frame on wheels that will fit in the back of the truck. So I pulled the big one out of the single bay parking it by the sandblast booth and then I moved the smaller one from the double bay into the single bay and then moved the kilns back where they were which gave me more room in the double bay for the new worktable. Then I hosed the floor down in the half of the double bay where my cold work stuff is set up, sweeping all the water and muck from the flood out and pulled out a metal shelving unit and hosed it down too. I want to bring that over to the house as I need more shelving as long as I'm working over here and not in the shop.

Still have not ground a single bit of glass. Maybe later, maybe tomorrow. But that hour and a half this morning was enough for my hair and the crotch of my shorts and my panties to be soaked with sweat.

Well, as it turned out, I went back over there after breakfast and worked for about 2 hours grinding excess glass off the sticks. I cut as much off with the ring saw as I could but I still have at least another hour and probably more before I get it all off so that just the sticks remain. I'll give it another go tomorrow morning.

This is a piece of 1/2” glass with 60 mesh silicon carbide (very hard, very sharp) and water to make a slurry on which I use a circular motion to slowly grind off the excess glass on the bottom. When the sludge of glass builds up too much it has to be cleaned off and fresh grit sprinkled on. The sludge can be rinsed out and the grit used over and over but eventually the plate glass has to be replaced because it gets ground down as well and will become slightly concave over time and use.

It wasn't really terrible over there while I was working, I had the windmaker fan blowing on me, or didn't seem so at the time. But that three and a half hours, even split up with AC time in between, just about wiped me out. I had thought I would start emptying the bookcase so I could move it to the back bedroom and make room for the metal shelving unit but I'm thinking I'll go settle down on the couch with my current book.

I might even take a nap.