Fair-the-well

The S.E. Alaska fair is history and I am getting back to my own life!

I decided to teach myself to fuse silver today, I've seen pictures, I have a book, I have a torch. I did it!  It's really not that difficult, but it involves melting metal.  You make a ring out of silver, making sure the two cut ends match up as perfectly as possible by using flush cutters.  Heat that ring round and round with a butane torch then when it's red hot and a little bit liquid, you give the cut ends a little more attention with the torch (but not too much!) and poof, like magic the ends fuse together.  Too much heat and they blob together, too little and they remain cut ends.

I made myself a couple of finger rings...need to make them smaller so I can texture them with the hammer. Rings get bigger when you hammer them, especially on a mandrel.  I also made a couple smaller circles to practice being a little more delicate with the torch.  It takes less heat to make a smaller ring hot enough, easier to make a blob join.

More ways to make better jewelry.

Something had to give

The business and busy-ness of summer caught up to me and I had to drop the wearable art project.  I know my (5 or 6) followers will be disappointed but the pterodactyl will rise again!

Overtime at the return of the not so great catering job is probably the biggest factor in no time for pterodactyls.  Lots of physical labor involved, pushing pulling and hauling coolers full of food to boats and on and off of trucks.  Good for me and my muscles, not so good for creativity in the evening.  Especially when work starts up again as early as 5:30 in the morning. 

The S.E. Alaska state fair (sans pterodactyl) starts this Thursday...I'm excited to be working some aspect of the event every day of the fair.  Thursday and Sunday serving beer Friday and Saturday selling c.d.'s for the performers.  The aerial act is going to be happening for both of my Friday and Saturday stints!

House guest and creativity

 This is Mocha, she's our house guest for a couple of weeks... she's ancient and still imagines herself on the rolling moors of Scotland. Stairs are annoying and cats are not all that interesting.  She did break her fast today and also pooped in the yard, so if she wants to be a turn of the last century British Royal, that's ok by me.

 This is going to be a dragon/pterodactyl wearable art piece for the S.E. Alaska state fair... I hope.

This is olive oil in a canning jar being a little lamp... braided cotton twine held up by a piece of copper wire. Those green onions were eaten once, then the white bits put in that bowl of water and I've eaten them again. Both projects fun but not all that important, ya know?

happy duck goes to the garden

Yay broccoli!

Yay carrots!

Yay potatoes in buckets!

It has been cool this summer, I over heard our local weather expert saying that it's above average everywhere but here.  No really, he is an expert not just another guy complaining about the weather like the rest of us are.  Cool for humans means winter crops are doing great!  Usually plants bolt early here because the days are so long, I have never made spinach last for more than a few weeks.  

We did have 3 days of crazy mad summer where we went from record lows to record highs in 24 hours.  Kind of mind bending when you look at this year of record snowfall, record rain, record cool, record hot.  No wonder as my good friend (EMT, nurse, married to doctor, all around saint) says "this town is crazy" and she say any thing more due to hippa rules.

It may not be an ideal summer but it's not winter!

 Marigold from seed... I love planting them, they're so kind, they come up easily, they repel pesty bugs and they're pretty!

 Rhody rescued from the front yard... the previous owner didn't get it about rhododendrons, they're acid soil forest plants, they don't want to be clumped in potting soil in the hottest part of the yard!  This poor shrub was smashed down to about 2 inches by the epic snowfall last winter, but rebounded to give me flowers, soooo cool.

 The old cherry tree is bursting with flowers!  I can't wait to make cherry pie again, love this tree.

 Volunteer violets in the driveway.  So brave, battling off the dandelions and pushing up through the rocks.

Strawberries!

 

 Just a little proof that even if it's not bright and sunny here, we are having spring and summer!  Plants are happy, these photos are a week old and the growth is probably doubled on some of these, tripled on the potatoes in the buckets.  

Potatoes in buckets... the buckets have no bottoms and are in an old metal tub the guy used on the boat to store halibut gear.  I put the buckets in the tubs, the dirt in the buckets, the seed potatoes in the dirt and wait... when the leaves and stems get about 6 inches above the dirt, I add more dirt.  When the dirt gets really high, I put on another bottomless bucket.  After they flower, I lift the bucket pile off and out tumble potatoes!  The dirt falls into the tub and it becomes another garden bed next year... crop rotation means no tomatoes or potatoes can be planted in that bed so it's likely to be peas or kale or broccoli next year.

No photos yet... I have new neighbors that have an older lab mix named Melly.  Melly doesn't get enough attention at home.  Melly comes over and gives me wonderful dog love!  We hang out in the garden a little, she cruises the yard then goes back to her porch to keep watch. 

Re-used window porch done... except he thinks there should be a door.

 I built the wall from windows after much thought and over planning. I know deconstruction/construction isn't rocket surgery, but I'm not a builder so it all seems like near disaster to me.  Took down the fugly peeling paint rail and scraped the flaking paint into a shop vac so I wouldn't be spreading it all over the neighborhood.  Got two 4x4's from the dead fence that was behind the woodshed, bolted them in place of the short legs that were supporting the porch and screwed the windows to that.  I got the windows via a terrific small town web of communication...nurse at the clinic doing a remodel, windows being thrown out friend doesn't need them but thinks I might.

 The guy (in a pair of summer carhartts, Arvay) putting up rafters to hold up the clear plastic roof.  He asked the hardware guy about his greenhouse roof and last winters' snow. Hardware guy says his roof is on 2 foot centers and barely sagged... so mine's on about 8 inch centers, surely won't sag!

Valiant mower, too short ladder, awesome builder friend and sunflower in a pot...  and sunshine that's lasted 4 days now!  I am starting to believe it's summer.

 Tool shed cars...

Awesomely tall tulip that was watching the proceedings from a safe distance.

Sun came out briefly... grass is dry enough to knock down the dandelion population.  Both of my lawn loving neighbors have upgraded to riding mowers... and they have grandchildren.  I think it's really weird to hack back a CO2 absorbing plant with a gas powered mower.  BUT one of the neighbors asked if I wanted to use his old (gas powered) mower to do the dirty work and I did.  The 'lions are so tall the push mower was just knocking them over.

I bought the push mower a couple of years ago up in Whitehorse, YT.  When I was crossing the border back into the U.S. of A. customs said something along the lines of "you bought a push mower?!?"  Yeah... 'cause I think it's crazy to cut a small lawn with a gas mower.

 

Another cuff ready to sew together... trying to keep ahead incase I have to suddenly spend lots of time out in the sun.  Oh blogger... I said center the photos not the writing. Whatever.

 

 

I had to take a picture of this... there were actually more examples that got deleted.  I leave foot wear everywhere!  Shoes, slippers, socks all strewn about the house.  I've decided it's my way of saying 'this is where I feel at home'.  

 Last Sunday was the spring opening of the Extreme Dreams gallery here in Haines where I have my bead embroidery on display.  The opening is really more of a gathering of friends of the gallery for wine and snacks.  The past two years it's involved lots of warm sunshine and hanging out on the back porch looking at the Rainbow Glacier, but not this year. Brrr!

 I found some excellent pink beads in Anchorage, the Japanese bead makers have figured out how to make a colorfast pink!  Two Sitka Rose cuffs on display, the above on a rectangular form and below on the new curvy form.  Below are two of the others, ravens  and one with a big ol' rock and some pearls for wearing to that big soiree.

 I also made a new kind of neck piece on a brass form...compound curve makes for a crazy pattern shape!

 And when I'm not sewing beads, I'm coaxing plants to 'just make it a few more days'. It was warm in early April and now it's not so warm... the zucchini (below left) are gone now, it got too cold for them and their little roots gave up.  Thank goodness they're easy to sprout so I planted more seeds.

 The sprouts are in a small hoop house I made using pvc irrigation tubing and visqueen.  There are carrots and broccoli that aren't in a hoop house... I just hope it gets warmer soon so I can quit fretting over the babies.

Getting back to normal, coming back to life

Done banding birds, thank goodness. I have mixed feelings about the whole experience... the instructor was phenomenal, patience of a saint and an encyclopedic knowledge of birds.  We didn't have enough birds coming through the area for me to feel comfortable handling them, it's just too early and too cold in April in Haines.  The class room time was frustrating because Pyle guide is a giants part catalog written in a secret language...impossible to understand with out lots of bird time.

Aaanyway... getting back to normal takes a while.  Norman was actually shoveling the back yard out sometime around the last post... I am so lucky to have an amazing southern exposure so all this snow is gone except one patch over by the back of the  house.  There are actually starts in the beds he's standing near in these photos.

 New compost bin!  Old one is to the right behind the spindly tree. It has the best rich black compost in it, but if I start stacking the newly raked stuff on the old pile... besides the old "bin" is a smashed up chicken wire semi circle.  I hope the new wood one is big enough for all my composting ambitions.

 Making art dolls for hanging in the Golden Mouse gallery, Sarah doesn't want to overlap with Svenson's in art for sale.  That's good for me, more variety, more creativity, less rut!

 Bread with a small rhino.

Sunflowers and marigolds put out in the early sometimes warm spring sun.  Jars are night time cloches because it's really not that warm.

...and Biscuit.

learning stuff

How to read music... learning what every kid in the world tortured by piano lessons knows. Treble clef wraps around the line that is G and middle C is between the treble and bass clefs, how cool is that??

...and how to age/sex/band birds! Look up preformative molt... ooh my brain, middle C is much easier to understand.