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.