Thursday, October 24, 2013

Continuing Work

I have been burning piles of dead wood, brush, and old wood that is so spongy and dry that you can barely carry it without it crumbling into a pile of wood dust.

Last week the family was here too, so we roasted hot dogs and made smores.  Eventually we gave up on the graham crackers and just focused on the marshmallows and chocolate.


The individual above ate the majority of the bag of marshmallows.  Good thing he had a lot of exercise that day.

We continue to find treasures.  This is a really large metal wheel about 3' in diameter.  Unfortunately I don't have anything in the picture for scale.  It is very heavy and will take some work to get it propped up for another picture. When I do, I will add something for scale.  Until then, it needs to dry out so we can get the mud/dirt out of it.


I have also made more piles.  I asked the neighbor if he wanted some free wood.  He said "Yes", so I said "Great! Bring your chain saw." He showed up and cut through a large amount of dead wood and branches growing toward the road like a rabid beaver through a forest of saplings.  In less than an hour, I had a stack of wood for more than two piles.  The neighbor didn't want the wood.  It wasn't straight enough for splitting.  Apparently I need to learn more about wood quality.


After all that work, my arms were sore and didn't want to operate properly, so I took some time off and made this!


Actually the necklace took less than an hour, but the first time I tried it with supplies from Michael's it didn't work.  So I ordered the proper crimp ends from Fire Mountain Gems... which is AWESOME!!! and the best place to buy things.  Plus they ship super fast.  The picture is a little low rez so not all the details are visible.  





Tuesday, October 01, 2013

The Little Man's Dirt Cake

Mister e requested a dirt cake for his birthday this year.  I fulfilled his request as best as I could:


My mom helped me.  It is actually a sour cream chocolate cake that has been cut up and layered with chocolate mousse.  Technically it is a trifle.  I did not have a trifle bowl which is glass with straight sides... so I made do with this.


The top is crushed chocolate wafers.  What would the world do if Nabisco stopped manufacturing these things?!?!?  There is an assortment of gummy worms and gummy spiders and chocolate candied rocks.


The dirt cake was for the kid party.  I made a small, blue gravel cake for the family party.


... sort of an earthy cake theme this year.