Scenes from America Part 1

courtesy of Daughter C-- who we miss tremendously.

Daughter C and Mr. Bow Tie left last Thursday. We are all trying to get used to this.

Meanwhile, Daughter C sent me a number of photographs. I delayed posting them because I didn't want Mr. Low Man to know where she was.

This is what they saw early in the trip

in Arkansas.

I believe she titled this email, "tornado devastation."

More to come.

Daughter C is leaving tomrorrow

While I was doing other things, Daughter C was preparing to leave.

I tried really hard to convince her to stay until tomorrow.

One more day.

etsy 2A

https://www.etsy.com/shop/2ndAmendmentJewelry

Hat tip to Aggie who found the etsy site for 2nd Amendment Jewelry. Thank you!

As you can see, Brenda and Glenda really do create their jewelry in Starkvegas, Mississippi!

Here's the necklace Daughter C got for me from their stand at the Arts Festival this weekend.

Details, details

It was Super Bull Dog Weekend in Starkvegas!!

The Cotton District Arts Festival. 

State played Ole Miss in baseball.

FB (football) scrimmage. 

Everyone except Mr. Big Food and I went. We stayed home.

That's my birthstone!

Daughter C returned to the Farm bearing gifts! 

She said the woman who does this is local, and that she sells on etsy-- with which I am not all that familiar. But I just searched: 

2,170,000 results

I thought after last evening's photo dump, I owed the blog a few words. 

Look! Girls! I Made A Video!!

The final still. 

It ain't great, photo-wise, but it was a lot easier to upload.

Happy Birthday, Miss M. We all hope you had a great day.

Love you!

Sweets for the Sweet

Miss M's edible Birthday Bouquet

arranged by Daughter C!

Ain't it pretty?

Pecan Math

We had a very satisfying dinner cooked in a clay pot this evening.

Tender & moist

A whole clove of garlic roasts in the clay pot, then is combined with butter to top the veggies.

succulent

After dinner chit chat, Daughter C and I got down to shelling pecans.

We had been given, by Mr. Big Foods Mom, a 5# bag (that's 5 pounds) of Texas Pecans, cracked. Mr. Big Food's Mom paid $22.50 for this bag of cracked pecans.

We got about 2.5 pounds of pecan halves.

Here's where it gets interesting. 

A 4-6 ounce package of pecan halves at the Piglet goes for about $4.00. How many ounces are  in 2.5 pounds?

About $160 worth. 

"Wealth" is a concept that is underappreciated.

You can never over decorate... but

you can try!

We did not dine at the dining table this weekend because the dining room table, chairs and floor held every single Christmas or potentially Christmas-themed item we own. And I'm pleased to say that Daughter C put it all to good use. 

Just wait until you see the photos I'll take tomorrow!

What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming

I was rather testy this morning. I complained that I was going to spend a considerable part of my day

chopping vegetables,

processing tomatoes-- some chopped, some pureed--

sautee-ing said veggies,

and adding homegrown dried herbs

to the veggie-tomato concoction.

Not to mention that I had to bake zucchini bread and do my Monday chores, leaving me with no time to do what I really wanted to do: lay around eating bon bons and reading crappy old books. 

As it turns out, my sacrifice is appreciated!

The card

and sentiments that accompanied the lovely surprise...

TWO NEW CRAPPY OLD BOOKS ON FARMING!

Thank you, Daughter C & Miss M!

What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming!

Although I've only spent a few minutes thumbing through it, I already love the smaller volume, Farm Management (Jacob Hiram Arnold. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1919). It talks about the farm "labourer,"

Thus the men who labour on such farms are intelligent, have initiative, take responsibility, learn to be self-reliant, energetic and thrifty. Because democratic institutions and customs prevails in such communities, men trained in this way find opportunity to employ their training... .

Long story short-- they are citizens.

There's a great black and white plate of orchards in Appalachia. I learn that in 1904 the cost of ploughing, disking, harrowing, drilling, heading and stacking, etc. was $5.55 per acre.

How could I not fall in love with this crappy old book filled with simple charts and tables?
~~

The larger volume, English Farming: Past and Present (The Right Honorable Lord Ernle. Long, Green and Co., London, New York. 1922) is reference book, of a certain sort. Reading the preface, I'm not at all sure I understand the author's point of view.


The book traces framing in England from the 1200's to the WWI. Given 800 years, the author's point of view may matter. 


What do you make of this-- one of the authors' two convictions that motivated the first (1912), and second (1922) editions:

[T]he small number of person who owned agricultural land might some day make England the forcing-bed of schemes for land-nationalisation, which countries, where the ownership of the soil rested on a more democratic basis, repudiated as destructive of all forms of private property.

 What a great book to have in my library! 

Thank you!

 

Second Annual 'Feed the Starving Artists and Admire Their Work' Cookout

Smokin'

This year, as last, Daughter C invited Mr. Big Food to grill some dogs & burgers for the cookout following the Department of Art's Convocation. I hear tell Convocation-- the calling together-- went well. This year the TARDIS was featured on stage. (Photo of the TARDIS in the spotlight as soon as Daughter C forwards it to me.)

This was Miss M's first Starving Artist Cookout, and in fact, the first cookout in which she's ever been involved.*

Daughter C works the 'room' at work.

Thirty-six bratwurst, forty-eight hot dogs, and something like sixty hamburgers later, Daughter C gave Miss M and I a guided tour of the 3-D facilities.

I should note that the starving artists have cleaned up the joint-- much to my disappointment. I sort of liked the discarded art in the corners of the joint. But there was still a lot of cool artsy stuff to see.

I had stumbled upon this chair recently. It's designer is famous, don't you know? (He helped get the hot coals out of the grill so we could tote the grill back to the Farm.)

Original originals.

Also known as the Real Thing.

Cool office

Touring down the hallway...

Book Art: I have mixed feelings.

Students Showcased

And my favorites...

Students Shelved

They are as starving English Majors' essays read aloud to those who walk the hall.

Kilns

What a lovely tour.

But the gig was up at the end. Clearly, just as all you need to be a writer is a typewriter and some words, all you need to be to be an artist is some stuff,

And a weigh (haha) to get the proportions right.

What a great tour.

Thank you, C!

Repurposing: It Came with the House But Now It Must Be Recommissioned

4' x 8'

Mr. Low-Man-on-the-Totem-Pole-Who's-Tasked-with-Following-My-Little-Blog-and-Your-Little-Life has not shared with me, his employer, what large surface areas in your home look like. 

In my home, large surface areas which are not used for their intended purposes on a regular basis become large surface areas (LSAs). LSAs can hold a lot of stuff. Before I moved all of the stuff on this LSA to nearby LSA-- to photograph the former LSA so I might sell it-- it held gardening, sewing, crafting, and gun cleaning stuff.

It's time for this LSA to go. 

Don't get me wrong! When we first moved in, we did shoot some obstacle pool-- and that was fun. And we have put it to use as a LS pattern cutting A and LS serving table. But we did that roughly four times each year. The pool table must go.

The more I thought about selling it, though, the less inclined I was to sell it. LSAs of slate can be turned into LSAs of dining table & whatnot. And my 2013-2014 project, which I've accepted, will eventually entail my finding a large table. So today I began the process of decommissioning the pool table, with the hope that it would be the basis for a large table.

First to go were the sides, exposing the pockets.

And then the rails or whatever they're called.

Removing the felt took a long time. 

For my money, a deconstruction project is more intellectually challenging than a construction project. When constructing, you either have the tool or you don't. To staple felt onto the wooden base under the slate, you need a stapler. Sure. If you didn't have a stapler, you could try some little nails and a hammer. But you'd end up getting a stapler.  

The space of deconstruction is vastly larger. To remove the zillion staples, I tried a staple puller (fail) and a garden tool (fail). I was successful with a knife, a very small flat-head screwdriver, and a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

Humm. Not what I had envisioned.

I had envisioned a big giant hunk of slate.

It is 3/4" thick.

And what I have is three small hunks of slate with a bunch of holes and six cutouts.

So. It's too late to sell it as a pool table. 

I did note that there's a sticker on the underside-- says something about Italian Slate, Italian Fir. 

I'm confident that Daughter C can make something beautiful of these three pieces of slate that we'll talk about for years to come.

"Who remembers when this _______ was but a lowly pool table in the bunkhouse?"

 And now... Daughter C. It's all yours!