Swan and rose..........

The old concrete swan seems to be swimming in snow.  I didn't get the rose trimmed back and it actually gives off a great sculptural design.

Thanks for stopping by................

Archived and reposting the past........

A Brave New Journey

I need to start painting again while I sill am able to touch brush onto canvas.  My wife and I have been asked to be in a show in a few months and I need some new work to be done. It isn't a big time place or show but it is a public venue.  Della is in shows often but this would be my first in a very long time.

Where to go and what to paint is my dilemma.  I have done so many barns because it is a safe thing  for me to do. I am at the threshold of trying something new but what will happen I don't know. I have spent 35 years of instructing and watching others and I can paint in many mediums.  I just have to start........sometime.........somehow..........somewhere.

Thanks for keeping in touch with me.  I value your stopping by and hope that you are weathering through all the weather can put out for you.

Time to try out the train........

Many negatives involving this train set.  I can solve the problems but it will take more time than I have right now.   I quickly set it up to see if it was working and it sort of does work.
The dining room table is too small for the track.
It needs to be put down permanently on a board or I have to put rubber  bands between each track to hold the cheaply made connectors between each track piece.
The track needs to be polished up with a fine grained steel wool to aid in the connections of the engine to the track.
The cars are a pain to get onto the track.

I won't give up on this but I won't get it done for awhile.  I could see Barney and Button having a few accidental run through if I tried to spread it out on the floor.

It was fun, but I am going to put it away for a rainy day when I have a little more patience.

We ended up warming up enough on Monday to have thawing, but it was a cold thaw and we didn't loose much snow.  It actually snowed another inch the night before which cleaned up our old snow.  The rest of the week promises to be very cold.

Thanks for stopping by.........

Looking for a great bridge in Iowa.......

I need to take a picture of a bridge for a photo contest.  I almost got silly and tried to take shots of this one.  I know that I have some archived photos in files of Rockefeller bridges in Acadia National Park but I thought I should look for something new.  I live an  hour away from the bridges in Madison County but it is a high of 14 degrees around here.  It isn't going to warm up and the roads will be bad for some time.  I can see getting there and the cold and the snow wouldn't really be great for a backdrop for these historic covered bridges.  We have a mile long bridge near here also but it is so plain looking and I again will have to get out of the car and trudge through a lot of deep snow.  We will see how I will solve this problem.  I have 13 days to get something figured out for the entry.

A cheap, cheep shot of my artificial bird on a wreath before taking it to the basement.  We took our large tree down yesterday and I still need to tote the boxes to the basement.

Della and I were engaged to be married 26 years ago in December, I think on the 18th.  She gave me this hand crafted pillow for a present and I gave her a diamond ring.  I have to confess that she was surprised as we had not talked about any marriage plans up to that point. She did say yes and she hasn't told me yet that she wants to  change her mind.  She did all of the work by hand and it is a pillow of historic value of wonderful memories. DW says my math is wrong and she is  correct of course. It was 27 years ago, but I got the day right.

On our 25th wedding anniversary I gave her this lovely set of patio glasses made of plastic.


In case you think I was stupid,  I also gave her a very pricey ring.  The glasses were enhancement to the  ring. 



Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are all doing well.  Freezing rain and bad roads are on the menu for today.

Swaziland and snow.......

We help support a couple who are missionaries to Swaziland.  They have been our friends for years and they now live over in Africa working with the Children's Cup ministries.  Jerry and Karen help to feed children one meal a day and provide an hour or two of education to teach basic skills of reading and writing. A lot of the children are orphans and the aids epidemic is rampant throughout.  We were glad to see them back in November for a short visit before they returned to Africa.

I thought the stamp on the postcard was unique.  We are unable to ever send mail or packages to them as they most likely would be stolen.  I was surprised to see them sending out mail but they may have sent it with a carrier to another country to get it out. I guess there isn't much you can take from a postcard.

Snow sculptures remain as we have not seen any temperatures above 21 degrees F.  It doesn't look promising for next week either.  It is to get down to below zero the next few days, maybe even all next week.  I tune it out after while as it is just plane cold.

Thanks for stopping by on this Sunday.  I hope you get a good day for resting and that all is well with you.

The back of the clock..........

The clock backing was in three pieces and the one bracket standing vertically has a twin piece that I need to put back into position. The clock must have had an earlier repair job as I had to take out large rusty nails that held the brackets on the back.  They would not have been original to this clock.

Gluing and clamping the next piece to finish off the back.  The split here was created because of how they had used large nails to affix the other bracket.  I remove all of them.

With it glued and clamped, I had to put weight on the whole piece to keep it from buckling.  As you can see I grabbed some pretty high tech weights to hold it down.

Another view of the last procedure. The mat cutter is weighing down the other end so that is why there isn't any junk down there.

The other perpendicular piece is glued and placed in position.  Again the tablet helped to hold it down and the nails and glue bottle kept it standing vertically.

Everything is now glued back together.  I may use small brads to nail in from the back to reinforce the glued brackets. I hope I don't split it again.  The round bracket must have had a bell shaped piece to allow the clock to sound on the hour.

The clock's mechanical piece is probably not going to be fixable but I won't do much with it for now.  What you are seeing in the top of the clock at the bottom of the photo.  The face of the clock sat directly above the mechanism.

The restoration is on hold for now but I will keep you posted as I move on with the clock case and door.

The land of contrasts...........

A peaceful backyard in January 2011. It was 3 below degrees F. Wednesday night.

A peaceful backyard in June 2009.  It was probably 70 degrees F.  Some people say they would miss the changing seasons if they moved south to live year round. I would miss the lush growing season of spring and early summer otherwise,  I wouldn't miss it if I didn't have to live in it.

Thanks for stopping by one more time...............