We have been on a burn ban for a long time, so I have not made ash for the chicken’s dust bath in a long time. They have made their own accommodations by stirring up the dust at the bottom of the tire and carrying it off in their feathers, thus digging a hole deeper and deeper in the center of the tire. I do add some diatomaceous earth on occasion, but it is going to take buckets of ash and dirt to fill the dust bath back up again.
It is probably cool down there as well.
Thanks for sticking with me through that eight-day extended post series. As a reward, here is a picture of a double cat. Sophie decided it was a warm place to settle.
I have a new rolling pin! After several coats of tung oil, my rolling pin is done. I will probably wait about a week to use it to make sure the tung oil is solid, but I’m very excited to get back to making sourdough discard crackers, and maybe some pie crusts.
I hope you enjoyed this series. I did draw it out quite a bit, but decided to run it sequentially, which I don’t normally do, so the thread is easier to follow for those that stumble across it later.
(Part 8 of 8 in this blog series)
I love, love my wood burned Celtic knot morning glories on my rolling pin, but I feel it could use some color. With the lines solidly established, I felt confident adding some diluted acrylic paint to make the design pop.
I know from experience that acrylic paint does well under coats of tung oil, so I am not in fear of losing this design to mineral spirits. But I have a new problem. The old rolling pin handles are a different wood and thus a different shade than the new rolling pin center. Not pleasingly, either. Paint to the rescue. I sanded down the old finish on the handles to prep for paint.
I used the darkest blue acrylic paint that I used in the design to paint the handles. Next step, finishing!
(Part 7 of 8 in this blog series)
I was gifted a professional wood burner setup last December, and it has been waiting for me to clean up my craft space and find a project to burn. The wait has ended. I liked the pencil drawing on my wooden rolling pin so much I thought wood burning would be the best next step. I read through my instructions and flipped through a detailed book, then practiced on one of the rolling pin’s cut off ends.
I am in love. The wire writing tip for the wood burner is absolutely fantastic. There is a bit of learning curve with temperature settings and speed of burn, but I am loving the results.
The writing tip burns the line I want without making deep marks that would transfer to dough. The burn is deep enough, though, to hold up to light sanding to remove stray pencil marks. But not so deep that I can’t use a blade to lightly scrape away mistakes.
So exciting! This opens up a whole new world for my wood work.
(Part 6 of 8 in this blog series)
Critters and Craft 