I finally installed the new thermometer and hygrometer in the coop. It took about a minute to pound the nail into the siding, but the gauge has been sitting on the counter inside for weeks. At least it is now up.
As long as I was checking things off the list, I also put up my Texas Farm Bureau warning sign. A warning sign for my chickens, to protect me if someone else makes stupid decisions on my property. The law recently changed here to include fowl with horses and cows and goats. So I put up my sign.
Warning sign that farm animal activities can be dangerous
You would think I haven’t been able to go to a craft fair in years… oh wait. The high school theater group put on a craft fair and I did my part to support the theater and the craftspeople that set up their booths (and also scouted out what I might set up for next year). My favorite find? A hand-painted bakery sign! Yup. Hand-painted. Not stenciled, not cut vinyl, not printed, not laser burned. Hand-painted by someone who has been pin-striping and lettering for over 20 years. I have the utmost respect for good pin-stripe artists! The artist gave me $2 off because the hook on the back fell off, which was a solid deal. When I got it home, rather than put another sawtooth hanger in the soft wood, I took my rotary tool and a small router bit and cut a channel in the bottom of the wood block. It works perfectly with the monkey hooks I like to use in dry wall.
Channel cut in the bottom of the wood block on the back of the sign to accommodate the monkey hook (yeah, there is an extra hole in the wall. Oops.)Prized craft fair sign, hand-painted by a professional
I made this wooden cane as another prop for the play my eldest is working on. The character that needs the cane is an old woman whose husband was a wood cutter. What better than a cut branch then? I wandered through the back woods and found a suitable dead limb on a cedar tree, with a side branch at a good angle for the handle. I cut it off, removed all the twigs, then used my oscillating drum sander to remove the outer layer. I left it a little long so they could cut it down to fit the actor. After I had the rough shape, I hand sanded first with 100 grit to get everything smooth and shaped the way I wanted, then worked down in grit to 120, 220, then 400. To finish, I put on two coats of 50/50 tung oil and mineral spirits, then seven coats of pure tung oil. A final polish with 0000 steel wool put on a slight sheen. The cracks were left as is, as it gives some character to the piece and the story is a slightly scary one. Despite the cracks, the wood is solid.
Talking ebbs and flows again. We saw two praying mantises in one day about 17 miles apart. One on the outside of the doctor’s office, and one on the wall on our front porch. We don’t see many of these a year, and two in one day is remarkable.
Carolina Praying Mantis on windowCarolina Praying Mantis on brick
The mantis on the house was missing the lower half of both middle legs, which didn’t stop it from easily scaling the wall.
My eldest needed another prop for a play; this time it was ugly needle craft. Hm. In theory, to make ugly needle craft you need to do the opposite of all that is done for good needle craft. The director sent an image of cross stitch as an example, but these guidelines would work for most kinds of needle craft, should you find yourself needing to make cringe-worthy thread embellished decor. So here are my pointers:
Use poorly woven cloth that does not have an even or straight weave (I used a scrap of a cotton drop cloth)
Use inexpensive thread (I think this thread came from a bracelet kit)
Don’t starch the cloth or iron or tape edges
Have only a vague plan, don’t mark cloth with guidelines
Watch an engaging movie, don’t correct the stitching mistakes
Completely ignore color theory
Mess up repeating patterns
Try for long straight lines of stitching
Put in a spelling mistake
Use all capitals, make them different sizes
Left align the words
Use strange color changes for the letters
Ugly cross stitch for a play prop
Honestly, this should have everyone’s OCD twitching, even if you don’t usually have OCD.
