Stay Home or LEAF

Above you see my best latte art thus far, minus the many Mother Marys and Jesucristos I poured and already sold on eBay.

LEAF was lovely. The weather stayed pretty darn nice considering the snowy peaks in the distance and looming storms nearby. On top of all that, dozens of children, and one insane "adult," were zip-lining right into the lake. You can see that people were bundled due to the new temperatures that come with the cooling of a huge mass. And then kids come wailing overhead, half-clothed, and drag into the water, often not letting out anymore yelps and laughter after that...it must have been chilly.

Alright, the Cowboy Junkies rock, Zap Mama was uber-sexy and powerful, AD put it on like they have before, but I was the most impressed, moved, and tickled by a band called River Gueguerian Project, led by none other than River himself. He is a master percussionist and multi-instrumentalist and his stage presence was smooth, relaxed, and practically healing. He played with a didgeridoo dude, some sweeeet female vocals, an oud player and others, which added up to an amazing trance dance party. And the next day he played with a classical Spanish guitarist that was also outta this world. Check him out below, loves.

Thanks to Rob R., Mr. Mystical Crystal and recent B'day boy, for inviting me along to help slang jewelry and rocks that are way cooler than gravel. We came up with a few good ideas to make the biz better, kids happier (hence parents as well), and Rob less smelly...not really. 'Twas a fun and educational time (did you know that some sea creatures actually have bones made of aragonite, which, in crystal form, is a really neat exploding star-like crystal formation? Cooooool...)

Robbie, man of crystals, kept warm with fleece...

Browsers, browsers, browsers...will they be buyers? Will I get paid?

In other news, our last ultimate frisbee game is tonight...due to the time change coming up on Halloween. Get out you bum(s).

L E A F

Well, this weekend will likely be a rainy one. I am heading south with Myster Mystical Crystal Rob R. to L.E.A.F., Lake Eden Arts Festival, in Black Mountain, NC. It ought to be fun no matter what the weather! I have been twice before to this wonderful bi-annual festival and it gets better every time...

Food and Fur

Sheena got a new kitty cat last week. She dreamed up his sex as female, to match her Lilly dog, but he is a boy. Thank gawd (joke). Sheen wanted to name her another flower name...yuck. I have deemed him "foggy bottom" since he is mostly white, but just around his tail and bum is a mix of black, white, and gray. Foggy Bottom it is! He has been giving Lilly a run for her money. See the video below for the in-house stand-off.

Anybody get the good views of the harvest moon? Holy moley! Gorgeous!

My garden is nearly done for....all tomatoes were blighted (I was told to make a weak epsom salt mixture with water and put it into the hole prior to planting and then occasionally on the leaves of the plant to prevent the blimey blight...any confirmed results, people?) While I was on top of my game in the beginning, I must say that I did not combat the weeds as well as I could have.
No worries though, for after some serious weed-whipping I cleaned up shop and came home with plenty of tomatillos (ya know, salsa verde), lettuce, cabbage, cukes, carrots, calendula, a few little beets, and even some butternut squash!!! Oh, and I have tons of organic kale, two varieties, so please, come take some.

The sunflowers won't stop bending over due to heavy-headedness. There is talk of plowing the plot and putting in some grains, like rye or something that my friend Kristin and I could make bread out of. Perhaps some garlic is in order as well?

Oh, and I just got a dog. More on that later.

Peep Show.....Autumn-like

Me So Happy! Me Can Fish!

Pre-Leaf Peeper Festival a good day was had by starting it seeing the sunrise from Dolly Sods and the bird banding station with Chip B. A merlin falcon was caught; one of only two (2) caught in the some fifty+ (50) years that the birders have banded there. Chip said it was the coolest bird he had ever seen in his entire life...and he has seen a lot of birds. We were lucky.

Later that day (the day is long when one gets out before the sun is up...) we went and hiked down Pendelton Falls, which dumps into the Blackwater River. Chip B. brought his little fishing box and, putting together his little rod, proceeded to catch a brook trout and a rainbow trout. Melon Collie (the Chase family mutt) had a tough time navigating the canyon's slick rocks and watery ways, while Lilly Girl (Sheena's mutt) made it look somewhat simple. Ol' Melly must be getting a bit rusty! Note to anyone trying to take an animal down that canyon...unless they are super adept at navigating steep and dangerous rock features, don't even think about it!!!

River Slime Collection Area

Don't slip...

Look upstream but go with the flow...

Changing in the leaves...

Monday morning, sunrise at Hypno...irie!

High on the mountaintop....the leaves are peaking and the peeps are peeping!

This past weekend was quite wet and filled to the brim with peepers and jolly competition. My sorry bum ran for 8th place in the 5k Run For It! race. Having never trained and doing my fair share of unhealthy-for-a-runner activities, I was glad to make the top ten (10)...glad after I projected the little bits of water that I dogged during the race back to porcelain princess.

My my...after I recovered and did some chair massage at Hypnocoffee, I was drawn to the old Shop 'N Save parking lot for some Young Funk Sung, Elkins premeire funk ensemble. Thank Gawd that lead singer Erin got out for a sec to dance with me or else I'da been a lone ranger. Pero eventualmente, once Sheen and some others got out on the dance lot the party was rockin'!
BTW, mark that calender for some Halloween festivness at Mtn. State Brewing Co. in Thomas, WV. The funk will be the flowin' and costume's will be showin'! Get Up!

While the duck race on Sunday could use some more improvement and spice, it seemed well attended, as was the dog show. Lilly won all the prizes in my mind...well, except "least likely to succeed"...wait, is that a yearbook memory jammed into the dog-show memory neuron? Come on brain, you're the only one I got...I can't get a refund (just think, FrankenCory).

Be well!

Kiss My Glass

Mountain Made hooked it up this past weekend, and while I tried to convince some other locals to drop their commitments to everything and join me for some soft glass lampworking to make glass beads, the workshop was basically empty, minus Mariah from WELD, who had been in the area to shoot video for some Mt. Made promo. That said, Sat. eve and all day Sunday were spent learning to make glass beads.

Glass bead making is possibly some 5,000 years old and there is supposedly sure evidence of it about 4,000 years ago in that good ol' Fertile Crescent.

Our work was done on a mega-tough Barracuda torch. The beads are made on a steel mandrel that is coated with a clay bead release. The fuel used is a mix of kerosene and oxygen. Adding oxygen allows the slame to get much hotter and sharper or pointier, which allows for more precise work....see below. BTW, Mt. Made offers all of these activities as classes or just as personal use, for a fee. The faciility is quite exceptional and the access to materials and tools is top-rate...not bad for Thomas, Dub V!

Most of the glass rods come in single colors, but some, called filigrana, are a bit more interesting in their raw form. Filigrana means a clear rod encasing some colored filaments. It makes for some neat designs since the clear magnifies the color/s beneath it.

Another thing that I learned to do with multiple rods of differing colors was to make what is called latticino, which is basically a candy cane-esque pulled rod that is twisted. It can then be used for many purposes and it looks pretty cool on its own.

Rose B. makes the typical pizza shape that is the base for man a good bead...notice the orange flame makes it hard to see the piece she is working on...but with some good Didymium eye pro that blocks out the UV light....

...she/we can see it better, though slightly purple.

Here is the first step in making a super sick bead, John W. style! Check out his fine website here. He is adding a white base and will do his best to make it symmetrical...this can be done by rolling the hot glass on a graphite paddle, as seen below...

THEN, as if you thought he was just making wanna-be-muy-largo pearl beads, John proceeded to roll the evenly heated glass on the tannish enamel seen below, which is used to help the ultra-thin copper foil adhere correctly to the glass, and show up nicely.

After the foil is adhered, the bead is again heated to a lovely red-orange and then some silver foil is added. It needs no enamel and forms a speckled effect since the metal coagulates, unlike the copper, which makes an overall greenish color anywhere it is applied...like a rusty penny!

The bead is heated up h-h-hot and then rolled in silver foil...you can barely see the deep green color that formed from the enameled copper...

after some touch-up the bead is clamped to make a nice finished product, well, almost finished. First it must be put into a small kiln to be annealed, or slowly cooled to relieve the immense pressure that builds up when the bead is worked. Without that crucial step, even a slight temperature change can caue the bead to crack or shatter, and then tiny bits of glass get all up in yo' grill...and that sucks. So anneal it!

Here you see the kiln filled with (recently annealed) beads. The beads are left on the mandrels until they are cool enough to to remove, clean, and file if you suck at making "dimples" on the ends. Good dimples require no filing. I filed most of mine!

All of these beads were done with the metal leaf...notice the small silver specks on the top right on lower left beads? Neato...after I split Hypno I must finish some beads that were left...can't wait to see the final product! Maybe I'll post more pics if they are any good....

Sheena, Lilly, my mother and I spent some time yesterday tidying up White Grass for some folks using the building this weekend. While it could be likened to a spider ghetto of sorts, all the webslinger's hard work was obliterated quickly with the use of brooms and a shop-vac. Sorry spideys, no Ahimsa here...

Earthy...

This is the pre-mop phase....but mostly cobweb free.

The local phenomenon known as Ride at 5 (five) has been relatively unattended by yours truly for some time since Hypno hired me. Alas, the ebb and flow of patrons at the vessel is begginging to ebb, allowing me to ride and not work...well, that works...for a time.

JR rips it, and makes time to wave while approaching Moon Rocks...he is fun to try to keep up with, and I get the feeling he was taking it eeeeeasy last night. That said, I did alright with my old Trek Klunker and I've been looking into some clipless pedal set-up to maximize the crank-factor. Yo Nick W., what size shoe do you wear?

Sheena nearing completion of the strange treahery that can be Moon Rocks. The leaves are changing foast up here folks! Although reports have said that Motown is all green? That's what some 2,000 feet of elevation can do. Leaf Peeper's festival is next weekend, the 25th-27th.

Ah, Moon Rocks and commentary...