Degupdate: Lady Grace of the Lost Toes

You know that we’ve been having lots of worries with our newest degu, Gracie. A new degu needs to be integrated into a group carefully, as they are very territorial. If you just put a new degu into a habitat, the result will often be a dead degu, so we separated Candy and Estelle from Gracie by means of a fence between their part of the habitat and Gracie’s. That way they can see, smell and hear each other and get used to each other.

A couple of days after Grace moved in, I found her foot bleeding with what we thought was a torn claw. Our breeder assured us that this was a common injury acquired while playing and no need for worries. A few days later another foot was hurt and I thought “hmmm, maybe the fence has an unsafe place?” and yes, since everything there is made from leftover material, the new fence wasn’t sitting plain, which created a narrowing gap where she could get stuck with her feet. I fixed that by adding another piece of wood in front, and it looked like it worked, but then came another injury. I was both worried as well as puzzled. Was there yet another gap where she could injure herself? Did she maybe hurt herself because she was still not integrated into the group, like we may bite nails? I contacted our breeder again and she didn’t have any more ideas either. I was about to go out and buy another cage and possibly another degu to start a second group for poor Gracie when I finally found out what happened: Whenever her feet had mostly healed, Grace would go to the fence that separates them and climb there. Then Candy would come and bite her feet, and because those incisors are sharp as hell, she’d take off the first knuckle. That way poor Gracie lost several toes. But at least now we knew what was happening and I put up another fence on the other side so Candy cannot reach Grace at all. Whenever Candy and Estelle are out, we have to put a piece of wood in front of Gracie’s door so Candy cannot reach her there.

It looks like Grace is finally healing, and I still love Candy to death (can’t blame a degu for being a degu), but I really could do with some good developments here. I’m still keeping them separated until Grace has fully healed and then we’ll have to see. Currently there seem to be two possibilities: Either they do finally get used to each other, or I’ll have to start a second group. I will also probably have to make the habitat more accessible for Gracie, because I don’t think she’ll be able to climb as well as the others with basically half a front paw missing. I feel bad about her having lost those toes while under our care, but I swear to the Great Degu, I always did my best. Anyway, she’s cute, and active, and curious. She grows and her fur is shiny and sleek, so I think she will grow up a strong degu.

©Giliell, all rights reserved
Gracie, being sneaky

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved She’s pretty trusting with us, but the pea chips were not enough to lure her closer

©Giliell, all rights reserved But she found a nut. You can see the missing toe on the hind paw pretty well here. She can still use her front paws to hold food, obviously, and doesn’t seem very bothered by her injuries.

 

Estelle, btw, is an absolutely chill degu by now. I think she has realised that she has a warm, safe home, always enough food, and doesn’t care at all about her place in the pecking order. Here’s her and Candy running in the running wheel.

It’s Founder’s Day

Today would have been Caine’s birthday, and we’d like to celebrate it by officially designating the day as Founder’s Day here at Affinity. Caine started this blog in July of 2016, and her witty, insightful and eloquent writing coupled with her artistic talent, made the blog instantly appealing and quickly beloved. Her birthday seems like the right day to celebrate her legacy and all the gifts she shared with us. We decided as a team that we would celebrate today with a collection of photos that remind us of Caine. We hope you enjoy them and encourage you to share your memories of Caine in the comments section.

Note: This post has been updated to add 2 photographs that I missed from rq.

From Charly,

I remember Caine whenever I pick up my camera because she introduced me to photography and bird watching. By publishing my amateurish pictures, giving them platform and having nothing but kind words about them, she gave me motivation to go out and do something at a time when I was suffering from heavy depression, and doing anything at all was difficult. 
 
I have always admired her ability to make the most beautiful and interesting pictures by photographing the most ordinary things. So I took my camera today and I went in the garden to take pictures of completely ordinary things. Not arranging or changing anything, just pointing and clicking. I think I went a bit overboard and I cannot decide which of these are best to publish. They all remind me of Caine in one way or another – the bird-pecked sunflower, the late dandelion, the thorny hawthorn, the rough patterns on an old chopping block… All ordinary things, but each unique and beautiful.

Apple, ©Charly, all rights reserved

Fall leaves,©Charly, all rights reserved

Dandelion fluff,©Charly, all rights reserved

Firebrick pile,©Charly, all rights reserved

Firewood pile,©Charly, all rights reserved

Hawthorn,©Charly, all rights reserved

Sunflower,©Charly, all rights reserved

Strawberry patch,©Charly, all rights reserved

Sidewalk,©Charly, all rights reserved

Rubbish,©Charly, all rights reserved

Rotting Wood,©Charly, all rights reserved

Moss Garden,©Charly, all rights reserved

Lonely plant,©Charly, all rights reserved

From Giliell,

Caine taught me to look at things, really look at them. Oh, she loved the grand, spectacular shots, but she also had an amazing eye for the small things, the things people would just walk by, but that are also just as beautiful.

©Giliell, all rights reserved. Dimensions

©Giliell, all rights reserved. A fleeting moment in time

©Giliell, all rights reserved. Tree bark

©Giliell, all rights reserved. A fairy castle

©Giliell, all rights reserved. Colours. Two varieties of the same plant

 

 I am very sure that Caine would have loved our resident rodents. She just loved all creatures. She showed me that you needn’t be religious or believe in anything supernatural to feel a deep, spiritual connection with the world around you.

©Giliell, all rights reserved. Candy in paradise

©Giliell, all rights reserved. Estelle loves running

From rq,

Daffodils in the snow ©rq, all rights reserved.

Because Caine loved daisies ©rq, all rights reserved.

the hoverfly because flowers + insects and the spring’s first dandelion will be along soon ©rq, all rights reserved.

From Voyager,

I find it hard to put into words the way that Caine impacted my life. Much like Charly, I was in a bad place when I started blogging here. I’d been sick for years and struggling, but Caine believed in me and was endlessly supportive during a time when her own life was full of pain and turmoil. That support helped me redefine myself as something besides being chronically ill and this beautiful blog that she bequeathed to us continues to nurture me. I thank her for the gift of seeing the beauty in common things and for allowing me to become a part of the wonderful community that she created.

My boy Jack who started it all ©voyager, all rights reserved.

A touch of red ©voyager, all rights reserved.

My favourite cathedral ©voyager, all rights reserved.

Frog pond in colour ©voyager, all rights reserved.

Jack doing what he loves best ©voyager, all rights reserved.

A bit of reflection,©voyager, all rights reserved

Fire on the water©voyager, all rights reserved.

 

Whinge, Knives, Whinge

It took me four months to finish the batch of knives that I started in July. I have documented every hour that I have worked on knives, and the results are not good. I have only managed to work about 20 hours a week. Plus some hours that I have not counted, like when I was making new tools, repairing or improving them, etc.

Please allow me to whine a bit about the causes of that.

I either have chronic fatigue or I am a chronic hypochondriac. I am reluctant to go to a physician right now, partly because of the ongoing pandemic and partly because of last year when after several months of pain, I never got a conclusive diagnosis – and the pain only subsided after a course of steroids that I got for a really bad but unrelated virus (possibly flu) that snuck up on me right before Covid hit Europe. So I am not all too optimistic about our GP being able to help me with this.

I have been more or less tired ever since that possible flu. You remember that short walk in the forest in August when I brought home two full shopping bags of ‘shrooms? It took me three days to get over that, and one of those days my legs hurt so much I was barely able to go to the loo. After just several hours of hand-sanding knife handles my back and hands hurt for two days. Etc. etc. ad nauseam. Add to that the necessity to spend time carting my parents to/from doctors, stacking firewood to the cellar, caring for my trees, and the result is that I do a lot less work than I want to.

I have never seen the point of exercise because my body never reacted to it the way other people’s bodies seem to. I did get stronger, but only in relation to my starting point. In high school, when I could exercise under professional supervision free of charge, after months of work I was barely getting just below the level where my schoolmates have started. This year is that – only worse. I am not going exactly downhill, but just barely. Plus my hands started to hurt again two weeks ago. With the sun gone, I have at least looked at what safe dose of Vitamin D I can take in supplements and I am taking that because it seems to help a bit.

Whining over. I hope it gets better. At least it is not getting worse.

The last knives I have finished are four universal kitchen knives from a batch of five blades. One of those blades was not suitably hardened after all- near the tang was about 2 cm soft part. I do not need to toss it, but I do need to try and quench it again with the next project.

These are a bit heavier and thicker (3mm) than my previous knives of this type because they are made from what was left over from the slabs for chef knives. I have also changed the geometry of the handle a bit – instead of a rounded rectangular profile it has a rounded trapezoid profile. They are also about 2-4 mm thinner overall and 5 mm thinner and shorter at the front to better allow a choked-up grip with thumb and index finger on the blade. And they are pointy this time.

One knife has the handle from apricot wood and I have tried tubular pins filled with the same wood. I think it looks good and I will use that idea in the future again.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Two knives have the handles from pickled black locust. It is perfidious wood, in the future, I have to be more careful – the scales were probably not fully dried when I ground them to final size and they shrunk on me a tiny bit when I was finishing the surface with resin. So the tang does exceed the handles a tiny bit. That can happen due to a bad shaping job too, but that was not this case – they were perfectly flush originally, I swear. Lesson learned I have to put this wood in the oven for an hour or so before glue-up and grinding the outline. Now I can forget the lesson before finishing the next batch.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

And last was fitted with padauk wood that I have again got for free with steel shipment. A prime example that there really is no need to use tropical woods, it does not look that much better than the black locust.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Knives are a bugger to shoot, I will have to build myself some better lighting system. Either the blade is over-exposed, or the handle is under-exposed, or the colors are off, or all three.

If you are interested in knife making, on Sunday I will start a detailed series about my next knife-making project. Not because I am qualified, but because I want to.

Brass Chisel

I made a new tool. I do not know whether someone else is already using it in a knife-making context, I would not be surprised if it were so. But I never heard anyone talk about it – a small chisel made from brass. I think it is a very good addition to my toolbox, well worth the ten minutes or so that I have spent making it. The inspiration were tools that I was using in my previous job to clean burnt plastic off of various testing devices.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

This may sound like a joke tool, akin to the inflatable dartboard, chocolate kettle, or ceramic rivets, but it is not. But why would anyone make a chisel out of a soft material like brass, that will not hold an edge?

I am glad you asked.

When making knives with the use of epoxy glues and resin, an inevitable problem arises – epoxy stuck to places it should not be stuck to. I am always doing my best to clean any rogue epoxy from the bolster/blade boundary etc before it hardens with a towel soaked in denatured alcohol, but the epoxy tends to flow and bleed over during curing too, plus there is often some contamination on the blade where I fail to spot it in time. That needs to be scraped off, very carefully, without damaging the blade surface.

With my last batch of knives, I have used with great success a square piece of brass, so for the last few pieces, I ground it roughly into a chisel shape and fixed it to a handle. And it works great, exactly as it is supposed to work.

There are several reasons for using brass and not other materials like alluminium or mild steel:

  1. Brass is harder than epoxy, resin or wood, but softer than even unhardened steel. So it can be used to scrape the glue off steel not only on the blade but also on the tang, without damaging the polished surfaces.
  2. Unlike alluminium, Brass does not come with a hard-oxide layer from the shop, neither does it form one over time. It forms a patina, but that patina is not hard enough to scratch steel. Alluminium does scratch steel, partly due to the oxide layer, partly due to galling. Ditto mild steel.
  3. Brass is one of several so-called non-galling alloys, but alluminium is a strongly galling metal. That means that brass does not lead to wear and tear when it slides on a steel surface, whereas alluminium will tend to contaminate, even if not necessarily scratch (if you remove the oxide layer beforehand thoroughly), steel on contact.

And thats all, folks. If you need to scrape glue off of polished surfaces, a brass chisel might be just the tool for you.