What a Mess

Our woods are a nature and water reserve which means that there is no commercial use of the wood. Trees that have fallen or are at risk of killing people are just cleared off the paths and left to rot, which means that you get to see decay in a way you really get to see in our tidy, tended to world.

It’s also wonderful for loot for crafting…

©Giliell, all rights reserved
I love you, too

They also offer space for animals, like those ants. I discovered them when I wanted to place my resin stuff on the top to take pics. I decided against it.

Friday Feathers: A New Sighting

Seeing a new bird is always exciting. I knew we had black woodpeckers in the forest by their characteristic sound, but I had never seen one, so you can understand my excitement upon spotting one in the trees. The pics are taken at probably 70m distance, but do click for full size to see the fellow a little better.

Wednesday Wings: That’s it, I move to Portugal

Nightjar hasn’t only been teasing us with her gorgeous pics of sunlight and flowers, now she’s doing it with the birds as well.

She writes: This male Sardinian Warbler is a frequent visitor to the corner of the garden in front of my bedroom’s window, the reason being evident in two of these photos: apparently, Sprenger’s asparagus berries are delicious.

Mould Making

Yesterday we saw the birth of a couple of little Mermaids, today it’s two steps back in the process: mould making.

I have long wanted some more natural looking moulds and with the mermaid moulds being so frustrating I finally decided to use the materials Marcus sent me last year.

I’ll only show the process for the pebbles, but describe the squares as well.

While you can embed almost everything into silicone, if you want a mould that creates shiny resin pieces, your positive has to be smooth as a baby’s butt, so my first step was to cover some pebbles and pieces of wood in resin.

The problem with the wood was that the cut sides soaked up the resin, staying rough, so I decided to cover the whole thing again the next day. This times the sides became smooth, but the resin decided not to stick to itself on the top…

After I covered my pieces in resin I created the “mould box”. Marcus made those four pieces you can clamp to each other, allowing for variable sizes. You just need to put some putty into the cracks to seal it, something that worked well here, but not that well with the wood pieces, so I drowned my kitchen table in silicone and then had to somehow scoop it up again because I didn’t have enough to replace it.

The resin had created a flat foot on the pebbles that I worked a little with sanding paper, so i could put the flat on the surface and pour the silicone on top with little worries that they’d rise to the top…

All poured, now wait…

This is the mould with the pebbles still inside. They came out nice and clean and I

really like that mould. Now for trying it out…

The green one on the right was a different mould, one where I tried to make all round pieces. Those still need some working on.

You can see that they’re really glossy while also really pebble-irregular.

The square ones are fine for making pieces that you sand down, but due to the issues with the resin not that nice and clean. Afterwards I remembered that Marcus had once sent me a “book club” block that would have made a nice clean mould…

I also tried some small globe shaped moulds, which still need some tinkering, so the next time I need to order resin I’ll also order some more silicon.

A Day at the Zoo: The Birds of Prey

Our last instalment in this series is one of the highlights of our zoo visits: the birds of prey.

We were missing Norbert, our gigantic vulture, and the bad news is that he won’t return, but the good news is that this is for the wonderful reason that he has found a mate.

[Read more…]

The Plural of Mermaid is Moremaids

After the little mermaid in the last craft post, I decided to use that idea some more and insert them into landscapes.

To do that you need some larger moulds and tools to shape the result afterwards. I built my single use moulds with thin wood and popsickle sticks, lining them with tape. This worked half- well.

One came out quite nice and shiny, which was lucky, but the other one not so much, which meant sanding. To give you an idea what that means here’s a series of pics demonstarting the process:

This is after sanding with a 120 grid to make the surface even.

[Read more…]

Happy International Women’s Day. No chocolates, though

Because I hat the comodification and commercialisation of a day that reminds us of the struggles past and those of the future.

Instead you get Angela Davis at the Women’s March:

No human being is illegal.

“The struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for social justice.

“This is a women’s march and this women’s march represents the promise of feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. And inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation.

“…We dedicate ourselves to collective resistance. Resistance to the billionaire mortgage profiteers and gentrifiers. Resistance to the health care privateers. Resistance to the attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. Resistance to attacks on disabled people. Resistance to state violence perpetrated by the police and through the prison industrial complex. Resistance to institutional and intimate gender violence, especially against trans women of color.

“Women’s rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say freedom and justice for Palestine. We celebrate the impending release of Chelsea Manning. And Oscar López Rivera. But we also say free Leonard Peltier. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free Assata Shakur.

“Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.

A Day at the Zoo 16: Motley Crew

Assorted animals living in the zoo. Not all of them are “kept” there, except by the good food sources.

Spring Came for a Visit

Last week the weather was all sunshine and wonder. Today it’s rain and storm, many carnival parades have been cancelled already. So let’s go back to flowers and sunshine.

[Read more…]

A Day at the Zoo 15: A Different Kind of Tit Picture

Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Our orang utans are doing their best to help with the species conservation, although they demonstrated well that humans can’t plan everything. About 12 years ago a mature orang utan lady and her daughter moved in, hoping that the lady would breed with our male. Turned out the female adult was pregnant already, surprising everybody with a baby in summer. But even after the baby was grown quite a bit, the lady told the dude in no certain terms that he could stuff his dick into the meat grinder or she’d do that for him.

He waited a few years until the daughter had matured and then successfully mated with her, having several kids. He got sent to a different zoo last year to see if could keep up his good work in the conservation of this wonderful species.

A Day at the Zoo 14: I don’t know if any of them is called Alvin

Chinese chipmunks, also known as cute overload.

I love those little tufts on the ears, so much like tiny horns.

And a grey chipmunk that inhabits the ground of the enclosure. It was not chilled out as the other one.

A Day at the Zoo 13: Budgie does as Budgie can

There’s a walk in aviary with budgies, many of them happy to say hello to the visitors (the zoo provides feed you can give them). The keepers probably spend a lot of time checking for escapes, but some of them always do, although they also seem to return as soon as it gets dark and cold. Except for this little fellow, who has decided to move out permanently and make its home in the wooden beams of the aviary. Literally. It seems like the keepers have just decided to let it go as an example of how wild budgies nest.

[Read more…]

BBC: Badly Behaved Cranes

Every spring and autumn, the cranes pass our little neck of the woods. And every spring and autumn I look out for them, but usually they’re so early or late in the day, that it’s hard to spot them, flying in their majestic V form, but today they were here at around 11 o’clock and my camera was ready.

Of course they did not show their typical pattern, but I think the shots are pretty nevertheless (I had to do a bit of post production, but I swear it did not involve copypasting crane silhouettes). Do click for full size.

[Read more…]

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Origami: Spike Dome

What a Mess

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Friday Feathers: A New Sighting

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Wednesday Wings: That’s it, I move to Portugal

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Mould Making

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A Day at the Zoo: The Birds of Prey

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The Plural of Mermaid is Moremaids

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Happy International Women’s Day. No chocolates, though

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A Day at the Zoo 16: Motley Crew

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Spring Came for a Visit

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BBC: Badly Behaved Cranes

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