Progress

I poured another batch of resin last night.

I stirred it, and I stirred it, and then I stirred it some more and it went much better.

First you can see my prepared wood pieces. I wrapped some laminated foil around them and secured it with tape. That was a good idea.

Wooden dowels

Beech and fir, broken off and wrapped.
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My workspace all set up before the pouring. I used the little cups from a sweet to dye some resin.

work surface with equipment for resin

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That’s waht it looked like afterwards

Messy workspace

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Oh, wait, did you want to see the results?

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#Unteilbar

People at a demonstratiopn at night

Source: Tagesschau

Unteilbar, adjective, German: inseparable.

Sometimes, there are good news, things that give you hope. Yesterday such a thing happened. In Berlin (and other cities), people protested against racism, xenophobia and attenpts to split society along ethnic, national and religious lines, against Nazis and in favour of rescuing refugees. It was a broad alliance of parties, churches, organisations, unions prominent people*. The organisers had hoped for and registered the demonstration for 40.000 people. Those 40.000 people came and brought 200.000 more along with them.

But today there’s a general election happening in Bavaria, the Texas of Germany. Let’s see what happens there.

 

*The conservative party explicitly did not support it because of “radical left wing organisations”, which they’ll keep complaining about until the moment they themselves will be prohibited as such.

Verschlimmbessern

Verschlimmbessern, verb, German: Making something worse by trying to improve it.

I tried to somehow righten the mistakes I made with the first bracelet, but instead made matters worse, though I think it would have come to this eventually anyway. But I learned quite some things.

bracelet with matte top

Cut off top section

bracelet

Sticky front

I tried to cut off the sticky top section, round the edges and then polish it up to shine again. This didn’t work well for several reasons.

Most importantly:  If your resin didn’t cure properly, there’s not a lot you can do. Reflect on what you did wrong. Do better next time.

The soft spots were all over, and when I cut off the top, the fine dust stuck to the soft spots and made them matte. And since the whole thing isn’t as hard as it should be, it moved quite a lot so the resin and the stones separated in places, leaving more matte spots.

Another lesson: you cannot get around very fine wet sanding paper. All my mats and polishing stuff were still way too coarse to make it shine again. This will be very important since one of the projects that I’ve planned involves makeshift moulds* and requires grinding and polishing.

*Resin Obsession can speak many words to the wise about not being too ambitious in the beginning, but nobody ever accused me of being wise.

Friday Feathers

This week’s Friday Feathers come from Nightjar who writes this:

 

These sanderlings briefly landed in front of me during a relaxed walk on the beach, understandably I was not carrying the 500mm lens with me. I took these with the 50mm, and then I cropped and cropped some more, and then I pretended I meant to compose the images like this all along because sand and seawater are pretty too. :D

I completely agree that the composition IS beautiful and I sympathise with “if only I had the other lens”. I am wondering, are sanderlings related to starlings?

Sanderlings on the beach

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Sanderlings on beach

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Sanderlings on beach

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

 

Tummy Thursday: Plum Liqueur

This week’s recipe comes thanks to kestrel. Hmmm, too bad we don’t have plums this year. I’ll let kestrel take over:

This time of year I am overrun with plums and like to find ways to take advantage of the bounty. Way back in 1984 I got this recipe from a friend, and over the years I’ve tweaked it a bit to make it more to my own satisfaction. I want to let people know that one of the first things I did was to cut the amount of sugar in the original recipe in half! If having LOTS of sugar is important to you, remember that you could double my amount and still be in line with the original recipe.

Ingredients and tools needed

Very neat setup

ere I have all the things I’ll need to make plum liqueur: plums, spices, empty jars, brandy and sugar. This is the basic recipe:

1 1/2 pounds (680 grams) plums
3/4 cup (255 grams) sugar
12 cloves
Piece of cinnamon stick
750 ml plain brandy

The original recipe called for vodka, but I felt it was not as smooth as I like when finished, I think brandy gives a better taste.

cut plums

Destoning plums. Probably everybody’s least favourite part…

Start out by cutting the plums in half and removing the pits. If you are busy, what you can do instead is take a fork and pierce the skins to the pits, in five or six places on each plum. That will work just fine and is a lot faster.

plums in a mason jar

Looks good already

This is a half-gallon (1.89 liter) jar. I’ve put in plums, 3/4 cup (255 grams) of sugar, plus the spices.
the jars are filled with brandy now

No, don’t think about it

Now I’ve put the 750 ml of brandy in the jar. Put the lid on securely, and shake the jar. Shake it for a minute, wait, shake a bit more, until the sugar is more or less dissolved.
closed jars

I’m not going to wait those three months, whatever kestrel says

After 24 hours, you can already see the wonderful color developing. Leave the jar(s) on your counter, giving them a shake now and then. This is the hard part: wait three months (I know, it’s very hard to wait so long!) and then strain the contents into a jar. By then it will be a lovely deep purple color. Not only is this nice for sipping on a cold winter evening sitting by the fire, it also makes a nice base for a stir fry. It’s a wonderful gift for the holidays; use a fancy pen to write up the recipe, put the plum liqueur in a decorative bottle, and there you have a memorable and welcome gift.

I only have one question: Would it not be easier to dissolve the sugar in the brandy first so you don’t have to shake the whole jars?

When in doubt rely on Marcus

I’ve been in a bit of personal debate recently about whether or not to get me some sort of starter kit to cast things in resin, with the arguments in pro being that you can create beautiful stuff, and those in contra being that I already have half a house full of crafting supplies.

The argument was resolved nicely when one of Marcus’ boxes of wonder arrived this week which included everything you need to get started, including the proper gloves (not pictured).

Crafting supplies to cast things in resin

Oooohhhhhhh…

You can see the resin, moulds, colours, glitter, some of Marcus’ gorgeous abalone shells, some dried and coloured flowers and even gold leaf, which peasant me almost spilled on the floor because peasant me had no idea what it was. I’m not sure about those rectangles, I guess they are a work surface for mixing small amounts with colour.

Of course I couldn’t wait to get started. I thought that this would be a great way to use our “mermaid tears” that we collected at the beach.

resin bracelet with colourful driftglass

Very first bracelet

As you can see it’s not perfect yet. I think I didn’t stir the mixture for long enough and my ratio was probably a bit off. Also the pieces all sunk to the bottom. I think I need to cast something like this is two or three sittings, which will probably test my patience a lot.  But I’ve also got a lot of ideas already.

Thank you very much, Marcus. You’re definitely at least as crazy as me, but I love you all the more for it.

Water is Life

In memory of Caine, who taught me much about the value of our surroundings and the value of water, and to celebrate Indigenous People Day, because Indigenous People all over the world have to fight for their water, against the black snake of oil and fracking, against the industries that use it as a throw away article, against the companies that will take people’s water and then sell it back to them in bottles..

I am very privileged to life in a beautiful place where I can probably say hello to tonight’s drinking water by taking a walk in the morning. This morning I took that walk and took pictures of the water here.

Blue sign water reserve

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The sign telling you that this is a protected water reserve

 

Water among reeds

Small and sparkling in the sun.
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Slowly meandering between the trees
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Muddy path with water

A footpath with stakes to walk on.
I live in a swamp, that’s why I’m always bogged down.
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Water with reflection of trees

Mirror, mirror…
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Fountain with a dragonfly mosaik

And finally, should the humans get thirsty, there is a wonderful fountain. You cannot see the actual nozzle, because it’s quite deep, but the water is always fresh and delicious. ©Giliell, all rights reserved

Thank goodness he found the culprit!

Pope Francis

Source: Wikimedia

Remember when “liberals” praised Pope Francis for being so progressive? Our lovely progressive Pope had to deal with some nasty issues like priests massively raping kids for decades and of course he promised to do whatever he can. So you’ll be glad to hear that he’s found the culprit.

The Devil.

Yes, you heard right. The Devil. The literal horns and hooves devil, who did it to undermine the Roman Catholic Church.  Oh, wait, did you think that the abused children were the victims here? You could not be more wrong! The real victim here is the church.

What an elegant way to absolve your horrible abusive institution from all the moral blame, especially those poor priest who were obviously under satanic influence.

Teacher’s Corner: I hate parents

Obligatory #not all parents, but if you’re one of those I don’t hate, we probably hate the same people.

I basically have two types of special needs kids: kids with learning difficulties and kids with socio-emotional difficulties. The later group can basically be divided into three groups: kids whose issues stem from their environment and past, kids whose issues are medical (ADHS, autism spectrum, …) and both. Which is why I hate parents.

With this new system of inclusive teaching we can do a lot for these kids. We can give them leeway in a way that wasn’t possible, often with me acting as a calming influence, taking them out of the context that is causing the conflict, spending the time somewhere else. Some kids write their tests alone with me in a room because for them it’s important to keep talking. That way they don’t disturb their classmates and don’t have to waste their energy on keeping quiet.

Those things are great, but they are only ONE part of a complex issue. I am not a psychiatrist, I cannot prescribe drugs. I’m not a therapist, I cannot do behavioural therapies or talk therapies or whatever*. And most importantly, I cannot change their homes. Some parents will simply refuse to see how big their kid’s issues are. We’ve got one mother who is convinced that her son is a little genius. He scored 122 points in one subtest of an IQ test! Sure, he refused the parts where he was expecting to perform poorly, and even if you believe in IQ tests, 122 isn’t exactly a genius, especially not when it’s that one peak. She therefore firmly believes that her son isn’t actually a kid with the emotional development of a three year old who is still suffering from the abuse that happened to him as a three year old. Her son is just way too smart for us and plays with us. She also believes that she can tell us how to run the school. Charming.

Another mother’s hobby is to threaten the teacher, because her darling innocent boy whom I saw chasing another kid through the school building and had to physically prevent from hurting that kid badly is being unfairly picked on.

And then there are the ones who simply don’t care. You implement checklists, systems with rewards, you write into their homework notebooks like every day and they will simply ignore it. The kid hasn’t had a pen to write with for 3 weeks? Who cares?**

All of this makes me very angry. Not because it’s exhausting to deal with those kids. It is, but I get paid for it and in the afternoon I go home. I’m angry because when those kids go home nothing has changed for them. Their chances are getting smaller with every day they’re not getting the support they need and that their parents are denying them, and our hands are bound because without the parents we can’t even get the school psychologist to talk to the kid. And it makes me even more angry when I see how their peers are doing who are getting that support. Surprisingly, often those kids do best who are in group homes because their responsible adults can deal with all of that without having their own lives and decisions challenged. I just wished that parents would leave their own vanity at the door and work for the good of their kids as well.

*Though a big part is actually listening.

 

**Yes, I know many parents in our school are poor. But just giving the kid a bottle of water to drink instead of a soda would both free enough money for a dozen pens a month and do the kid some good.