Surrounded by Rocks: An Exploration Series, Introduction and Chapter 1

Nightjar has been working hard on a new series for us which is making its debut today. We’ll be posting a new chapter every other day, which will include weekends, so be sure to check in often because you won’t want to miss a single post. The first chapter is about trees which makes Tuesday the right day to begin, so I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy exploring a bit of Portugal with Nightjar.

Introduction

This series was inspired by both Ice Swimmer’s “Harakka Island” series (starting here)  and a post by rq on the Macedonian rocks that made her homesick, here. . I have no islands nearby to visit but I do have hills with rocks. In fact, I live between two hills that are very different from each other and both mean a lot to me, bringing childhood memories of fossil and rock hunting with my family and childhood friends. I do not go up the hills as often as I used to, but they really aren’t far from home and an afternoon is more than enough to explore one of them. In a November afternoon I went East and had fun among limestone. In a December afternoon I went West and had fun among phyllites and quartz. And yes, my pockets were heavy on my way back home. I can’t resist it. But let’s start our journey… let’s go East! [Read more…]

Sunshine and Rainbows

A magical double rainbow from Jazzlet.

“This is the view from my bedroom window, lovely isn’t it? It’s a bit deceptive, you can’t see that beyond the end of the garden there is a steep slope down to a field, which is where we most often walk the dogs, beyond that is the Peak Forest Canal, then a local railway line – you can see that if you know where to look. The real deception though is the way it appears that we live in the country, when we live in a suburb, but like many northern cities there are fingers of countryside that reach into the urban area, and we are lucky enough to live on the edge of one of those fingers. When I’m on my laptop typing comments I’m in the room below our bedroom, the view isn’t quite as good as it’s blocked by our extension and by our neighbour’s enormous hedge on the left, and by the other neighbour’s conservatory on the right, but it’s still pretty amazing. The valley runs north/south and we can often see the weather blowing up it, maybe sheets of rain, sometimes the valley fills with mist and looks as if it’s boiling up before spilling over into the garden, occasionally the cloud drops right down and we can’t see to the end of the garden, let alone Top O’ The Hill. Yes that wee hill is known as Top O’ The Hill.”

 

©Jazzlet, all rights reserved

Breathtaking. Thanks for sharing Jazzlet.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland: part 7

A few final images of the Winter Wonderland. It is long gone now, being more of a brown yucky marshland now (I love our woods, but right now the smell of the stale water is often not too nice).

Needle ice


©Giliell, all rights reserved
More needle ice

frozen berries


©Giliell, all rights reserved
Frozen berries

frozen plants

©Giliell, all rights reserved

frozen plants


©Giliell, all rights reserved

iciles


©Giliell, all rights reserved

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved
If the birds don’t cooperate, rely on the trees.

The last one is an interesting one. I did not get the bird I was trying to shoot, but I ended up with a damn interesting picture.

tree


©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

 

Making Kitchen Knives – Part 10 – Shaping the Outlines

I have not forgotten or discontinued this project, only when it is cold I have to first heat up my workshop before doing any work – which wastes a lot of fuel and a lot of time. Therefore in winter I never manage to do as much work as I would like to. But I managed to do something in the last two months – like building the tumbler (that has run for five days straight by now btw. and it has made a very nice satin finish on the broken blade).

But I could not do much actual work on the knives themselves, because first I must focus on making the necessary improvements. I managed only one step in the process and one failed improvement in the next one.

The step that I have managed with success is shaping the outline of the blades. Last time I ended up with three stacks of blanks held together with screws. So I took them to the belt grinder and ground the outline of all three stacks. After that I disassembled the stacks and cleaned up any irregularities, burrs etc.

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

I ended up with a stack of 12 knife blanks. They are not all identical, but in three shapes – next time I will have to think a bit more about how to get reliably reproducible results. To save my self trouble when cutting the handle scales I have marked the blanks in each group on the tang with letters T, V and X. Why these letters? Because they are easily distinguishable from each other and can be scratched with just two lines.

This step was not actually very time-consuming before – just 10 minutes per blade, or 1, 55% of the whole process. Theoretically not worth improving. But I hope that having three groups of four reasonably identical handles will save me some time when shaping the handle – which took 110 minutes per handle, or 17% of the whole process.

Nevertheless, shaping four blades at once did bring some minor time-saving in itself – I have spent only 5 minutes per blade now, so I have saved 5 minutes from my process. This has confirmed that this was indeed low hanging fruit – it was a very easy improvement.

Next step is basic grind of the blade – and this is where I have my first failed attempt at improvement to share in my next post.

Early winter wildflowers

Something special from Nightjar,

These photos are my new year gift to you and also to everyone at Affinity currently dealing with a dull winter. The mild Portuguese winter is, as you can see, full of life and colour, and even if I can’t share the sun and temperatures with you I can at least share the sights. I hope they bring you some happiness.

Coincya sp. (I think), ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

 

Chickweed (Stellaria sp.), ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Daisy (Chameleon fuscatum), ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Fumaria muralis, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Fumaria muralis, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Thank you, Nightjar. My winter remains dull and your flowers are a welcome gift.

 

Speaking of Gratitude…

Beautiful, delicious and all gone.

A few days ago I posted about the resin horse that Giliell sent me, but I didn’t tell you about the rest of the package. Giliell also sent me a box of home-made cookies and, Oh My but they were good. It doesn’t show up well in the photo, but the chocolate cookies were dusted with gold. The waffers come from a recipe of Giliell’s grandmother and they were so pretty. The ‘S’ shaped cookies are just like the ones my German grandmother made and they brought me a flood of warm, happy memories from childhood.

Origami and a pair of adorable llamas

There were lots of other surprises too. Origami ornaments and a pair of adorable llamas. Ha! Not just on the card, but the whole damn llama stamp set. What a great idea.

Look! I can make llama art.

Birds are just so Affinity and they don’t come with more personality than these 2 fellows.

Birds of a feather to keep me company.

I saved the best for last. Giliell has made me an undersea world in a bottle, which I love. It’s madly creative and also came with a flood of memories, this time of my happy place by The Gulf of St. Lawrence on the beach in Perce.

An undersea adventure world.

Giliell, you’re incredibly talented and I thank you so much for the treasures. To all of you who’ve seen Giliell’s wonderful baking, I can tell you it tastes as good as it looks.

 

 

Everything’s Coming Up Rainbows

Well, maybe not everything is coming up rainbows, but a rainbow does seem like a pretty damned fine way to start the new year and thanks to Lofty I can make that happen. This photo

goes back to the end of our southern winter, the best season for bike riding in the rain shadow side of our little mountain range.

Absolutely breathtaking, Lofty. Thanks.©Lofty, all rights reserved

So, Welcome 2019. May this rainbow set the tone for things to come.

 

Bird of Paradise

I think that every week should start with flowers. They’re cheerful and they have the power to make you stop for a second or two and maybe even take a deep breath before heading into a new week. Our flowers on this Monday come from DavidinOz and they are indeed breathtaking.

Bird of Paradise and Sturt Desert Pea. The pea is the Floral emblem of South Australia. SA exports a lot of flowers, but we cannot sell the desert pea to Japan as the Japanese think the “eye” is watching them.

Thanks David. We all appreciate the blast of colour and cheer.

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

©David Brindley, all rights reserved