Joel and I enjoy listening to Garrison Keillor. Had he been with us this week I believe he would have summed it up like this: It’s been a slow week here in Woodworth, Louisiana, my hometown, out on the banks of Bayou Clear Creek. It’s been hot…heat index has been over a hundred. The humidity has been terrible…so bad that if you pressed a tea bag to your lips and sucked air, you could save yourself from messing up a cup.

So, I pretty much stayed inside. I did make it to the scrap iron yard one day. And a couple of mornings I fired up ‘Isaac’,

but I had to do that before daylight. I don’t have all I need to do much blacksmith work, nor have I developed the skills, so I just practiced regulating the forge, and bent some of the steel that I heated up. Then, I took the pieces and

welded them together, along with some old copper pipe, to make an abstract sculpture.

I worked some in the evenings

but I wore shorts and a leather apron. It was still HOT.

Yesterday, a front came through and it was somewhat cooler, so I decided to work on some metal angels in hopes that they might sell for Christmas.

When I get them finished, each one will be mounted in a piece of stone. That will mean a trip to the stone yard, and that is always fun.

This morning it was fifty-eight degrees…FINALLY! After church, we all ate lunch on the front porch. That was nice. At any rate, that’s the news from Woodworth, Louisiana, where the goats ride golf carts, the chickens roam free, and the grandkids bathe in the yard.

I ALMOST FORGOT! I need to give you the results from the “Cast your vote” post. There was actually a tie…so I chose on the basis of what some of you said. I chose jazz because, even though some of you preferred the bluegrass sound, you thought that the jazz instruments would be more interesting to create. I’m collecting stuff now, and will start construction soon. So, to all of you who voted…THANKS!