I’ve finally found resting places for my steel angels.

Some of them stand in stone or steel.

Some hang in frames of wood and steel. And one…

OOPS! Wrong angel. Like I was saying,

one is mounted on a frame of steel and copper. I also came up with

some postcards with my contact information. Now, back to the shop to create more to fill my booth at the artwalk.

Earlier this week, for some reason unbeknownst to me, Fluffy

moved on to Glory. So, I laid him to rest

near the fig tree. That meant that Sassafras would be alone, so today I went to the feed store

and got her a friend.

I think that Coco thought that I had brought her a snack.

Matilda has seen so many rabbits come through here that she could not have cared less.

And Sassafras, well, she didn’t seem to mind….which is good…no hair, teeth and eyeballs flying everywhere. I named him Banjo, and I came home from the feed store with Banjo on my knee.

I have a new ebook. Look to the right side of the blog where the shaded boxes are. Scroll down to the third one which should say “EBOOKS”. Click on “Heart Set Free” and that will take you to blog.com where you can preview the book. You can purchase it as an ebook for $5.99.

So check it out!

When I posted “Cast your vote”, the choice was between jazz band and bluegrass band. Someone suggested that I make an angel band. Well, I’m not making an angel band, I’m making a jazz band. BUT, I am building a band of angels. I decided to participate in the ArtWalk, in Alexandria on October 5^th. A big part of what I will bring will be metal angels. So I thought that I would give you a preview. They are made out of steel, truck hoods and copper. They’ve not all found a resting place…the stone yard was closed when I went. Anywho, enjoy!

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!

Yesterday morning, we had a good bit of rain and the pond ventured from its banks out into the pasture. When Joel got home, he showed the boys, and they wanted me to put on my boots and wade with them.

So I did. They had their boots on, and I’m not sure why,

because I knew what was going to take place. (No matter what we said)

We didn’t “wade” long, because Joel wanted us to go to Academy to get some fishing stuff, and he wanted the boys to go too. Just a bit of advice…if you are going to take two five-year-olds to town, don’t do it at night. Do it in the morning when you are fresh.

Once in Academy, Joel went one direction and the boys and I went another, and it was, “Are you sure you know where the toy isle is in this store Mammy?

What the heck is this?

I’m not going to get this unless I know what it does.”

Then we checked out the kayaks where Hudson would only consider the one with two seats, because he doesn’t like to ride by himself.

To keep them from practicing their golf swing, I suggested that we look at rubber boots,

but on the way they stopped to admire the bicycles.

We finally reached the rubber boots where the conversation went something like this:

“Look at these, let’s try them on. That’s a size eight. You can’t wear a size eight. Yes I can. No you can’t. Well, l’m going to go ahead and try it on. Oh, this doesn’t fit. You must be right, Mammy.”

By the time we got out of that store, I had decided that a trip to Academy with Heckel and Jeckel would only occur once in a blue moon. THEN, on the way home Joel said, “Do you see the moon? I heard on the radio today that it is a blue moon.” If there are two full moons in the same month, the second one is called a blue moon, and that doesn’t happen very often. So, according to what Joel heard on the radio… we’re not taking those boys back to Academy until 2015.

I’m starting a band. Let me rephrase that. I’m building some band instruments. So far,

I’ve got most of a guitar and banjo. But, I’m not sure whether I want a jazz band or a bluegrass band. This is where You come in. So just scroll down and click on “Leave a comment”. Then cast your vote for either bluegrass or jazz. After compiling the results, I’ll finish the band. Thank you for your help.

While we were waiting for Hurricane Isaac to possibly make a move in our direction, I decided to build a forge from a brake drum. I’ve had the brake drum for about a year and have used it as a mould to bend metal around. But, today was the day to turn it into a forge.

We went to town and purchased a flange and various lengths of threaded pipe.

I welded the flange to the bottom of the brake drum.

I welded the 2″pipe to the flange, since the flange was not threaded.

Then I was able to assemble the other pieces. I needed something to mount it in,

so I cut a hole the size of the flange in a small metal table that I had. This enabled the brake drum to sit on the table with the flange and fittings below it.

So this is my forge. I named it Isaac. And as soon as the storm passes, I’m gonna fire it up.

As an art major, I was required to take several art history courses. We studied the different periods and styles of art beginning with those cave paintings in Lascaux, France and ending with what was going on in the twentieth century. As a part of the twentieth century stuff we learned about a style called Cubism. I’m going to define Cubism, but don’t bother to read the definition twice because it won’t make any better sense the second time around. Cubism is an early twentieth century art movement which amalgamated viewpoints of natural forms into a multifaceted surface of geometrical planes. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque started the stuff, and it has never been a style that I have been a fan of. However, steel kind of lends itself to a cubistic style. So I decided to give it a whirl. Georges Braque used images of musical instruments in his work, and my family is musically inclined, so I decided to try sort of a Braque knock- off in steel. Well, sort of.

I went to the scrap iron yard, did a little dumpster diving,

and came home with this little pile of stuff. Then I went to work. I cut, I bent, I welded.

 

 

Oh, the things you can do with a pile of junk. Finally I came up with what I call

“Not Braque”. I’m still tweaking it a little. But you get the idea.

 

 

The baby has been ‘out’ for just over a week, and I understand that last night was not one of her finer moments. So, we watched the twins this morning so that Nikki could get a little rest. Of course I needed to go to Lowes to pick up some stuff for my welding project,

so (oh joy, oh bliss) we ALL went.

Most of what I needed came from the section of the store called ‘Tool World’,

which also happens to be

Hudson and Denton’s favorite section. They checked out and thought that they needed just about everything.

And they asked a lot of questions like: “What is this and why does it cost ninety-nine bucks and

you don’t have that kind of money either, do you Mammy?” (By the way that was all one sentence.)

Joel told them that they could get something, so they finally settled on blue and green tape measures. Then while he was checking out,

Denton and I walked outside where he called Hudson

to come push him. And Hudson did. Then, Hudson discovered

the coke machine. He thought that he REALLY needed a dollar to buy Papa a diet coke. He was very determined to make that thought a reality. So, I let Joel take care of that. As Denton and I turned to leave I heard, “Hudson, I don’t want that! I don’t want that! I’m not getting one here!

I’m getting one from the doughnut shop!” Hudson was finally o.k. with that, because he realized where we were going next.