Fierce Attack Sheep

Twice lately the wild turkeys have come by the house, and both times the sheep have chased them away! Yesterday Petunia ran around & around the pear tree with her head down and the turkey running away from her as fast as it could go. These are wild timid sheep! So its very surprising. Turkeys, though, are so obviously descended from dinosaurs, its no wonder that the sheep do not want them around.

I have been out hot twisting silver rod. It took about a year after John came up with this unorthodox method of silversmithing for me to try it out. And it took longer yet for me to start using it regularly. My rate of 'fried' pieces is about what it was for me with bronze about 24 years ago. And if I get the least bit distracted while I am doing it its sure I will mess it up. But the ease and fluidity of working it this way is a treat. I get tighter twists, and greater range of design. I've got a bunch sitting in the 'pickle bath' now, a mild acid that takes off the black fire scale that inevitably happens when one heats silver up that high.

When I was in my 20's I never thought I'd live to this age. Back then, we all thought the atomic bomb was looking over our shoulders just waiting to pounce on us and send us to smithereens. Never mind that bogus stuff in school when they had us crouched down under our desks! Anyway, now I am nearly 60, and in the thick of being a self-employed crafts person. This is what we have both been doing since '81. I'm still amazed at the world politics, and how such a huge number of humans keep on living on this fragile planet of ours.

I'm several years past the age when my father, a professor of botany, retired. As an artist and writer, I will never get to retire. I was talking to a stone mason at the grocery store the other day, and we both agreed that we expected to die while we were still working. This is probably how everyone always thought of themselves before the American dream of retirement came along. I don't know. My husband & I live very simply, without many things that our contemporaries consider essential. But we do have unheard of freedom and flexibility.

When we first started being crafts people we drove a '61 hump-back 544 Volvo. Back and forth across country. We knew some inopportune time it would die a final death, probably in the winter in Montana on the interstate. So we decided to be prepared to cut our losses and walk away with all our metalsmithing inventory on our backs in one small bag. It was such a good car we never had to, though.

I have nattered on enough for now. more later.
OH! A hummingbird came to the open door of the smithy today. Ruby throated & humming.