Of Harvest and Odd things

Another weekend at home, another Monday of being sore as all get out.

Can't complain about the results though!

My Dad and I had Saturday morning together, as my Mom was busy crafting with her ladies. Originally, I was supposed to make bagels. However, when my mom mentioned that the white currants really needed to be harvested, I decided I wanted to help.

White currants are actually an albino variety of the red currants we're all so familiar with. I find they aren't as sour, and they just look so cool hanging on the bush. My parents planted 2 of these bushes next to the path in the backyard, and they were loaded! I started out with a just picking a colander full..

Which quickly escalated to two bowls full:

Which quickly escalated to me calling Dad for help:

That's 4.5 kg of white currants! It would be worth about 80 bucks in the store, and all off our two backyard bushes. We didn't even fully harvest the second, we were so worn out and it was getting quite hot.

We decided to make jelly. We used equal parts white currants and sugar, and 1.5 times the water. It didn't quite set up properly, so we're thinking we need to either reduce the water, or add pectin. Red currants are very high in pectin, so we assumed that white currants would be as well. Again, we're kinda playing here. Next year, we'll have a better idea what we're doing.

While waiting for these beauties to pop, my dad and I read up on black currants, and found out they make a fantastic cordial... And back out to the garden we went.

We filled up our Mehu-Liisa, added about 4 cups of sugar and 6 tbsps of lemon juice, and let it do its thing. This stuff is FANTASTIC. We tried it mixed with ginger ale later that night, and the next day we poured it into our water bottles to go hike the land. I'm so impressed with it!

So that was Saturday in Orangeville. I haven't even started Sunday! Oh dear...

Buzz Buzz

Saturday was a rough morning.

We headed up bright and early to a beekeeper based in Williamsford, Ontario. We purchased some awesome hives from her two weeks ago:

Which we painted in lots of pretty colours. Saturday, we were heading up to get the bees she'd prepared to send us home with! She was really fantastic, and opened up one of her hives so we could take a look at what we'd be expecting to see. She also let us check out her animals:

We took both of our nucs, which contained 4 frames of bees and thier queen, and headed up to the land. We had two little homes all set up for them:

We were a bit nervous, but the 'unloading' went off without any issues. We'd planned for the worst, and we all had our beesuits on:

But really, we had no trouble at all. This is a really good picture of the comb we got:

All of those capped, light brown cells are baby bees! Very healthy comb here! By the end of the process we were pretty comfortable around the hives. Appleman had NO problem:

They're actually incredibly docile. We could get right up and personal with them, and as long as we didn't make any sudden movements or freak out, we were perfectly fine. Day one, no stings!

Our girls are established, and seemingly quite happy. We'll check up on them in a little bit to see how they're doing.

It's a bumpy ride

I've been very absent from my blog lately. That's because I've been too busy dreaming about this:

This is the visable half of the 25 acres my parents bought in Hockley Valley. It's not so easy to tell from the picture, but the land is full of rolling hills, and wildflowers. I've taken this picture up from the spot we're going to build a deck to pitch our tents on.

I also got to set up these:

Which are our beautiful multi-coloured hives. We just put the bees in thier new home yesterday, and they're doing quite alright!

My dad has a new toy:

That mom is also enjoying:

It's been a very busy month of preperations. So tired.

The flower that blooms last

It's been a busy couple of weeks for my. My biggest conundrum is that my sister's birthday had passed, and I was struggling with the execution of her gift. On a whim, I made this:

Which she told me she really loved. It's a sheet of brass, nickel silver, and hammered copper held together with a sterling silver tulip bulb pin. It's spinny, it's cute... It just needed something to go onto. So I made this:

This part is awesome. It's copper tubing from my local hardware store, which I purchased at $1 a foot. I beat the hell out of it, annealing it whenever I thought it was getting too difficult, and hammering a pattern into the surface. This could also be accomplished using a rolling mill if you have one, with a texturizing plate. I have a couple of ideas that I'm going to use for the next one!

Each piece was polished seperately. Before assembly, I coated each seperate piece in a coat of Renaissance Wax. Theoretically, this should help prevent oxidization and stop it from turning your skin green. Once each piece was coated, dried, and buffed to a shine. Then I put them together:

And it's finished. The sharp outer petals spin, to help prevent any catching or skin slicing. It's a very comfortable fit, and I'm quite proud of the finished result. Thinking about having it on my etsy.

Oh, I finished this too:

Men's wedding band. Now to finish its partner!

Weddings wedding weddings...

It's been a long couple of weeks... full of work but not enough posting.

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I posted this:

Well, I'm happy to report that it's finally finished.

My brother is 18, and this is his present from me. I hope he likes it. I need to replace his other ring as well, but I haven't had a chance to get it put together yet.

My purple sweater is continuing, but I'm a bit stalled on it as I've started growing my various plants for the summer. My lettuce bed has been planted, I'm growing wheatgrass almost daily, and my tomatoes are just waiting for warmer weather to go out onto the balcony.

I'm currently working on a wedding ring, which my friend wanted to suit both her promise ring as well as her grandmother's ring:

Which now looks more like this:

From another angle:

As the ring is now to be made in silver, I wanted it to be a bit more sturdy to prevent anything from happening to it. It actually looks very similar to the matching Men's wedding band, which as you may remember, looks like this:

So... Except for a birthday present which I should be able to finish tomorrow, that's what I've been busy doing. Planting, knitting whenever I can, and getting jewellery work done for people.

I've been running a fever for a few days now, so I'm going to sleep to try to recover faster. I want this wedding ring finished by Friday.

We have to go deeper.

Just a quick doodle that I pulled out tonight. I'm making plans for a 16x20 print, and wanted to test out the focal point.

I was once told when I was young, by one of my teachers, that being a good artist meant that you knew when to stop.

Well... With this art I just don't have to.

My family keeps planting seeds

It's been a sleepless week.

I've been working away at a present for my little brother. I decided on a signet style ring, set with a sunstone that I picked up in Tucson, Arizona.

Here's a photo of the beginnings of the project. The square block is hand-tooled until all the sides are 90 degrees to each other. This makes it easier for me to plot the ring out and be completely accurate.

 Then I gradually take pieces of wax off until the ring looks... ring-like.

Once it looks ringlike, I carved out a space for the sunstone. I rounded out all of the corners, and made it ring-like.

I was lucky enough to spend the Easter weekend with my family, and spent Good Friday in my Dad's studio. This ring took me most of the day to make, but it looks pretty good.

It's hard to go home sometimes. It makes me think too much! It's so amazing to go home and be able to talk with my family about my design ideas, technical difficulties, and design issues. They're so helpful, and are able to talk me through any issues that I'm having. They suggest really creative ideas, help me to think outside the box, and plant seeds in my brain.

I'm currently playing with these:

My mom taught me how to make these when I was a little girl. She used to draw them to keep her occupied during church. I use it to zone out.

I'm also going to be using them to etch onto metal for jewellery. I could make these etched pieces to make earrings, bracelets, and pendants. I'm hoping mom can use them in her Fibre arts as well.

I'm working on a lovely bracelet as well, but I think that's enough pictures for one post. Very busy.