Potatoes, the popularity of buttermilk, and pig collecting

So, what's been going on? (You ask.) (I ask.)

I've been very very busy and tired and tired of being busy. My previous attempt to make a "holiday"-themed product did better than I expected with the addition of Father Daughter Robot Flip Book . I think I sold 12 copies of it since my last posting, almost too much to keep up with on top of my other assembly duties. Production in general has been held up due to an series of setbacks and inconveniences.

My car was rear-ended a few weeks ago. And that has slowed down production, not to mention turning me into a car-shopping/insurance-cringing/pill-popping/wheel-screeching mess. My car is "totalled" although it is still currently driveable, I'm trying to find an alternative. It takes too much time. And there's too much to find out about cars that I don't know or don't want to know or don't know I need or want or don't want to know. Sorry, this is my current thought process of chaos and being overwhelmed by everything.

So last Friday I took a field trip to see a vehicle out of town. All did not go as hoped, but I won't tell the sad story here - suffice it to say we turned toward home still in the duct-taped-together auto.



Luckily we happened across Allman's Bar-B-Q in Fredericksburg and they were kind enough to let us in just before the lunch rush, as well as let me photograph some of the pig collection. Mr. Pork Chop would be proud.



And I'd like to say something witty about the popularity and price of buttermilk these days, but I really don't know what that might be.

In other news, I dug up some russet potatoes, which surprised me with their varied sizes:





And, there's other things.

I'm trying to make lookability.com, but right now it's just a booby trap leading you in circles back and forth from hither and yon. I have nearly everything that exists about web design to learn and then forget and then learn again and then learn it's obsolete once I've finally memorized it... but I'm hoping I can get something going there, if only for practice.

So, more later.

gnarly Carrots, plus the return of Charlie and Cubby

I think I discovered the reason not to plant carrots too close to each other.



And I think this is a rare instance where the term "gnarly" is entirely appropriate.



Sadly parted.


The greens mix together well without any developmental issues.
This mass may include any of the following: fennel, arugula, spinach, mustard, lettuces, carrot tops, swiss chard, oregano, basil, rosemary.


And I'm finally reunited with my favorite Russian stop motion characters: Charlie and Cubby. I have a videotape of their adventures that I stumbled upon some years ago before the dawn of the internet. The rest of their adventures have always been a mystery, but thanks to YouTube maybe I can catch up on some of their doings.


Russian:







Surprise! Japanese dub:

squirrel with gun, discriminating weirdos, thrift store cat and vigorous zucchini

Disclaimer: this post is just going to be a hodge-podge with no particular theme.



In purchase reports, I bought this cute/ not quite scary squirrel with a gun keychain from MonkeyDogStudio AKA OneMansTrash at last Saturday's Bizarre Market. She had some other cool ones too!

I also just won some screen printing supplies on ebay, though I'm pretty sure this breaks my rules about not buying craft supplies when I already have too much. BUT, I have mixed emulsion and need to use it ASAP, so I guess that's an excuse.

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In other news, the discriminating weirdos at Moe Sew Co. had some deep thoughts on some of my embroideries. I'm very flattered by the term wantable weirdness and also the fact that they somehow managed to work a freakish 1970 commercial into the review. Thanks, discriminating weirdos.

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Speaking of weird, here's that framed cat picture I bought last month at a thrift store. It's not totally clear if the maker was entirely pro-cat, but at any rate, I think it's pretty funny and wacked out.


text:

THE CAT IS always greener on the other side of the fence ◘ a rolling cat gathers no moss ◘ just say "no" to cats ◘ read my lips - no new kittens ◘ I left my cat in San Francisco ◘ frankly Scarlet I don't give a cat ◘ able to leap tall counters with a single bound ◘ four score and seven cats ago ◘ a watched cat never boils ◘ if at first you don't succeed, get a cat ◘ a kitten a day keeps the doctor away ◘ give me liberty or give me cats ◘ kittens should be seen and not heard ◘ she'll be carrying six white kittens when she comes ◘ ask not what your kitten can do for you but what you can do for your kitten ◘ my cat runneth over

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And last but not least, some zucchini is really anxious to grow up. One of them (on the left) punched through the soil so vigorously, he's still wearing a little hat made out of a clump of soil.

bird skull, bug skin, potatoes with long eyes, milking a Bosnian cow and tarlatan

Reports from the backyard:


I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, but I found these two things outside today. And somehow they seemed to go together.



Seed potatoes. I know potatoes grow underground but I didn't realize "seed potatoes" existed and could be purchased by the pound out of wooden barrels. But now I got some and they are hopefully doing their thing out in the dirt. I did use legit yukon gold seed potatoes and also some red potatoes from the grocery store that grew eyes. We'll see if this potato experiment results in any clear conclusions on potato culture.

I got two old tires from my dad, to use as a potato-planting area. Thanks to T.K. and folks at the Y.L. for giving me the idea. I also used some plastic garden edging to create another area, because once I cut the potatoes I had too many to fit in the tire space. I'm trying really hard not to crowd plants, because I'm still having trouble coming to terms with the idea of thinning plants. I guess that's really the way you grow healthy plants, but I don't actually know how to do it. And it seems like a waste. But I'm just being sentimental, I guess.



On the topic of printing (with a hodgepodge of links)

In other news, this weekend I attended a dry point workshop at Gallery 5 put on by a local org called Art on Wheels. It was fun and the people were very nice. And I probably asked too many questions, but that seems to be my way.

I brought this photo as a reference from which to make the image.

This is one of my favorite photos from Bosnia. This lady was a neighbor of the people I was staying with and she was very excited to show me her milking station (located in a sort of stone room under a barn) and also a horse and a manure field. She was extremely enthusiastic.

So, what did I learn about dry point? Well, like all other printmaking techniques I've attempted so far, this one is also relatively complicated, messy and time consuming.

First we scratch our image (which will print in reverse) on a plate. Traditionally it would be metal, but we used plastic, which enabled tracing from a photo.


Then there's this whole long step where you apply and then rub off ink. You rub it off with a stiff cheesecloth called a tarlatan. I like that word. On a side note, I just read that tutus used to be made out of tarlatan until that was replaced with tulle.

Anyway, then place the rubbed off ink plate on the press, over which you place a dampened sheet of the paper, and then you run it through. Turning the press wheel took a lot more physical gusto than I was prepared for. At any rate, if you don't totally screw it up, your print will be ready on the other end of the press.


(paper isn't really that color, my camera is just pretending it is).

So, how do I feel about drypoint vs. screenprinting? Well, for one the way we did this there wasn't any talk of using more than black ink, and my great downfall in screen printing is failure to follow rules and register inks properly. So in that way, drypoint was less taxing on my brain. But then again, screen printing can be done without owning a press and overall it is less tiring as far as arms and wrists and hands go. (And that's always one of my issues).

So, I was just reading that drypoint is part of the intaglio family. I'm not quite sure I can remember the differences in each type of printing. But here's some discussion that explains the "dry" in drypoint referring to no acid being involved. In addition, I don't know how to get myself to pronounce things like intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-yo, IPA: [ɪn'tælɪəʊ] correctly. Lastly, does the twisted etching tool Whistler's Needle refer to James McNeill Whistler, son of Whistler's Mother? Apparently so.

So, I'm going to think this over and return to explore printing techniques at a later date.