Sunday, April 21, 2013

Windy days are good for Polymer Clay and for walking.

Galveston Island, TX
Delanera RV
Temp:  71.6* F at 2:00 p.m.
Sunny but VERY windy

I am so pleased with myself.  For the most part I am sticking with my diet plans and am exercising more.  Every day we have walked on the beach between 2 sets of posts.  It is 1/4 mile from post line to post line.  Round trip from the trailer is roughly .6 miles, and we have been walking it twice a day.  If we go fast, I have to rest once, but if we go moderately I can make it in one go.  Today, with the walks while exploring will make it 3 rounds, or 1 1/2 + miles total.  Hooray!!!

Mr. C and Snuffles by the "far" post line.  Snuffles got to go walk on the beach with us yesterday.  She wants to catch those water birds so badly and although she was aware of the water, she didn't seem at all cowed by it.

She didn't really want to get ALL wet, but her little feet got wet and sandy and it didn't seem to bother her at all.
In this picture she was trying to get a shell piece I had thrown into the water. She finally managed to lunge in far enough to get it and brought it out of the water so she could play with it, but then apparently didn't like the taste of either the sand or salt water, because she spit it out and tried to find some more birds to chase.

We have a very pretty Grackle around here.  It is very large and has a very large tail.  I have it narrowed down to either a Boat Tailed Grackle or a Great Tailed Grackle.  They both live in this area and the main difference is eye color and they don't let me get close enough to check that out for sure.  They sure are big and pretty iridescent birds though.  

In spite of the weather, people were partying on the beach or busy feeding the seagulls yesterday.














Yep, windy, and I mean REALLY windy days are good to stay indoors to play with polymer clay.
Yes, it's finally gotten sunny and beautiful, here in Galveston, even if it is still only 71* and VERY, VERY windy.  It's been windy since we got here.  I'm wondering if the wind ever stops or calms down here.  It appears I was correct about people coming down from Houston for the weekend, too.  The traffic is about half what it was Friday afternoon and Saturday and our RV park is about 3/4 empty.
The thing that ticks me off is that you remember how we were almost forced to take a too small back in site?  The office "kindly" had somebody trade with us.  Funny thing is, the person they called to trade they didn't even have to look up a phone number and that person was only there Friday and Saturday night.  They are already gone today, Sunday.  so there was no reason to have given "our" site away in the first place, grrrr.  Oh well, all's well that ends well.

We are really enjoying our camp space, though.  I sit at my clay table and create away and can look right out the back window at the Gulf of Mexico.
We looked at a couple campgrounds down the road a bit and although they are quite nice and larger than this one and would do, they are across the busy road (main road) from the beach and have no more amenities than this one.

We checked down the road at a couple different beach access spots, as a couple of them are supposed to have more/better shelling than where we are located, but, we sure didn't find that to be the case.   I did finally get my feet wet, today, though.








During our meandering, we drove on a road to the beach that was so bouncy and bumpy we weren't sure we would make it and then the guy in front of us started backing down the drive.  Once we reached where he was, we realized the reason he was backing was that the sand was too soft and dry in that particular area to turn around in (he didn't have 4-wheel drive).  We also chose to leave at that point, by backing back to the more packed sand, as although we have 4-wheel drive, we were afraid our truck was too big and heavy to manage, so we erred on the side of caution.


We also actually drove and parked on the beach.  I should have taken a picture, but forgot to.  We were roughly a truck length from the water!!!!  This isn't our truck, but it is just like we were parked.












This sand is so hard packed, it is a wonder that any shells make it here whole, at all.  A few manage, though.






During our meanderings, we also found a couple houses for my sister, G.  Here you go, G, a purple (well, lavender) house just for you.  







So, other than lunch out and a quick trip to Walmart, all we did was drive to the West end of the Island and stop a couple times to check out different beaches, then came back to the trailer.
I've been working on some canes.  Yesterday I finished a flower cane that could be a companion to the pink and yellow Dahlia cane.



I also used up a bunch of my left over canes from the Carol Simmons workshop to make another cane.  I wish this one had been the one I made for Carol's workshop, as it is much better than the one I made there. 
I knew I had a lot to learn from Carol, and this piece shows it.  However, without the Simmon's Slicer there isn't a prayer I could make thin and even enough slices to make pendants we made in class.  This one captures the feel of the picture/shirt I used for the workshop much better than the one I did at the workshop.  So, instead, 
I decided to see if I could make that type of partial cane into an actual kaleidoscope cane.  It can be done, with some modifications as the way I did it the design came out awfully small and the cane will have to be sold as about 1-1 1/4" hexagons and be sold by the inch like I did the big seahorse canes.  I was able to make 2 different designs from the one large cane, though, roughly 22" of each design, using the same main cane.

The first one didn't line up well
enough to please my super self critical eye, although I like it overall.



The second one lined up much better as I started with shorter sections to match up and then reduced, rather than reducing the individual parts first.
Now, I'm just getting ready to go finish reducing the second one and then it's on to some more flower canes to get them in inventory.

That's all that's happening today.  We plan to do more exploring in the next couple days, figuring that there won't be as large of crowds during the week as on the weekend.  So weather permitting, I should have more to report in a day or two.

In the meantime, I hope you are all having a wonderful week, where ever you happen to be located.  I hope you'll check back to follow along with our adventures.  Smiles, Sue C

10 comments:

  1. Sue. I have a slicer and can slice canes if you mail them to me. I already sliced a cane for Carrie N. and mailed it back to her. She sent the binder pages and paid for the return shipping. I actually would be willing to do this in exchange for some of your cane slices. Something to keep in mind for the future. The cane turned out very nicely!

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    1. Thanks for the suggestion, Diane. I will definitely keep it in mind for the future. Have a great week. Smiles.

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  2. Good job on the canes, I like them. It looks beautiful, and I will put the check in your account so you can go talk them into moving out of my purplish house...LOL, like that is going to happen. I should go buy a lottery ticket, and when I win, I can buy the house and you can buy the cane slicer...LOL! Thanks for keeping us posted. In the bird picture, his eyes look greenish to me, which doesn't help at all. Love you and have fun. Praying for good weather for you.

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    Replies
    1. LOL, actually there was another lavender one I liked even better but I couldn't get the camera on in time to take its picture, LOL. It had a little round room on one corner with a peaked (cone shaped) little metal roof on the round room. Once again, remember, you have to play to win, LOL. Guess that's why I don't plan on winning the lottery any time soon, LOL. I have walked a mile and 3/4 today, I have to remember to keep it up when I get home. Love you lots, Me

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