A Small Taste

of my holiday down to Virginia. I still have to sort the photos and organize and resize them, and put together some posts. But just a little bit to keep you going. (And to remind me that there is such a thing as spring, especially when today it's a howling blizzard and no visibility and great mucking huge drifts to mire the car in....)

New Friend

So, Darrell is undertaking an experiment to come up with a kind of 'bog iron ore simulant', for the iron smelts. Because our group is more primarily interested in Viking Age iron production, we're also interested in reproducing not only the technology that would be appropriate, but the ingredients.
One of the continuing problems, besides the fact that they always want to try about ten new variables per time!, is a consistent ore. We've tried Virginia rock ore, we've tried hematite grit, we've tried taconite pellets, we've tried possible bog ores... But there are problems involved with all of these.
One of our friends has spent a great deal of time developing a Martian soil simulant with his company Harder-Gissing Machine, so we turned to him for some help.

This has now led Darrell to making mudpies out in the shop (ostensibly the "clean" shop!) and baking trays of this mixture in my oven.
Because of a time constraint getting a batch of this ready for a test in the next week and a half, and it being the depths of a deep cold winter here, he's not being able to allow this to just air dry. Hence, trays of muck in the oven.

Then at the end of yesterday afternoon, he believed me when I suggested a little less density of mudpies in the oven might be helpful, and fired up the propane heater out in the forge to balance a few trays on.

Surprise! When he went down to check on them last evening, and to turn the heater off, he discovered that he'd also warmed the cockles of the heart of a small interloper, who'd nestled himself down under the heater.

Lull

In the brief and bright quiet between this winter's perpetual dumpings of snow, Lily and I went out to take some pictures.
Of course, it was so bright out that I couldn't tell when I'd actually turned the camera on. I couldn't see the indicator light on the top, and I couldn't see the display on the back. It also made it virtually impossible to tell if anything at all was in focus, or even if I was aiming usefully.The snow was all fresh and deep and white. Well, and blue, too. Trees cast wonderful shadows.


Lily got a bit crazy, with the sun, and the heat in it, and dashed about, up trees, down, rolling and writhing at my feet in the snow, and then off on another tear-ass. She did pause briefly to pose...


But when we started our walk she had less patience, and wouldn't stay in frame as I headed away from her.


It's still a short enough time after our last wierd thaw, that all the water isn't frozen solid. Or at least hiding under a thicker crust. It looks like our well, which always starts artesianing (is that a word?) in the spring, when the water table is so much higher, has been sending some tentative purcolations down its overflow tunnel, and it gives the slightest hint (possibly misleadingly) of a spring thaw to someday come.


Even the river is doing its best to hint at 'thaw'.


And as we walked back, we could still hear the water noisily roaring along. Of course, there's yet another storm on its way. They're making 'bigger and better' noises about it. So, by later this weekend, maybe all these hints of spring will have vanished under still one more layer of the dreaded white stuff! sigh.

Turning 13!

This handsome young man turns 13 today.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JONAH!!!


Now I need a picture that shows how grown up he must be looking. I'm way out of date here.

Auntie-V

Solar Collector

Not tabby...

The Really Fine Stuff

that sifts in through the tiny vents at the ridgeline of our steel roofed drive shed.

Only the right kind of fine and persistent snow can cause these weird indoor drifts.
Sigh. Wiarton Willie, you said an **early** spring!

Wow!

So, *MY* holiday this year will just be tagging along on a trip to 'smeltfest' in Virginia. But heck, I like Virginia. I love to talk to cardinals. I love the scenery. I like the southern drawls in people's voices. I get excited by new and exciting groceries in the store. I get to stock up on my beloved Mezzetta Hot Chili Peppers. And I even get to hang about and participate in iron smelting, which I actually kind of enjoy. (Though I am NOT obsessed like Darrell is!)

But now it turns out that our hosts have been loaned their neighbour's house, just a short roll down the mountain from where they live, for all the guests to stay in. Wow! Maybe I'll ignore the smelting and just laze about here all day!



We saw this place partially completed the first time we visited. Gorgeous setting. Interesting looking house. Lee and Elizabeth just live a short jaunt further up the mountain behind this. (If one can call it a jaunt when you're old and out of shape like we are, and not used to land that isn't pretty flat...

And it looks like the interior is pretty eye-catching as well. If nothing else, I'll have to try to take some great photos when I'm down there this spring.

Another Sunkiss'd Kitty

Yah, I know, he's still a bit tabby....