I Heart Homer

My hubby found this beach rock for me in Homer this weekend, it was quite "romantical." Our halibut fishing trip was great too, under blue bird skies we departed at 6:30 am on an all day charter with our friends Sean and Gerri from North Country Charters. We fished in three different holes, about 50 miles out in Kachemak Bay. It took 2 hours to reach the holes, but the scenery was spectacular. We saw Puffins, sea otters and even sea lions that had hauled out onto a rocky island. Everyone on the boat limited out, 2 halibut per person, which is down from last year's limit of 3 per person. We also hooked into some nice fatty, sea going Silver Salmon. That's a picture of my salmon biggie in the fish tub. Daddy-O hooked a nice 30 pound Halibut but most were averaging a small "chicken size" of about 15-20 pounds. The day before our fishing trip we also packed home crates full of new drift wood for my Wind Salmon sculptures. The guys helped me collect the perfect shaped driftwood pieces from Bishop's Beach, which is just about a 100 yards away from where we stayed, Two Sisters Bakery, Suites By the Beach. 

The big news was that "ocean girl" got so seasick I could hardly reel my fish in! Poor Derek had to do triple duty for our whole family! I have NEVER, EVER, EVER been seasick before and I LOVE 

being on the ocean and on boats. It caught me (and Derek!) by complete surprise as me and two kids (ages 7 & 11) from New York had to share the garbage can in the boat's cabin! It was totally demoralizing but made for a great story for the other tourists on the boat. Derek, Gus and I were the only AK residents and considered ourselves quite the "veterans" on board -HA. I did gain everybody's respect though, wanting to catch our limit, in between dry heaves and the shivers, I hooked all my fish and my sweet hubby helped me reel my Halibut in! The Salmon was easy, I sat down on

the deck with my head down between my legs and just reeled him in on the lighter weight pole! As we were under way heading back to the Homer boat harbor I was fine. Got my coloring 

back and was even able to think about a cold beer and pizza at Fat Olives! Now that's an Alaskan Woman, or so my sweet hubby says. 

As soon as we got back into Anchorage I headed down to pick up some more steel. I'm hard at it as the season's last G Street Artists Fair

is this Saturday. I'm making some more Wind Salmon now that I have some new driftwood pieces and I'll also weld up more ravens and a couple of 

customer requests to have on hand at the Fair. Though I'm feeling 100x better, I swear I will NEVER, EVER give anyone who is seasick a hard time EVER again (including my best friend Patti!).

Holy Yellow Jackets Lawnman!

Daddy-O first became aware of a wasps nest somewhere in our yard by him and the dog getting stung a couple of times while mowing the lawn. But he wasn’t sure of the exact location and today we found out! Who would have thought it was under ground?! These busy little wasps dug UNDER an old railroad tie and burrowed into the ground to build this GIANT nest. We flipped the old tie over and couldn’t believe the Yellow Jackets actually ate away at the stinky, icky creosoted wood as well as dug out the rocky ground to build the nest. We weren’t sure at first if they were hornets, wasps or what, but after a quick internet search of matching up pictures we determined these ground scavengers had the perfect location –near where our neighbors and us set out our garbage cans for the weekly collection and were in fact, Yellow Jackets. Luckily, Tauzer and Daddy-O avoided being stung today but had to “eliminate” the col

ony. He said it was kind of sad to watch the brain-shaped structure deflate, and kill the angry wasps as the spray we used took affect. Sorry PETA, but the nest is situated right where kids will walk by when back-to-school starts and in addition to D and Tauzer-Schnauzer being stung, so had a neighbor. My whole nest fascination continued as I poked at the beautiful earth colored layers in the Yellow Jacket’s nest. Before seeing this ground nest, I had only seen the conical gray, papery kinds of nest hanging from trees and roof eves. The swirly outer construction of terra-cotta rings inspired me. When it's safe, I'll collect some of the

outer shell of the nest for a project, I was thinking something in different colors and layers of clay…

It’s hard to focus on getting all of my work done (not because I've been watching the Yellow Jackets) because not only did the sunshine return but I have fishing on the brain! I LOVE TO FISH. We’re heading down to Homer and going Halibut fishing again with long-time family friends Sean and Geri of North Country Charters. I’m bringing plenty of ibuprofen though, because last time I went deep sea fishing, my muscles were killing me from all of the reeling in we did! Since I 

had Halibut on the brain I made a couple of the fish in steel for the upcoming G Street Artist Fair  on August 15th that a customer requested I have for sale. Shhh, don’t tell, but I also made a small Halibut (they call it "Chicken" size -which is the best eating!) 

for Sean & Geri as a surprise. I’m sure they’re not reading my Blog because this time of year they’re up to their anchors with charters and fish or taking pictures for their customers who caught fish!

Filling in the Squares

The key to keeping the family from being over-committed is PLANNING. In our house, if the event is not on the “family calendar” it ‘aint ‘gonna happen! The “family calendar” is the gospel of events, appointments and scheduling. We all can use the calendar and it hangs on the side of our refrigerator among our favorite magnets and photos. I keep all of my business/personal appointments and to-do’s on my MacBook Pro laptop using the Entourage Calendar (which I only discovered last year and find it wonderful-easy). The little squares on our family calendar are filling up quicker than usual which must mean its back to school time. 

Daddy-O reported back early this morning to help get students registered for high school today and tomorrow. We got our youngest registered yesterday and even managed to get school shopping done. Back to school day can be one of my FAVORITE days but I don’t look forward to the rush of busyness 

that precedes every mom’s favorite holiday. I always think of that Staples back-to-school commercial where moms are happily pushing the shopping carts through the isles leaping and dancing with joy as they buy their kid’s school supplies. August is also a two birthday month in our house, so we’ll throw in a couple of Birthday BBQ days (oh, I need to buy the Mentos Geysers supplies for Gus’ Birthday!), along with football practices, football games, elementary and high school starting, university class schedules getting shuffled and housing plans finalized. Kristen is home for the week after her adventures on the Bering Sea research vessel and she reports back to UAF for Grad work this coming weekend.

The Saturday, August 15^th calendar square is filled in with my last G Street Artist Fair. I’ve been busy making some fun new sculptures for that show in between keeping up with special orders. I mad

e a large, new Garden Chime after being inspired by birds nests I brought home from our trip. While we were in WA, my grandma gave me two birds nests that were in her hedge. She lives near a beautiful community park with fishing pond and was able to watch the baby birds, hatch and fly away. Both nests had fishing line intricately woven throughout the twigs and other nesting material!  I’m sort of a seeker/gatherer and have a lovely collection of abandon birds nests, interesting feathers and other unique natural treasures in my studio. I find a lot of inspiration in all things Nature. To make the steel birds nests, I start out with strips of plasma cut steel that I form around a bowl shape. I weld each strip into place as I form the nest to try and 

look as natural as possible. I also will weave and wrap wire around the form for additional texture. The large copper pipe I use for the chime component is reclaimed copper pipe I buy at Alaska Metal Recyclers. I cut the bottom off at a 45 degree angle using my chop saw, clean off all of the burrs and string with heavy duty chord from a new fishing Swivel and jump ring. Inside the copper pipe hangs hand welded washers to a small piece of rebar for the sound. The exposed clapper is usually an artful piece of copper in the shape of a leaf that is easily moved in the wind to make the chime sound.

There was a surprise in my garden this week. One of the Dahlia’s my mom sent was supposed to be yellow but when it bloomed this week it’s a deep burgundy, almost chocolate. Isn’t she pretty –I love garden sur

prises like this one! Sorry the image isn’t better, we’ve had a downpour of rain the last day or two. Not nearly as bad as Jim as having in Kentucky, just disappointing since we’ve been having a perfect 65 degrees and blue bird skies. Hopefully the weather will improve because I just filled in a couple more squares on our calendar –we’re fitting in a trip to Homer to go halibut fishing this weekend! I have a gift certificate to use at Two Sisters and was inspired by Vicki getting to go to Homer! Thought it would be a great way to welcome Back-to school time.

 

 

Denizen of the Deep Blue Sea

This is one piece I was getting ready to pack up to ship to Fireweed Gallery in Homer and thought I’d get a quick shot of it first. It is a plasma cut and welded steel wall sculpture of one of my favorite subjects, sea life. At 42” wide x 15” tall it is a little smaller than I normally work, but this time of year the customer base will be more locals than visitors and the pricing needs to be sensitive to the season. I will send the Gallery some other fun, smaller works, maybe even some of the new clay work in time for Valentines Day shoppers. Art always makes the best gift to those you LOVE!