on the farm

Well, it's been an interesting half term. With two weathervanes on the table, the children off school and running a busy two room B&B for Hay Festival,  we have scarcely had time to breathe! It's nice to finally take a quiet moment and reflect on what's beautiful around the farm. The cherry trees and the plum tree are hanging heavy with promise...hope to have a bumper year. The sun flowers are growing (I am always impressed when my mere presence hasn't killed a plant), as well as the summer brocolli and the lettuce! The cows in the field spend a lot of time with there heads over the fence staring at us crazy humans. The calves find "hanging the washing" especially enthralling. I try to be as entertaining as possible when I have such an attentive audience.  As the heat of the day begins to ease, we all enjoy watching the little white calf try to rally the soay sheep into a good frolic. He is so emphatically joyful. The motley gang of five sheep are entirely uninterested. They look a bit derelict with their wool beginning to hang off in places (they are "self-shearing"...is it correct to say molting?) like long rogue dreadlocks or bits of seaweed.

We have borrowed the Old Fergie to top the field...boy, those nettles and dock leaves grow like mad!

The gypsy caravan wasn't ready for Hay Festival, but it's bright colours cheer me up when I emerge from the studio all bleary eyed and distracted (that's after I have ducked to avoid the wasps nest that I still haven't the heart to spray).  

And then there's the studio, every busy. The galleon is nearing completion, with now just the sails and the rigging to braze on.

Can anyone guess what this next one will be?

It's actually nearly done now, as this picture was taken almost three weeks ago, but most designs start out looking roughly the same... like a lima bean. Look at the crazy colours in the copper, though. These are created from the heat of the torch, and impurities in the copper and on my workbench. Particularly from the dust from my bronze brazing flux, which is basically Borax. Although we (long ago) gave up trying to achieve these colours, it always feels mildly satisfying when the copper doesn't just come out brown.