Alice is a naughty girl

These bronze pieces have nothing to do with naughty Alice. She begged to have a cameo on my blog and we'll get to that later.

I've been working with bronze nearly everyday this week and decided that I might just make myself something. It started with the pendant which has the first mantra I learned on it. Om Mani Padme Hum in Tibetan script. I've taken some liberties with the script and placed the parts vertically.

Sometimes this mantra gets translated as Behold the Jewel in the Lotus. But when I learned it, it wasn't translated at all. It's just a beautiful set of sounds that I find very centering. I can hear it in my head and it is amazing when chanted as a group.

It will be a necklace someday. But I keep adding parts to it. I've found this really soft but strong goat skin leather that I think I'll use in it. I've got more beads for it in the kiln right now. Who knows what will get added next. This necklace seems something like meditation for me. It's a process, it's where ever I am at the moment. It's become quite centering all by itself.

Even though the heat has kept me mostly inside this week, I've still been making a few forays into the garden. The one and only tomato plant is making me smile. I can almost taste the fruit that is still weeks away from ripening. There are 16 tomatoes on this plant in various stages.

I know this because Peter has been out there counting them. Amazing. I've never experienced him being this interested in what's happening out there in the garden. But when you've only got one tomato plant it's pretty easy to indulge yourself in monitoring it with the vigilence of a parent and a new born baby.

Just a few short weeks ago this tomato plant was a tiny little thing. It's grown about a foot a week. Makes me wonder what's in the soil. Or makes me think of this story I heard in primary school, only it's kind of a hazy memory. Something about atomic seeds and plants that grow into the sky. Maybe I'm making that up. I just asked Peter and he has no clue what I'm talking about. He thinks I'm maybe embellishing on Jack in the Bean Stalk. Anyway, maybe I have atomic soil?

This is Alice. Does she look naughty? Some of you may recall the Mystery of the Missing Glove in which she played a star role. Well she is once again on my bad list. This morning she took a romp through my tiny little garden and wiped out half of the carrots and all of the rutabaga. Naughty, naughty girl, and I was even going to share carrots with her. She loves carrots. How could she do this. BAD DOG!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

I'm going to get up early tomorrow and plant more carrots.

Look what Alice found

It all started with a persistent, yet quiet, woofing in the back garden. Not your ordinary, alert me to the threat of someone emptying trash into the bin in the alley, kind of woofing. Just a series of little puffs of woof. Finally, I got myself out of the studio, looked for the 'threat' and found Alice in with her nose down in an intense examination of something on the ground. My first thought was dead pigeon. But then Alice has no problem bringing me a dead pigeon. No this was serious.

This little box turtle was Alice's trophy of the day. I was quite surprised to find a turtle here. Having grown up around lakes and streams, I've always thought of turtles as water creatures, specifically the snapping kind. Not so! This little girl is a box turtle, specifically an Ornate Box Turtle, a terrapene ornata, to be precise. And you might well wonder how I know it is a girl. Well, Alice's treasure sent me on a mad and all consuming hunt for any and all information pertaining to the terrapene ornata. For example, I know this is a girl because she has yellow eyes (the boys have red). Females may lay 200 eggs in a lifetime but only a handful make it to adults. There are almost always 4 toes on the hind feet and these are dry land turtles. These turtles are considered endangered in Wisconsin and are the state reptile of Kansas. I did not even know that states have state reptiles. Birds, sure, but reptiles?

I think you can probably see what happened to my afternoon. Alice spent the afternoon looking for the turtle. She is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Bob spent the afternoon napping on the deck. In fact, he was completely uninterested in the turtle. Far beneath the attention of an old dog with serious napping to do.

From the look of the mud on the little girl, it seems Alice probably rolled her around a bit before I got to her. Fortunately, she's a box turtle which means she's constructed with a hinge to slam the front door shut over her head. I did not know this before today.

She's been safely relocated on the other side of the fence where there are no dogs. Last time I looked she was long gone, so I'm pretty sure she suffered no lasting damage.

Now I'm off to fill out my box turtle sighting report. Yes, it is true. Texas Parks and Wildlife wants to know when and where you've seen a box turtle.