Friday January 12, 2022 Receptive influence

[fredxmertz]

 

Hey Y';all

I had a nice quiet, mellow birthday.  My friend made me an apple fritter cake, that was out of this world.  My sister sent me a dynamite care package with chocolates, butterfly gummies (I recommend!), dried fruit, guitar strings and a paperback copy of The Donnelly Murders.  I will now torture you with pictures of said items.








I've been making leather handles for carved walking sticks, and I got myself some unusual colors of leather while Thurman and I were at the leather shop.  So  I will be doing some 'one-off' custom pieces, its through the shop, I;'m doing the work here and using work equipment, but Thurman is totally cool and encouraging about any side-projects that can be created, and its a good use of my time, since my kids are pretty much grown and independent in their way, but at least pretty far distant, and neither of them drive.  (!)

I got purple leather and some shiny gold and extra shiny black.  I also want to incorporate denim, easy enough to find plenty of it, I may pick up some today.  This might lead to me getting an etsy account.  (!)



and I'm back in love with my bicycle.  Though I am still recovering from a knee boo-boo in June 2020, I'm able to do squats and biking stretches again.

I've got a little bike workshop arranged in the stick /storage room at the shop.

I'm riding 2 bikes:  my Bianchi Eros road bike and the Diamondback Ascent EX Mountain bike.  I got a full face helmet, after all, and its the BELL Sanction model.  Its a tight fit for the Large Adult size, which was the biggest I could get.  But I know the snug will play out as it gets used, and i know how motorcycle helmets are supposed to fit, and they should be snug.  Meantime, I ran across another mountain bike helmet which I immediately fell in love with, and it was inexpensive and a great fit.  Not a full face hemet, but it goes generously lower in the back, where the only times I've ever hit my head on the back, that was the area of impact.  So I have the two, I will use them both, and you'll have to hear me crying about it.




I have three active running handwritten journals , which float about and are added to at random.  Often just to catch lists fort to-do items, and many sketches for carvings that are floating around in my addled brain.  I have yet to really do much tiki carving, and I'm keen to study more about how these might be viewed as appropriation, or if there is a way to pay tribute, to the originators, or it its enough to just make mine different enough.  IDK.

Hi!  I'm Brian.  Carver of Graven Images.

OH!  and willing participant of witchcraft and wizardry.




My brother Tim is attending a witchcraft conference next month.  this is an out-growth of a conference known as Pantheicon, which discontinued, and "Between The Veils" seems to have taken its place.  BTV is billed as a Pagan Conference.  anyway, it takes place in san jose california, not far from Tim, and he has a friend that lives nearby to put him up there, and Tim's friend Kenny (who is a kind of a Wiccan warlock) attends every year.  Between the Veils has its vendors listed on their website and...... NO BROOMS?!?!?!  WTF people.I don't think this would be a good time for me to start vending at such an event, but maybe in the future?  I've been making plenty of wands and staffs.  Thurman is not really into the spiritual aspect, in that, he views the brooms as utilitarian, in in the sense that, he makes them and he doesn't imbue them any special thought of magic, he sees those things as kind of silly and irrational.  He's still a county boy, deep down, in some ways.

The Scheumack Broom Company is actually doing VERY well right now, I am happy to say.  there is more demand than ever.  I always say it's a product that "hearkens back" to a distant past.  

We've started seeing Walk-In customers, to the fright of us working in the shop.  This RARELY ever happened in the time I've worked here.  and there used to be times when folks could find our booth at the country fair (OCF)  also, Holiday Market, and in the distant past, they used to vend at Saturday Market.  Anyway, walk-in customers kind of started in october, when someone called and Thurman told them to 'come on down' and  walked in, Masked and doing distancing as best they could, and it wasn't invasive or unsafe as far as I could tell.  but

but

but then we got a group that were wearing masks, yet proclaimed that they were not vaccinated.  (!)

After that I put up a sign.  There hadn't been one.  Thurman was going to print one out from the computer, and I just grabbed a sharpie and wrote MASK REQUIRED. THANKS!  and drew a little happy face with a mask on, so a face with a mask on...

ANYWAY





thanks for finding me here again

PEACE
LOVE
BE GROOVY

Comments

[cmcmck]

Glad you had a good birthday with lots of goodies.

The broom dance is an old tradition in the county where we live.

[lillilah]

The brooms at the conference sound like a great idea! Glad to see that all is going along okay.