May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 by kritterspaw

My Fire Fighter

Uncategorized
blue ridge, fire, fire fighter, happy jack, jack fire, john
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John just got his FireFighter Cert.. moving him from Volunteer to Reserve.

Most of the calls we get up here are rescue and medical emergency calls for which the guys are first responders and ambulance drivers to get the patient to nearby hospitals. We do get our fair share of ATV / quad accident and vehicle roll overs.

The fires we get are mostly forest fires handled by the Forest Service (with the rare assistance from our community fire department).

Last year we had a number of fires. The General Fire, Jack Fire, and several others.

John’s training was pretty daunting with all the book learning, memorization, and physical training. We’re glad he’s through it and back home where we can get back to working on other things.

April 18, 2015April 18, 2015 by kritterspaw

The Rocks

Travel
australia, circular quay, harbor bridge, opera house, quay, sydney, the rocks
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The Rocks along the Circular Quay (waterfront) in Sydney, Australia must be one of my favorite International destinations. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to Australia probably half a dozen times. Of all the places I have been, it remains one of my favorites. The people are part of the charm and culture; genuinely kind and gregarious. They have a slang that is it’s own language.

The food is as International as the destination… a melting pot of flavors and ethic blends. Each different, wonderful, and enticing.

I have been scanning my old 35mm negatives and came across these old photos from a previous trip (so forgive the graininess of my old Canon A-1). My trips to Australia have been almost exclusively business trips, as such I have gotten to see a lot of varied places… but none in great depth.

You can see here photos of the Circular Quay, Opera House, and Harbor Bridge at night.

March 5, 2015 by kritterspaw

Sedona Snow

Travel
az, cascading, red rocks, river, rocks, sedona, snow
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Weather is our friend.

I remember when I used to travel, I used to complain when the weather wouldn’t be perfect. No doubt there is something pleasant about a sun shiny day. But where’s the fun it that. Adverse weather brings out all sorts of new adventures… people coming in out of the rain looking for shelter, and a friend… animals getting out on a shady cool no shadow day… and us photographers looking for rainbows… or snow… or fog…

We went to Sedona for the weekend… and it snowed. It’s not often you see snow on the Red Rocks. It was pretty awesome.

February 24, 2015 by kritterspaw

Why I Blog

I saw this most interesting post on a beautiful blog, who stopped by the other day to visit my blog.

Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY at http://leannecolephotography.com/2015/02/13/up-for-discussion-why-we-blog-2/ started this fascinating discussion, ‘Why I Blog’, and I couldn’t resist but join in.

In 2009 after watching Julie & Julia, the movie, I realized how easy it was to do a blog. The movie mentioned, blogspot… and it’s free. So I in Dec 2009 I started a blog, krittersmenu.blogspot.com. It chronicled the food we ate every day for a year. Life got busy, and so I took a year+ sabbatical from the blog. When I restarted it, my interests and life had changed and my blogspot blog became a hodge-podge of photographs, travels, food, and projects… an eclectic mix to be sure.

I found blogspot to be very cumbersome to manipulate, customize, track, get comments (most people continued to have issues with commenting). So in Dec 2014 I made the plunge to separate my blog into 3 separate blogs: kritterspaw.com (my general ramblings), krittersmenu.com (foodie blog), and kritterspix.com (photo blog). With this new more organized format I switched to WordPress, finding it very easy to customize and use. With the new blogs I made a commitment to a whole new philosophy for my blog. It’s purpose became to help drive me to do better… to take and post better photos, to post interesting discussions, travel, projects, and foods. I try to post on each of the 3 blogs at least once a week… though I am not always successful. But that forced me to go out and take photos once a week; to make and eat post worthy foods once a week; and make progress on my projects once a week. In a few short months it has driven me to produce better food photos, and take my camera with me more often to enable to capture unexpected photos of elk, eagles, etc. I actively try to take better studio photographs for my food and projects, and it has inspired me to growth in great ways.

As an added, unexpected outcome, I have found people I never knew before reaching out to me and sharing their thoughts, their blogs, and their opinions. I have also found that my photo blog serves as a venue to send to magazines for potential publication as a sort of portfolio.

While I’m new to WordPress and my new blogs, I am finding them very gratifying and satisfying in so many ways. It’s allowed me to share my interests with a broader audience, without sending limited emails to selected segments. I don’t do Facebook or Tweeter, and am social media ignorant, but I find this medium inspiring and thought provoking. Thanks for visiting and sharing.

February 23, 2015 by kritterspaw

More Gourds

I had some lingering gourds sitting on the bench that needed to be worked so that the bench could be cleared for the next project — shelving units for my office.

So I sharpened the pencil, heated up the wood burner and got to work.

I wanted to do designs that were colorful and different. I wanted them to be fun and professional looking. I also wanted to take better photos of the finished projects. What I have learned in taking photos of them, is I have a lot to learn about studio lighting.

My photographer friend, Maureen, turned me on to LimoStudio Lighting, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009F37LW8/ref=pe_385040_30332190_pe_175190_21431760_3p_M3T1_ST1_dp_1 . For under $40 I got a tripod and soft box lighting. Using it is another talent altogether… one that I still need to work out the kinks with, (though I am improving).

I do like the way they came out. The colors and designs are original, fun, and professional… just as I had hoped. Time to put the gourds away and move on.

February 11, 2015February 12, 2015 by kritterspaw

Concrete Tables – Progress

So, you haven’t heard too much about these concrete tables lately. Perhaps you thought we’d given up on them. Tempting… considering the amount of work they have become, but it’s for that reason that we couldn’t possibly.

If you recall where we left off … we had poured the concrete into the forms (in the snow, I remember well) with the metal bases we had made. We allowed them to dry for some time due to the cold temps. In late January we very awkwardly flipped the (now very heavy) table on it’s feet (with the help of John Deere). We let the tops dry for another couple weeks before attempting to pull off the plastic and plywood insets.

Forgive the crappy cell phone pic.

Getting the plastic off was easy… but getting the plywood insets would prove to be a pain in the backside. We ended up chiseling it out. In the process we ‘chunked’ out bits of the corners around the inset. So we had to mix up concrete patch (which we had to color, best we could) to match the colored tables and benches.

We put 3 coats on… sanding the concrete between each. (Yes, sanding concrete is as difficult as it sounds.) As a matter of fact, if this project is starting (?) to sounds like a lot of work, well… let’s just say that would be an understatement (and a little insane, yes).

Finally… we individually cut our tiles for our insert. We mixed up some thin set, and began the daunting task of laying the tiles, and then with a toothpick removing the thin set from between the tiles.

Whew! Almost done.

We still have yet to grout in between the tile… and waterproof with Thompsons.

Oh, and there’s the bit about prepping the whole area they go in with a retaining wall, sand / rock, leveling, tamping, and laying flagstone. That’ll be awhile.

Maybe next time we’ll buy our concrete tables. They did come out cool… and are the only thing like it out there. Built to last in elegant style.

February 4, 2015February 4, 2015 by kritterspaw

Neighborhood Eagles

Uncategorized
arizona, az, bald eagle, eagles, golden eagle, happy jack, northern az
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We’ve had a number of sightings of big birds in the area. At first we thought they were hawks. But after getting a couple pix of them, we discovered they are golden eagles… and bald eagles.

It seems they migrate in the winter, so it would seem that they may have found a winter home in the area. How cool is that? Be on the look out if you’re in Happy Jack, AZ.

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015 by kritterspaw

Havasu Balloon Festival

It’s been a couple decades since we were last in Lake Havasu City.

I recall that we had fish and chips along the boardwalk in the English Village overlooking the London Bridge. I remember thinking how charming it was… and how insane to move the London Bridge. That was then. Fast forward 20+ years, and we found it has all changed.

We were disappointed to find that the English Village is all boarded up and now defunct. I understand the property owners are wanting to re-zone so that they can build some profitable condos. From my perspective, Lake Havasu City lost a good tourist attraction and a charming tourist draw.

We went to visit friends and attend the Havasu Balloon Festival.

We’d been to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque and gotten some great photos, so we were keen to see if we could get some worthy photographs during our trip.

The balloon festival was much more than I expected. It had a mass ascension every morning, and a night glow every evening. During the day there was skydiving and bi-plane performances. There were tons of ‘shops’ to buy anything from a pontoon boat to a side by side or rail. An arts and crafts festival sold balloon themed crafts, t-shirts, and knick knacks.

We went every day of the 3 day event (Friday – Sunday) and walked our feet off.

It was a great opportunity and venue to visit with our friends, and a cool activity.

We totally enjoyed ourselves and would definitely go back.

Thanks to our friends for inviting us.

See more pix on kritterspix.com

January 2, 2015January 3, 2015 by kritterspaw

Pygmy Owl

I can’t image a better way to start the year than with the visit of a new creature to our magnificent haven.
I thought this was a simple bird huddled up in the cold. Then it turned around! OMG!

It wasn’t much bigger than a small sparrow. You could literally hold it in the palm of your hand. John called it a pigmy owl. I’d never heard of such a thing. I looked it up online, and sure enough, it’s an actual designation, a Pygmy Owl. Fantastic!

December 23, 2014January 11, 2015 by kritterspaw

Concrete Benches, in development UPDATED

January 2015 ……………………………………………………

This project has taken a bit of a hold since it has snowed… and with the holidays and such. We know that since it is cold out we’ll want to let the concrete set up for at least a couple weeks. So we built the forms, lining them carefully with plastic so that we can easily unmold the insets to embed our tile ornamentation. We’ve poured a ton of concrete in our lives, but this is a first for us pouring it in the snow. We put some brown die in the mix with the rock, cement, sand, and water, and mixed it in the cement mixer to a wet but stiff mix. Then we wheel barreled it into the shop where the forms awaited. Then we shoveled it in with a scoop. Now that they are all poured we wait. We’ll let them dry for a couple weeks, then unmold them and ready them for embedding the tile.

December 2014…………………………………………….. Now that we have the table metal legs and assembly designed, cut, built, assembled, welded, and ground… whew! We have moved on to the benches. We cut the metal legs and the side struts, using the same pre-fab balls in the center that we used in the table (see earlier post, Concrete Table). We’re welding it all together and putting the top re-bar bars across the assembly so that we can sink it into the concrete. We made the shape for the bench using an elaborate ‘compass’ of sorts with a router, mirroring the radius of the table. For the bench form, we are including a recessed band so that we can imbed colorful tiles (we’ll do the same for the table). You gotta have a vision for this sort of project. I love how it’s coming together. The finished product should be very cool. Stay tuned for the next installment. Just as a teaser.. here’s the table and bench skeletons… and the beginnings of the concrete forms. More to come…