The Job Completed!

If "feeling the burn" is a good part of exercise then I did pretty good yesterday.  I feel it everywhere.  My effort to save the deer is finished, now they should just be embarrassed when they fail to jump the fence.
   I was reminded while working there that it was these same clients who just last year wanted me to make an iron base for a 20 pound piece of marble.  A piece of marble I could not lift out of their car!  That cancer stuff and chemo cure seem like a lifetime ago, a different me entirely.  I remember not being able to turn the key with one hand in the ignition of my little truck.  Two hands to start the car and I could barely walk a block.  What a difference a year makes.  I am so lucky!
   I have done most of my Christmas shopping too and the challenge I gave myself was pretty easy.  Buy only
stuff Made in U.S.A.  You can "Google" that and get pages and pages of content, tons of ideas, lots of holiday discounts and often free shipping.  I bought a lot of clothes this year mostly because I came up with the idea for this Christmas, "wear American or go naked"!  It is not going to be as exciting as I thought.  We make a lot of clothes!  We even make socks!
   I think we must be poor marketers because we do make a lot of stuff and no one is aware of this.  We need a naked Paris Hilton to push our wares.  Maybe naked but dressed in American clothes?  We have no spokesperson, no one telling us what is available or where to get it.  Don't get me wrong.  I like foreign things, exotic things.  I just prefer the days when French Perfume was made in France and not in a vat in a Chinese prison camp.  My Mexican friend, Oscar, tells me that all Mexican souvenirs are now made in China as are most American Flags!

 Stone Post with Light Fixture

   I liked shopping "on line".  There were no crowds, no tattered and littered piles of gone over stuff.  I didn't feel pushed or rushed and in a hurry.  I could leisurely read about the product and in most cases I was prompted.  If you liked that then you might also like this!  Clever, someone was paying attention to me!
   I think I enjoyed my Christmas shopping experience this year more than ever.  I spent no money on gas whatsoever and in fact did most of my shopping while in my bathrobe!  Now if we could only get Paris to do that!

I make Big Art, you can see it HERE

A Job Half Done

In the front of this property the deer are safer.  I would imagine that it is not all ideal being a deer.  There are coyotes and cougars around here and probably hunters too but at least this fence will no longer harm them.  I built this fence P.C. (pre cancer) years ago and it really amazes me when I see it now.  A Grand Entry and over 300' of ornamental iron fence.  I had discovered steel finials by then and unlike cast iron finials these will not break off.  The fence was designed to keep a couple Scotty Dogs in the property not to make it deer proof.  Sometimes a lazy deer would not jump hard nor high enough and would become impaled on the fence.

 One of my "Stone Posts"

   So I have added a "trip bar" over the finials and now a failed attempt will not become fatal.  The front of the property is completed and today I will complete the back section.

 Picture to prove it.

   For the record I wore boots!  It was cold, freezing and damp when we began and you could see the frozen spider webs along the fence line.
   I am so sore and so tired!  I won't even tell you about my hands; I don't want to hear it.  Today it will be done.

More of what I do is HERE

Not Tonight Deer!

I don't really spend all my time in the basement on this computer attempting to turn over rocks that are way too heavy for me to lift.  As rational human beings it is sometimes difficult for me to understand how emotion trumps reason.  We seem to encompass fear and while maybe not understanding an argument at all we entrench and get into our camps, unmovable and hunkered down.  On occasion and you might think too often, I talk politics on this blog.  We live in a political world and all issues have a direct effect on us.
     I try my best to encourage conversation because I think in talking we will know more about these issues.
I try to not use emotional catch phrases like "liberal" and "conservative" or "socialism". These are all designed to get emotional responses and cloud the issues.  The truth of the matter is that I don't know exactly where I stand on a lot of issues.  I am exploring.  I know what seems to be never is and there are consequences to everything.  And, to be honest, there are just some things I do not understand.
    I have had every life experience to make me a Republican.  I have never "used the system", never been to the ER without paying for it myself, never been on food stamps, never collected unemployment, never had subsidised housing or assistance with a utility bill, did not relie on government assistance for my education, have never filed for bankruptcy.  Most of my life has been as an employer not an employee.  I have great private health insurance and have paid into it for over 35 years.  I have never received a dime of public money for anything.  All of this should make me a Republican, shouldn't it?  It is kind of a self-righteous position: I got mine, go get yours!
    These are the issues that nag at me and cause reflection.
European countries, especially Ireland and England have been confronting their national debt with austerity programs, basically curtailing programs for the poor, cutting back on assistance of any kind, raising taxes on the middle class and those lower and it is simply not working!  It is not working simply because that is not how money works.  Money only works when it is in circulation.  Someone has to spend it in order for another person to get it.  Think about food stamps (or whatever they call it these days) for a minute.  What would happen if you got rid of them?  Part of me is in favor of this.  I think the free hand outs discourage
people from working!  But what would happen to Safeways?  to the packaging industry? to the farmers?
to the jobs that are created or maintained from this benefit?  We NEED that circulation of money!
    We have become piranha in a fish bowl and think our survival is bent upon pulling down those above us!
Now we are attacking pensions and collective bargaining.  This won't be a good thing for my business at all.
I sell my art to people who have more money than I do.
    How can anyone be against National Health?  That just makes no sense to me at all.  Sure, I imagine there could be a better way to do it, but to be against it?  That's nuts!  We have it already!!!!!  We have the best, most inclusive health care in the world...IF you are over 65 years old!  We are amongst the worse if you are younger.  That is not an opinion.  It is verifiable.  We have a pretty decent, although not perfect, National Health Care for Veterans.  Why would you want to get rid of this?  Some jobs, although fewer every day, actually come with health benefits as part of the pay package.
    Money has to circulate or nothing works.  That again is real, it is not an opinion.  We are not burning it, it is still out there somewhere.  So the question becomes where is it?  Maybe off shore accounts?  Maybe in FIVE BILLION DOLLAR BONUSES!?  One economic difference from the 1960's to now is the rich are getting richer.  That is not an opinion.  This might have worked (trickle down theory) when it was spent but it is difficult to spend $5,000,000,000 dollars.  It is not just one guy.  40% of American wealth is controlled by just 2% of the people.  Is this really what we want?
    Another thing I think about is the idea of a society, as a concept.  How do you judge a society?  Do you judge a society on the amount of billionaires it produces?  Personally (and this IS an opinion!) I think a society should be judged on how it treats its elders, its children, it infirm and less able.  Most of my life one misstep and I could have been there.  Some of my accomplishments I attribute to just plain luck.

 "Not tonight deer" a deer fence!

    Enough of that crap for today, right?  What do I really do?

This past week I have been working on this project, and yesterday I installed it.  A deer fence to protect the back yard plantings!  The total height is about 8' and the whole trick to it is to make it so it isn't a dominating barricade to the backyard.

 Funny how we like nature and move to where the deer live and then attempt to fence them out!

Most of the structure is designed to develop a rust patina except for the leaves which are stainless steel, I hope a shinny reminder to the deer not to jump!

More of what I do HERE