We Made the Cut

Sonoma Valley Stables were a gracious host of their annual hunter derby this last weekend. Where else can you wear black tie and tails and muck out your best friend's stall in the same day? UP and I went 9th of 25. Plenty of rounds after us to get knocked out of the top 12 slots for the handy round. But we made the cut. I reminded her of her job, that of jumping over man made obstacles which were intended to imitate natural obstacles in any open field. You see open fields all the time with meticulously matching painted rails, round walnut veneered logs and color coordinated dahlias as plentiful as in a royal wedding.

Time to learn the handy round well. This time, the second round was not just some arbitrary construct that other people would be jumping and not us. Enter, pick up canter from the walk and proceed directly to the first fence. Make an inside roll back to an oxer. Then some middle stuff I'll just gloss over. Finally an inside turn down the outside line in an easy 6 and out of the ring. They generously awarded 12 prizes, we were 12th and got to participate in the victory gallop with speakers blaring. She preferred carrots to ribbons, showing a distinct trend away from the ridiculous trait of thinking bling is more important that healthy root vegetables.

Reporting from the field, JP and UP

Very fuzzy video, looks like it was filmed under water. Will work on better upload (read, technical help needed, Sean)

Natural obstacles in a typical field always include canoes cut in half.

Putting the Pieces Together

This activity took a nudge. At a dinner party, the subject came up that I formed a CraftClub. Along the lines of a Book Club, we meet periodically and do a craft project. After the first 2 meetings, I realized I was out of my areas of expertise and starting reaching out for help. And we got it, in spades. This last weekend, Giulia Manzoni and Pippa Murray put on a fabulous mosaic workshop for 10 participants. Friday night was TGIF, wine and cheese, and a visual potpourri of 5,000 years of mosaics. Good inspiration, and a little humbling to see micromosaics and realize we would be trying out the activity for the first time the very next morning.

Saturday, with hammer tapping even with the straight edge of the hardy, tile held gingerly in between the moving metal parts, we broke up tile or marble into really tiny rectangles and trapezoids called tessera. Tweezers holding the tesseras tightly, we scooped a some thinset and set the pieces in place one by one. The thinset engulfed the base like a tooth with a long root, reaching up 2/3 of the sides. Letting that dry overnight, the platters were ready for grout Sunday morning. The artistically adventuresome made their own designs. Those of us concentrating more on learning to make clean cuts and keeping all 10 fingers whole borrowed from Giulia's, generously shared. We were all wowed by each others' works.

 Lesson learned, start small and finish on time...

Debra and others diligently working in silence...