'Bright' Doesn't Do It Justice

Yeah, okay...

So the kid and I started setting up the tree. Tonight was just the 'lights' layer, tomorrow we'll start in on the ornaments.

And that new tree topper?

Suffice to say we could stand out front, wave it, and assist small aircraft to safely land.

I mean, look at the reflection off the ceiling!

I'm gonna swap out those clear bulbs for colored ones, for sure.

Ridiculous, LOL.

Hey, I'll Be Damned, It's Still There!

Welp, it was one heck of a week, lemme tell ya!

This week we had screaming winds for days on end, a flood AND a whole bunch of snow.  And the flood and snow were within a day of each other!

To give the weather service credit, everyone was amptly warned, given the standard 'Be prepared to be on your own for 3-5 days' instructions, etc.  And the weather service, the local government and emergency services were fully prepared and communicated and meshed well together.  It really was a fine example of handling a not-too-fun situation in the best way possible.

So we had a solid week of heavy-duty weather, everything from high winds to 'catastrophic' (the weather services' word, not mine) rain/flooding to MORE high winds just for fun (weather service missed that 48 hour episode though), then a blizzard that has and *still is* dumping snow on us.  Oh, and meanwhile, the earthquake swarms in our area continue.

Plague of toads must be backordered.

But anyway, this morning when I got up the chicken coop & run was still there...

As far as the yard goes, it's either covered in snow or supremely muddy.  Ya gotta watch where you step though, since the yard had about 6 inches of floodwater standing that froze overnight and then got snowed on to the tune of about 6-7 inches.  When I took this pic most of the snow had melted away.

The coop doors were damaged pretty heavily and we'll have to replace them. Unfortunately we haven't been able to check the house for wind damage yet since it snowed so quickly and thoroughly.  But they say it will melt off in a few days, then we'll know what--if any--damage there is.

At lease the chickens had a genuinely great time ice skating on the frozen lake-that-was-once-a-yard before the snow came!

Plus they had their own Japanese zen garden pond!

One Side DONE!

...three more to go...I'm getting tired of painting now.

But the finished side looks pretty damned awesome!

The straight edge on the right will go against my daughter's back. The top of the wing starts at about ear level, the tip of the feathers end at her knees.

This is the other side, here you can see the foamcore base the 'feathers' are hotglued to. Since the foamcore I used was originally white, I spongepainted it both for practice to get the technique & look down, AND just in case any part of it showed. This side gets covered with feathers next:

Pics of the detail, top:

Middle:

And bottom wingtips:

The last thing I did was to tack the tip of each feather down using a hot glue gun so that the wing would look more like a single carved piece of stone. When I hold it up as it will be when worn, the feathers drape really nicely (wow, having little feathered friends running around the yard for models REALLY helps!). It has around 50 or so feathers, and was harder than Hell to get a decent picture of. Now that I kinda know what I'm doing and how to go about it, the others should go faster. I'd say each wing will weigh about 3-5 pounds when finished.

One change I'd make would be to do the final 'Iron Oxide' paint drips AFTER the entire wing is made rather than one at a time, to look more like realistic weathering. But since I've already started doing it this way, I'll do the others the same way so they match.

I want to get this project DONE, so I busted out my BIG craft table and now have a feather painting assemply line going in the living room.

Check Your Smoke Detector Batteries, Everyone!

Because about an hour and a half ago, ours got a workout.

Wouldn't you know, the one night I get to bed early, at 10 PM. The rain had just started, and we were snuggled in for a nice night of cozy sleep, listening to the rain come down.

Until 12:30AM, when our smoke detector started SCREAMING. J. and I woke up together...we both thought at first it was his alarm clock, then immediately realized what it really was. My first thought was, naturally, 'The damn thing wants a new battery'. J. sat up and smelled smoke, and in admirable Alpha Male fashion, began barking, 'THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE, GET OUT!' at the top of his lungs. He went for the phone while I went for the kid, turning on lights as we went. The house was smoky, but no obvious fire. I did have trouble waking N., I was yelling, 'Wake up, the house is on fire!' and shaking her leg really hard, which got -zero- results, the kid was starting to succumb to the smoke, which was heavier in her room. I ended up grabbing her by the ankle and dragging her towards me, hand over hand, thinking I was going to have to put my years of CPR training into use.

We all got out to the living room, and had the front door open and every light in the house on. Still no flames, and the smoke detectors had shut the Hell up, since we had opened doors & windows. We stuck N. on the front porch with instructions NOT to come back into the house, and to run out to the tree in the front yard (our fire drill plan we practice) if she saw flames, while we waited for the fire department, got dressed and grabbed our wallet/purse, N.s favorite stuffed bunny and my computer tower, which has family photos on it. Two things I did not grab and damned well should have were our folder of important papers (birth certificates, N.'s immunization records) and our daily medications. We did haul Jake the sparrow and Nadine the crow out back, where they got rained on a bit...they ended up thinking it was a fun midnight bath, though.

The police got here first, and their first task was to take a head count and get everyone out, which we did. The fire department was less than 15 seconds behind them. One of the cops was nice enough to let N. sit in the back of her police car while J. and I went around with the firemen (and women), telling them what we smelled where, was anything left on, etc. We all get well soaked since it's POURING rain still.

Still no source for the smoke and no flames, but everyone agrees that something is damned well burning, somewhere. I had turned off the central heat, which was set to 68 degrees but had not come on, since the house was 70 degrees. The attic was smoky, so J. climbed up on the roof to check the central heat/AC unit (he doesn't even get a break from his job at night, in the pouring rain, poor guy!). Well, I heard him YELP, and knew we'd struck paydirt.

He climbed down and killed the circuit breaker for the thing--it had shorted out and shocked the crap out of him when he touched it. Yay, we have a source! Everyone agrees that it should be OK now, with no power to it, and we collect the kid, thank the emergency personnel and wave goodbye to them. I've already decided that I'm not sleeping anymore tonight, and that N. is going to spend the night at grandma & grandpa's house. So we get her into dry clothes, pack up her favorite stuffed bunny and J. runs her over there. Meanwhile I've got every window open, and am trying to air out the house...but that smell does hang in the air.

Overall, it went about as well as a house fire could go, and was a great test of our fire drill practices.

I could have done without it, really, though, especially the ringing headache the smoke gave me.