Ahhh pudding time again!

Antique pudding charms... I hope I get the sack of money!!!! Some one bought these clever charms, it wasn't me. I would love to make some out of silver..


It's that time of year again..Yes time to make the pudding for Christmas dinner. We just call the whole month of December Yuletide.
We do our thing, feasting and honoring the Old Gods on the Solstice, but on Christmas day I cook a goose, and have the family over for dinner. The family being my Catholic Mother in Law, who I love to bits. She's very open minded, funny, and kind.
Plus she loves my cooking.;)
Yuletide is one of those times in the year when Christianity and Pre-Christian traditions collide head on. The gift giving, the evergreens, the celebrations of life, the cooking heaps of celebratory food.
Like Pudding.
Yes, I seriously doubt my ancient pre-Christian Saxon ancestors ate puddings like the one Iam about to make for Yule, but my Protestant Victorian ones sure did.
This is a ritual that I take rather seriously every year. I spend time gathering up the ingredients, the right barley wine, Mad River's John Barley Corn for one, and then I gather it in one place and start mixing. According to the great and all knowing internet this Sunday is Stir Up Sunday, the traditional day to get your Christmas puddings in order.
I know what Your'e saying,
"But Heidi, what is a good Thor loving heathen like yourself doing making puddings set to any sort of Christian calendar?"
Well, it's like this, it's tradition. Since half of my mothers side of the family came from Britain and Christmas pudding was part of their celebrations I do it to honor them. Plus it's delicious. AND all those other pudding makers out there in the big world are doing the same thing as I am on that day. All those people thinking good thoughts as they stir the batter, excited children gearing up for the holidays, all that good energy linking us all..Christian or Not. Good old fashioned folk magic is what that is.
It can't hurt to tap into that, and share some of my good will and excitement for the season of re birth too.
This is something we can use around here. As you may or may not know we are barely hanging on financially. Yes we can eat, but that's about it. Being unable to get enough work has forced us to make some choices that are hard, but we have no other options.
Business loans that can't get repaid, mortages behind by three months,..it's dire. I won't go into the misery, or even the details. The crappy economy, our lack of business/marketing skills, my broken back, all contributed.
I know there are people far worse off than we are, no one is shooting at us, or chasing us with machetes, but still,potentially losing my home, business and security is pretty shitty.

"If you are going through hell keep going."
-Churchill
That's what we are attempting to do.

Working along...

The above is the Bavarian sign started oh, ages ago, and along with other jobs trying very hard to be done. Today I cut out 100 little pieces of sheet steel for it. They will become the petals of hop cones. You see each little cut out peice had to then be cleaned up with a grinder, then they get hammer textured, a central hole drilled, then welded onto a pre-forged stem, each petal welded individually, then shaped into a hop cone.
Phew!So I stood in one spot, all the dang day, cutting steel with the plasma cutter, then grinding, grinding, grinding..Man am I tired!!!!
I'll get some pics tomorrow I promise, of what in the hell these things look like when done.
Maybe if I feel brave I'll be in them but lately I'm not feeling too foxy for pics. Mostly I feel tired, stressed out from the hardships of late, and this has translated in me looking like , well a tired, stressed out middle aged woman. Recent pics of me have been sobering, if not sob inducing for their horrible accuracy on the toll age is taking. That and my , umm girth.

Well meaning friends saying things like "No , really, you don't look THAT bad for a woman your age.." or " I think your beauty lies within." - do not help, trust me.
I might be a tomboy, but I do care what I look like.
Iam not ready to look like an 80 year old babushka, not yet anyways, Iam only 44!!! The girth part, well, Iam working on it. I admit to not being one of those beauty treatment mad kind of women, I try to wear sunscreen, I use facial scrub, but Botox? no.
I know, if I had just been more careful, didn't drink, ate only veggies, coated myself in goo each night before bed..
Maybe if I was wealthy lady I would just go get a face lift and have a month stay at some swanky spa to sort it all out.
Oh well, there are plenty of other waaay more important things to be worrying about, but sometimes a girl has to vent.

Me on youtube....

Here Iam, talking about the dragon gate...

No, Iam not dead..

A cart load of hops

Greetings to all and any who have wandered back here to see if Iam indeed, alive. Iam, but our old computer isn't. No excuse, not blogging all Sept. was due to laziness on my part. Then a truly nasty trojan horse infected our windows operating system. We pulled the plug, and thanks to the kindeness of friends (James and Karen) we have a new system, and a fancy flat screen!!! Ya see, we have only just upgraded from using tin cans with strings to cordless phones around here, so a flat screen is a big fat, luxury from the future.
Sept. was the annual hop harvest at the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub, and as shown above, here Iam looking a bit like Bellatrix Lestrange I have to say, with a load of our hops ready to be plucked.


Dan admiring our haul
We loaded up our contribution, and then went over to our freind John's house to pick up his fine crop of hops..Then off to the Lab.


Our haul seen from the back..
Happy, happy hops! I have no idea how many Lbs that was, alot is all I can say. The truck smelled of hops for days after, yellow resin was everywhere.



History Nerds Anyone?
Iam always happily amazed by who gets this one, and is amused by it. Here in the USA you have to be either an English Lit. major or a History nerd to get it, and I proudly count myself as one of latter.
There was one history boor who felt it was his job to point out(ad nauseum) that the Saxon's did not have automobiles, and therefore this just didn't make sense, nor was it funny.
Rolling my eyes...
sigh..there's one(or two) in every crowd of re-enactors.


Ben cutting down the bines at the Lab
We arrived to find folk gathering, and Ben one of the brewers at the lab, cutting down their hops out in the back lot.


Here is our pile.


Then it grew!
Iam sitting behind that wall of vines, it was amazing.
The weigh in final was over 200lbs. of hop cones!!WoW!
We picked hops all day, from midday to evening. It was a fun time had by all, all be it scratchy and itchy.

Updates= Most of you know my father has lung cancer, so here is the update. He's doing okay, had a nasty bout of pneumonia last week, but is home and getting better. The new drug he is on costs $6000.00 dollars a month, but as they qualified for a special grant it costs them nothing.
Whew! that's a good thing, as they are not rich, and neither am I. Their insurance only covered part of the drug's cost, so they are lucky to have qualified for the drug makers financial program,
- they waved the remainder of the fees.
This according to my mother who called me in tears at hearing how much it was going to cost to help keep her husband alive, and her relief when she found out they would not have to sell everything and move into a trailer.
He has to take the drug, as the chemotherapy was killing him faster than the cancer, and this drug is the only one his tumor is responding to...
This all leads back to my anger about our lack of affordable healthcare, nay, national healthcare.
Why my fellow countrymen don't want National healthcare is beyond me. If my folks had not gotten that grant they would have gone bankrupt attempting to pay for the drug.
Americans, out of compassion we can send thousands of dollars to help with foreign disasters, like the tsunami in Indonesia , but help your neighbor pay for their basic medical care? "Hell no!!!! That's communism! I got mine, and I ain't sharin!!!"
sigh...What a world.
As for us, well, things are hard, but we trudge on.

Bees, Barley and Bavarian Haus

The result of those busy bees this last spring
The summer is winding on, the days are shorter, sad I know, but true. It is still hot, and sunny, the garden is still productive, but I can see that some things are looking tired. The morning does not come so early, and the hops are ready.
Even so, the honey bees are busy gathering nectar from all the flowering squashes, mint and sunflowers. We dig the bees , and I encourage their activities in the garden. After all how would I have gotten my luscious apples without them? I know some apples are self pollinating, but that's not my point.



The Sugar Shack
All seemed right and in balance in the garden, when I noticed an unusually large number of honey bees drinking from the hummingbird feeder. First it was one, then two. Then I went outside to have peek and WOW!! All the openings were choked with golden little bees having a good drink.
Their amber bodies wriggling and pulsating as they jockeyed for the prime spot to get at the nectar. Like WW2 bombers, flying away laden down with sugar water for the Queen..Bees so full of nectar they could barely take off, cruised slowly past my head off to the hive.. The feeder was so jam packed with bees, not even the normally agressive yellow jackets dared to have ago at it.
The hummingbirds had given up, and were nowhere to be seen..
I just stood and watched , mesmerised.
Last year the bees stopped by for a quick sugar water drink, then flew off. The song birds would nip in for a beak full too on the hot days ..But this year is waaaay different with the bees..
I was happy to help feed our local bees, but there was problem.
The problem was that the greedy little bees would climb themselves up into the feeder tubes, and end up drowning in nectar. Seeing their drowned little bodies floating at the top of the feeder, I realised something more sensible had to be done, so I called my bee keeping freind and mead maker Amy aka Wolfwoman..
"Ya need to build them a jar feeder. This time of the year they are trying to gather as much nectar as they can to keep the Queen producing eggs, and to store for winter, so they are really hungry. Iam feeding my hives , and going through a quart of nectar a day."
Who knew? So I got a jar, poked some holes in the lit, set it up on small stones, set that in the middle of a shallow dish, and there ya go! Bee feeder!



Flying in for drink Now I suggest that you set this thing up after it gets to be evening, or you will have as I did, a zillion bees climbing all over you. I mean climbing. Bees buzzing by your ears, face, arms, climbing my hands looking for sugar.. The thing is to just be calm, and slow in your movements, not so much because they will get agressive, but so you do not inadvertently squish one, or squish one between your fingers. Then you'll get stung for sure. It was amazing, the feeling of their wings beating air all around my face, trying to resist that primeval urge to run at the sound of so much buzzing up close. It was cool!!! they did not care a bit about me, except that I was bringing more nectar. Next time though, I refill the thing at night.





The Bar




The way they all lined up reminded me of some little gold bees made for a Scythian warriors garment.....or the sculpture of Diana of Ephesus, she wears a necklace of bees...
They flew past me, ignoring me as another obstacle..So they seem happy, and no more drowned bees.



Bavarian Inn sign
Barley, hops and beer..



The start of the spirals..Iam working on the stein today.
Well, Iam currently slacking off writing this! But the bees were so cool, I had to share!




Here is the study for how to make hop cones, and barley...
The white thing is the study, I think Iam going to use the layered method, cut out and shape the petals of the hops, and them fit them on a central "pin"....The Barley, I still have no idea yet..
This is a cool project, but I best get back to work.

A drawing.

Sometimes I get to sneak in some drawing that is not work related. This is an illustration in progress of the Rune, Sowelo, the Sun. It was for a book project, but then things changed, so now it's just for my own pleasure. It's not finished, as he is standing in a field of barley, and that is not drawn in yet. They loved the drawing, but decided to go with photographic images, and that's fine. I will finish him, and am toying with the idea of doing the entire Runic Alphabet.

Most folks know Iam an ancient history nerd as well as artist. I have toyed with the idea of going off to school to finally become an official history geek, archaeologist/pre-Christian religion scholar, but something always stops me. Mostly money, fear, and well money.

So I have things in the works to combine my love of Viking age history, blacksmithing and art that won't involve hideous student loans.
So back to work..

Neo Gothic Hinges

Neo-Gothic Hinges in situ

Greetings everyone! Well you may recall those Thistle hinges I was working on awhile back..No? Yes? Maybe? Well, they were finished ages ago, and languished about waiting for their new home to be built. Well happy happy joy joy, they languish no more!
Their new door was finished and the hinges were attached this week. Today was the big day they whole thing was installed on site at the historical Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, here in sunny, scenic Portland , Oregon.
Mike the Wood Guy built a great, heavy bastard of a wooden door for the hinges to live on. Out of solid mahogany. He, the Friends of Lone Fir and my darling Hubbinator were on hand to hang the door, ooh and ahh and revel in a job well done. I was back at the smithy slaving away on another project, so I could not attend.

The new door was built for the McClay family crypt's utility building, an old, musty brick structure known by me as the "spider palace"...there is a reason , a good reason I call it that...Iam not normally scared of insects , but when we went there to take measurements the abundance of blackwidows, and big , brown, leggy spiders hanging about, or skuttleing about, did make me a bit nervous....Think Ron and Harry deep in the woods, with all those giant spiders chasing them...or a certain Indiana Jones flick, dark tomb, lots of bugs, certain death..you get the picture..




A closer shot of the fabulous door
These will be here for another hundred years I hope, it was an honor to make them for the Friends of Lone Fir, and the McKlay/Kerr family.





Thistle head up close, with potentially deadly arachnid
Look! Look! I swear, only on the doorjam like ten minutes and the little buggers have moved in already! See I was not exaggerating!

Sacred Images

Pictographs along Picture Gorge..

Welcome back to part 2 of our Eastern Oregon trip..I know It's only been a month, but honestly, I just can't stand sitting here for the hours it takes to write these posts. I also space out how long it's been between postings, and not that much exciting goes on in my life. Mostly it's work.
On the way back from Eastern Oregon we drove back along the John Day river, the only green for miles, with spectacular landscapes around us.
Part of this route winds through a narrow canyon, and named Picture Gorge. Named so because the Paleo people who lived here painted spirit drawings on it's walls. Some of them have similarities to the rock art found in Europe, which makes sense given the time period they were thought to be made. That and the primal human need for communication with the Gods/Spirits/Ancestors, to intercede, bestow or assist. It could all also just be graffiti, we will never know for sure..
Even though they built a damn highway through it, it is still a special place..


The Gorge Looking back...we stopped for a picnic and look at the river..


Taking a rest...and the hills around us..



Spirit drawings...



Standing below, looking up...


The sheer walls, twisting stones, the seat of eagles.
I stand before the sheer rock walls my neck craned back taking in the beauty. Behind me the river rushes past. Between me and the river is the road. Usually one has to put up with the danger of being run over by vehicles charging past, and their intrusive noise ruining the natural peace of the place.
Not today. No cars or trucks come rushing by today, so I can almost imagine how peaceful this place was, before the road came though it. I can't help but wonder if it was the present century, would they have blasted a road though here knowing what treasures were on it's walls?



More Natural Splendor
The route we took was awesome, but as usual did I take enough pics? No.
It was an awesome road trip, and this week we have another opportunity for blogging content.
This coming weekend is the Summer Solstice, so we are off to our local Fauxhenge as I call it, or the Stonehenge Memorial at Maryhill Washington.


Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial

Off with some good friends to camp out over night, get up early(Wait, didn't we just do that for Beltane?...) and watch Sunna/Sol rise over the mountains. Swim in the mighty Columbia river for a good cleansing off of any bad ju-ju, Then it's off to our friends James and Karen's wedding! Should be an action packed weekend all round.
So happy Solstice everyone! remember when the Sun was at her depths, and winter reigned? Now we rejoice at the warm days, the growing grain and the fruitful boughs! Build a nice bonfire, have a good jump over it, feast, swim in the fresh waters, make wreathes of flowers and oak leaves to wear. Laugh, be merry!Enjoy the longest day of the year!
I know we will.