365 Day 283

Twink gets comfy while I cut up branches

My friend Ruth helped me re-place some furniture on Saturday night. Twink has claimed this particular chair as his new comfy spot. He can also reach the tiger toy from the arm of the chair. From that spot he can look out the window, he can look out the front window, he can see the front port and the front door and he can spy around the corner. Kitteh heaven.



Wow. Twink is looking so grown up in that shot.

Today my friend Andi came over to start the weeding in the front of the house. Man...I have not done much in the way of tending to anything at all outside this year. What a mess.






Andi is up for it, though and it is going quicker than I thought it would. Yay.












About a month and a half (at least) ago I came home one late afternoon and I hacked up a weed bush that had been driving me absolutely crazy with it overgrown-ness. This photo is what is left of the bush (that is really a vine/weed). It was really out of control and heading for the driveway and starting to block the edge of the front steps to the porch.

I was frenzied. I grabbed the loppers and just lopped all the way down to the ground and threw the branches into a pile. That is where they stayed until today. They were green and leafy when I cut them off and there was NO way I was going to bag them up that day...or the next...or, well, you get the idea.



This is some of the pile of the dried up branches.

I decided today while I was keeping Andi company that I would cut up the branches and bag them...save some time...keep busy.









eeeeeeek -- yard work














While I was cutting up the debris I noticed that some of the chopped branches looked like antlers.


Hmmm...








I ended up with a small pile of what may end up as antlers for plaster cloth guys. Maybe not.


They are staying on the porch because there are some bugs on them. Not a lot, but enough to bother me.




Tonight I figured I should just DO it and try to plaster cloth over a branch/antler to see if I liked doing it, how it might look, if it was do-able...whatever.

I thought I read somewhere once that if you used real branches from outside that you should bake them in the oven to kill the bugs. I mentioned it to Andi and she said, "Then you might have bugs in your oven." -- which was plenty of justification for me to not try it. I looked and looked online and couldn't find any info about it. So I hemmed and hawed for a bit and then I decided to not worry about it and I banged one on the porch a bunch of times to knock off any bugs.



I also figured if I worked on the kitchen counter I would be able to clean it up quickly and I'd be able to see if there were any bugs.

I didn't come into contact with any (visible) bugs...although I have been feeling phantom ones ever since I touched the branch...geez...










...40 minutes later here is the plaster cloth wrapped branch.

I put a couple layers on as I worked my way up the branch, hoping that if there were any bugs, they'd be sealed up in the plaster cloth. I smoothed everything pretty well and I am satisfied there are not going to be any escaping insects.

I'm not sure if I like it or not...I will have to watch it dry for a few days, pick it up, look it over a lot...

I know I wasn't crazy about working with the branch but I also know I couldn't build something like that from scratch.

We'll see.