August 22 - September 11 , Fort Collins, Colorado

 90's and partly cloudy,

Another masterpiece finished. I pulled some lupine petal cane. 

A doe and three fawns on the bike trail. Sunset. 

We have been having these trace of rain storms. Not enough moisture to count, but still enough for a rainbow. I toured a bronze foundry called Art Castings of Colorado with the glass group. They take the clay sculpture the artist gives them, make a latex mold of it, make a wax casting of it (the dark stuff is the wax), cut it into 2 ft x 2 ft pieces, coat it in plaster and pour the bronze into the plaster cast, clean them up, weld them back together and clean up. Here is the wax in plaster casts and a worker cleaning off one of the wax castings. 

Coating the wax cast in plaster. The plaster/wax pieces are put in this gigantic kiln and the wax is melted out, then they pour the bronze. 

The group at the tour with a giant bronze elk behind us. Really interesting tour. The eclipse of the moon. My phone would not take the red part of it unless I grabbed it before it focused. It was an penumbral eclipse, meaning only 95% of it was blacked out by the earth's shadow. 

Katie and Katy came over and worked on our mosaics. Katie and Katy's just need the grout now. Mine I made ahead of time, let the adhesive dry so I could demonstrate the grouting. Then they took John and I out to dinner.  Lots of fun, great to see them. Finished another masterpiece. 

The garden is coming along. All the tomatoes are ripening at once. Finally cool enough to eat out on our deck. 

Sunset. Glass animals cast out of scrap from the vitrographs for more mosaics. 

Latest masterpiece. Mosaic bricks I made. They are now placed in front of the raised bed garden. 

Sunset. I drove to Denver and had lunch with my friends Katy and Rosie at Swing Thai. We were going to hike, but Katy broke her leg, so we lunched. Great to see them.

The newest masterpiece. Still needs to be slumped, but looking good.