Memorial Day Picnic with Family

Memorial Day was a beautiful day...warm with a light breeze and low humidity. Most of our Ohio family members were able to be with us for the picnic.  Some of them brought loved ones with them...Our family is expanding.

Everyone brought food to share.  There was so much food that nearly everyone had food to take home as well.  Our refrigerator is well stocked with leftovers, too.  Ray was our griller...burgers and brats and veggie burgers.

Steve and Tom set up the area in the backyard...tables, chairs, tub filled with pop, water and watermelon, the tablecloth on the picnic table.  Sonja, Gretchen, and I laid out food on the dining room table. Everyone made their choices and went back outside to eat and enjoy the beautiful weather.

This was the first time in several months that I've seen Robert when he hasn't been acting on stage at the Troy Civic Theatre.

Steve has been staying with us for a few days.  He was a big help in getting everything set up for the party.  He chose the shirt because it was Memorial Day.

  Why is Eric smiling?

Here's why.  Katie came with him to the picnic.

I caught Tom and Sonja in a candid shot.  Tom was was talking with Ray and Sonja was checking the time since she was scheduled to work in mid afternoon.

Here is Gretchen who brought the delicious pasta salad that Tom and I had for lunch today and Ray, the griller.

Our newlyweds...John and Jacquie will soon celebrate their first wedding anniversary.

There seems to be a pattern developing.  Every time I take a photo of James, Steve is in the background...and I never notice he is there until I look at the photo on the computer.  Maybe, next time, James, you will have a photo all to yourself.

Samantha worked until 6 AM on Memorial Day so she was tired.  I was really happy that Victor did the driving.

I loved having all these people at our picnic, so glad I got to see them all on Memorial Day this year.  There is nothing as precious as a hug from a loved one and I got lots of hugs yesterday.

Seeing them brings back memories of other good times we have had together.

I remember other people on Memorial Day, too...my brother who is a Vietnam Vet, my mother  and her sister, Audrey, who always put peonies and other flowers on the  family graves, my sisters and brother-in-laws, the extended family...aunts and uncles and cousins.

Steve Makes a Polymer Clay Pot

Steve was our house guest for part of his Spring Break.  One day he made a little polymer pot similar to an air dried clay pot he saw on my studio shelf.

He chose three colors of clay...Pink, Ecru, and Green. He used 1/2 package of pink, 3/4  package of Ecru and 3/4 package of Green.

After he used the polymer clay razor-like blade, I realized he could use an old paring knife instead.

I have a set of nesting circular clay cutters.  The smallest cutter that he used was about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Cookie cutters would work also.  Something to keep in mind is that polymer clay tools should be used only for the clay, not for food.

The most boring and time consuming part of working with polymer clay is conditioning it...warming it with your hands as you work, making it softer and more pliable.  He softened each piece by squeezing and rolling it with his hands.  Then he rolled the clay with my clay roller.  Any plastic roller will do.  Wood is not slick enough for the job.

Steve rolled, then watched a bit of  TV, then rolled more while I kept track of his progress on the conditioning.

When the clay was rolled thin enough to roll through the pasta machine, he switched to using it.  He enjoyed using this tool.

He passed the clay through the pasta machine until the clay was still softer.

Then he formed each flat section into a "snake".

After he had his three "snakes" made he twisted them together.

When the multicolored "snake" grew long, he broke it into two pieces and twisted them together.

 The more the "snake" is twisted the more the colors will mingle.  Eventually he had the "snake" twisted to his satisfaction.

He shaped it into a thicker shape by folding it in half and squeezing and rolling.

I still hadn't figured out that he could use a paring knife for cutting at this point so he used my clay blade being VERY careful.

He rolled the portion he cut off into a ball and then flattened it with the roller.

He used the middle-sized cutter to cut the base of the pot.

He cut off the portion for the sides of the pot, leaving enough to make the three piece lid.

Next came rolling the side portion lengthwise to stretch it long enough to fit around the base.

He checked to see if the piece would wrap entirely around the base.

He rolled the piece a little longer.

Then he laid a ruler on the clay and cut down both sides of the ruler using an old paring knife.  I helped him hold the ruler.  You can see the base for the pot at the bottom of the photo.

He wrapped the rectangular piece around the base and pushed it gently against it so it would adhere.

The lid was next.  He made the circle exactly as he had made the base circle but he used the largest cutter.

He made the underside insert for the base using the smallest cutter.  The underside insert is centered on the lid and keeps the lid from falling off the pot.  This photo does  not show this very well.

Perhaps you can see it better on the lid of the air-dried pot.

On the top side of the lid he pushed down a ball of clay for the handle.

I baked the two pieces side by side in a 275 degree oven for 25 minutes.

And here is his pot.

He told me it would be a good container for earrings.  He decided it would be a good container to hold coins, also.

Killer Wasps, Our Backyard Entertainment for August

Our neighbor called us on July 31.  "We have insects swarming in the back corner of our yard close to your lilac bush.  Will you come out and see if you know what it they are? I think they are wasps."

There were dozens of insects flying, sometimes landing on the grass briefly, sometimes flying about, mostly  four or five feet above the ground.  Sometimes they disappeared for a while into the arborvitae  hedge at the edge of our properties.  They did look like wasps but they ignored us, didn't seem at all interested that three humans were infringing on their chosen area.

"They're not aggressive. They act like the Cicada Killers  we had in the yard last year but they aren't big enough," Polly said.  We agreed.

"Go get that peanut butter jar Stephen was catching lightning bugs in," Tom told me.

I brought it but we were all leery of riling any wasp.  Nobody wanted to know what the insect was bad enough to risk being stung.

"Oh, I know...the butterfly nets," I said.  Sometimes being a well-equipped bug enthusiast has its rewards.

And that's how Polly caught this insect.

That evening her husband drove his riding mower through the area and the insects didn't bother him at all.

We  still weren't convinced the swarming insects were Cicada Killers (Specius speciosus)  because they were just too small. Finally, Tom typed "Cicada Killer" on the computer and via the world-wide web he confirmed that the coloring was right for a Cicada Killer.

Tom solved the problem of the size when he went down our driveway ramp on August 11.  There was a dead Cicada Killer on the ramp.  It was big like the ones we remembered from other years.  Mystery solved.  As in many  insect species, the Cicada Killer female is larger than the male.

Later I learned that the males hatch from the underground burrows before the females.

The female Cicada Killer digs a tunnel underground.  She digs chambers off the main tunnel.  Then she begins capturing Cicadas (Cicadidae) which she paralyzes and carries to her burrow one by one.  If she stuffs one cicada in the chamber and lays one egg on it, the egg develops into a larva which feeds on the paralyzed cicada.  It makes a pupa case and remains underground until the following summer.  When it emerges it is a male.  Eggs that will develop into females are provided with two or three cicadas.

We continued to watch the back corner.  On August 16, Stephen spotted a Cicada Killer carrying a cicada into a burrow.  We got a photo of the Cicada Killer reemerging.

We searched the area and found other burrows.  The holes were sometimes hard to see but the tiny balls of dirt which had been removed from the burrows were a giveaway.

I circled the hole with a blue line.  The tiny balls of dirt are circled with red.

On August 18 another neighbor brought over "a strange insect"she found on a young lilac sapling her son brought her.  It had a strange "thing on its back end".  The strange insect was a cicada emerging from its final molt.  We watched the insect pump up its wings and turn from white with tinges of green to the familiar dark colored insect we find every year about this time.  The cicada shell is on the bark above the cicada.

On August 26, Tom saw a Cicada walking slowly on our driveway.  Either, it had not yet completed its emergent changes or it was nearing the end of its life span.  Tom laid the dead female Cicada Killer beside the Cicada to get a photo of the comparative sizes of the two insects.

Happy Birthday, Treven

Whenever I think of you, Treven, I think of the beautiful drawings and paintings that you create.  Remember when you did this one?

Since doing this one you have learned a lot about using the computer to create art.  I especially like the three dimensional effects that you get now.

I hope you had a very happy birthday and did something you really like to do.

Love from Grandma

Happy Birthday, Stephen

I will add the picture Grandpa took at your mini birthday party when he puts it into the computer.  Remember when I took this one last year when we had the party for Ted?

This year my birthday blogs are about games you grandchildren play with me.  I thought this one would be a a good one for us to share with friends.

Here is the box cover.  Below it are the rails.

Here is the whole setup.

Here is a close up of the engines we use to mark our places and two sections of railroad laid on the board.

Here are the cards with names of cities on them.

And here are the first five cities you are going to build railroads to.  Click on the picture to make it bigger so you can read the names better.

I love you.

From Grandma

PS

Here are two photos Grandpa took.