Fireworks and Raspberries, straight off the vine.

Hello Again! It's been another fabulously exciting week in the lives of Jai and Lauren, as per usual. Well, something like that, anyway.
Our second annual Bridgetown Canada Day Bash was a hit. The fireworks were spectacular once again. I don't know if it's because everything else feels cosier (being in our candlelit backyard with all our friends, as opposed to being in a mad crush of people on the street in Victoria) or not, but once again we, and everyone we know, were greatly impressed.

Jai set up some benches out of haybales and slabs, and we had our market tent and lots of lawn chairs, courtesy of our neighbour Pearl, plus our sawhorse-and-door table.

Unfortunately, I wasn't right on top of it with the camera , so I don't have many pictures. Oops. We also took the opportunity of having a yard full of people to debut our newest toy. I don't really know what to call these yet, so if anyone out there has a good name, please go ahead and suggest it. They're based on a very old toy.

They spin and spin, if you get the hand motion right, and I think they will be great toys for kids 7+. Plus, they are excellent exercise! I don't have any pictures of them actually spinning yet, since I was home alone all day, and it is a two-handed activity, but as soon as I do, we will start listing them on Etsy.


Other activities this week included a beach visit, where I picked up a few new treasures:

And a trip to the Farmer's Market, which was insanely busy this week.

We are wondering if we will be able to get around to having a booth in the market this year or not. At the moment, we are so low on stock that there really isn't any point, but hopefully we can remedy that soon. I got a couple of new books done this week, so some of them will be up in the store soon.

And I finally photographed my newest whirligig. So here it is:


These are so much fun to make and to have around, and I already have another one half done, and ideas for several more. Interactive kinetic sculptures, I will call them when they need to sound artsy, but whirligigs is how I really think of them. I just listed this one in our Etsy store, so if you would like to see more pictures, they are available there.

And finally, in other shop news, I finished the indigo book that I began at my wood workshop. This is two pieces of spruce and some leather that I dipped in the indigo vat. I really love how the spruce turned out, when you can see it close up, it has all sorts of constellations across it, where the sap blocked the dye from penetrating. It really is quite beautiful. And this binding, sewing on tapes, is another new one for me. I really like it, there's a very "ancient artifact" feeling about it, and I have started another one with walnut and tan leather, where I will weave the leather through the wood cover, instead of tacking it on. All the leather comes from old jackets that I bought at Frenchy's from the damaged leather bin. Hooray for Frenchy's, once again!

Things are coming along in the garden. I ended up buying some new carrot seeds, and these ones seem to be coming up ok, so hopefully we will still get carrots this year. Carrots straight out of the ground, and washed off with the garden hose taste so much better than grocery store carrots! The cucumbers have already started to grow, and some of the tomatoes are getting to be a good size (although some of them are still blooming.)Most exciting for today: I had the first raspberry of the year this morning! The first of many...
Well, that's enough news for one week, I would say. Whew!