Probably a long, rambling nature post... come along if you'd like!

[rubyelf]

So this post includes pictures from yesterday's walk at the lake... not very many, since a thunderstorm showed up, and pictures from today's walk in the woods around my house. Honey was a bit concerned about me wandering around the woods, since we currently have a rather alarmingly outgoing black bear in the area who likes to sit in his parents'

Comments

[bluegerl]

What a walk today. What a load of TREASURES!!! Bless you gel. And I'm so glad you found out about that Japanese (it looks it somehow) fungi..medicinal and edible what a mess it is now. Shame. but that Fly Agaric you found.. gosh, you did examine it.. so did we! funny texture they have on the top, slightly sticky resistant. And Plaintains, they are such darling plants. Hold their heads up come what may. (my garden is BALD right now, they came and took all my goodies away... place looks AWFUL but I did find two small garden daisies doing their best.)

The Tulip tree flower is lovely.. so seldom does one get to inspect them. But the Mountain Laurel... what gorgeous petals. such designs on them. ooooof! and that cup shape, so... simple.

That Shallow Sedge.. is it prickly? looks it. does it stick to clothes like burrs.. and why on earth? Most sedges are most unlike that... and how does it seed? Pop open with grains inside? Interesting.

The light in that first bogpatch pic...oh I could lie there and aah oh glory. Beautiful .. bless you.

The way spinal bones fit together and move... dead clever. I MEAN.. Nature is just incredible. Making joints like that! (hahaha and the Brits have just discovered that Chimpanzees like to get pissed up on fermented fruit juice... and that they can smile and laugh.. OF COURSE THEY LAUGH.. not like we do with our meanings-laughs, but the joyful play ones of children. I MEAN isn't it bloody OBVIOUS ... I'm no scientist but I knew this automatically. and these guys get M.A.degrees for this stuff! I wonder if any of them have read Dawkins???!!!)

Your logtruck sounds fun! Do you beat the dashboard before you get in? in Auz you did cos of snakes and all sorts in there!

Wild roses... they have the smell like wild daffodils do... something so light and bright and NATURE... its almost spicy light fresh.. difficult to 'get' but you can't get enough!!!!! keep huffing!!!

Those creamy beige fungi do look very Chanterelly... did they have 'what' underneath? spores, gills? I spose to dissect is the only way to tell. They're enormous and really gorgeous.

And GLASS CHUNKS... god that is SOOOOOO BOOOFUL. I had a piece once. So blooming lovely it was like a huge jewel- I used it as a doorstop it was that big and heavy. Oh those are glorious... I do hope you keep them...

And black bears dumpster-diving. UP TAILS ALL! teehee.

And Honey works in a Glass Factory doing plate glass... and I did wonder how they got the plate to lie so flat and how they got it off whatever... so it lies on molten tin which doesn't stick. Oh lordy me. the things you learn from Ruby's walkies!!!

You are the best thing in the world love. Honestly... I've learnt so MUCH from you and have SOOOOO enjoyed your walkies and fungi and I do know your inside gurgley pleasure when you 'SEE' things.

Right now I would like to die. This cold is the worst - well, they always are The Worst aren't they. but I wish I didn't feel so weak. Must go shopping and I think I shall buy some flowers just too look at. or shall I pick some DAISIES?!! if I have the energy I shall go find some... and some buttercups too. They're so pretty inside too.

This was a lovely lovely post gel. Really lovely. You really do take us WITH you!!

ENORMOUS hugs... with no cold bugs.

[rubyelf]

Hehe... thank you for coming with me! In my mind, all of you are always with me on my walks.

I don't find a mushroom that's already been uprooted by something else but is still so fresh and clean very often, so it seemed like the perfect time to sit down on a log and spend some time getting to know it personally... the feel and the smell and the weight of it.

Tulip trees are marvelous... and SO TALL! They skyrocket right up past everything else! And mountain laurels are some of my favorites... evergreens, all winter long, and then these stunning flowers in the spring!

You would NOT like to lay in the bog patch or anywhere near it because the mosquitoes and the three-corner flies are vicious biters and there's not enough bug spray in the world to keep the flies from taking chunks out of your skin!

The glass is amazing and how they make it is amazing... floating an endless ribbon of it across a lake of molten tin, then pulling it like taffy across belts as it cools, still one endless ribbon. It's only at the very end when it is cool that it's cut.

I do hope you get over your cold soon! They are miserable!

[bluegerl]

"pulling it like taffy..." oh gosh... glass all semi-toffee....aaaah taffy glass. THAT made my mind explode! The picture of that vast lake of soft glass like... soft melted sugar...aaaahhhh and that texture that makes/allows it of bend and stretch... oh RUBY!!!!!!!! I'd spend ALL day just watching Taffyglass being made!!!!

We have tulip trees here around the square of the Church.. but ours are trained and don't have the competition here. they're allowed to grow tall and FAT and shelter cars. The flower are all, of course, out of reach unless you stand on the retaining wall of the Church and peer dangerously into one that MAY be on the backside of one of the trees. I've not done that yet!!

Taffyglass...oh god... the colours of that............all my favourite turquoise from deep darkness of prussian blues from midnight dreams to that greeny depth of unknown waters and then the purpley green edges...oh stop liz. go buy your froot! The cold is just a sudden coff every now and again! I can breathe again! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

[rubyelf]

It's a long, long ribbon that goes the entire length of the factory and it's about thirty feet across... they have laser scanners that check for flaws in the glass so the machines that cut it can cut around the defects. The glass can never stop because the ribbon has to always keep moving, so if there's something wrong with the glass or the cutting machines they just end up with huge piles of broken glass at the end of the line! Of course, that glass can go back and be melted back in with the materials that are always going in at the beginning...

[bluegerl]

How is it fed? Great cisterns of saltpeter or sand or broken other glass? do you use recycled glass...or is that too impure? It must have an ENORMOUS appetite to feed this slowly moving rather horridly inexorable lava of taffy? I hope to god no one ever puts their hand or falls into it... I spose there has been accidents... oh gosh. How dreadful that would be.

Being me, I'd be tempted to put out a finger... but then the heat reflected would change my mind!!! it must be HYPNOTIC to watch.

Where to you get the start materials from? By the how many tonnes per day? oh gosh... MORE INFO please. No wonder poor Honey has to do shifts. Is it thick... what thickness? the same as my car windscreen?

And how do they curve car windscreens? they're all different shapes too. where does that happen? does Honey have to send sheets and sheets of thin cold straight glass to other factories...oh my oh my. I LOVE finding out where things start. So much is taken for granted. I mean.. look at a pencil! where and how is THAT made!

I'm a CuriosityCat if ever there was one.

Ooooh Ruby this is such Fun. How many men work there, and do they know that you send Honey pics of your Boobs at work...hahahaha oh gosh. He must enjoy his work. How did he come to be a glass maker? GOD sorry, I am being SOOOOO nosy. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

[rubyelf]

The basement of the building is full of sand and other stuff, and there are huge machines that measure out gigantic scoops of it and pour it into the mixer (it's called batch) and then into the furnace. Sometimes broken or leftover glass is included in the mix, but most of it is new material. It shows up in trucks... dozens of trucks all day and night, endless, like a parade. They never stop.

The hot glass is never where anyone can touch it. The furnace doesn't open... although they have to wear special clothes while working near it because your regular ones will catch fire just from being NEAR it.

The glass is cut to the customer's orders and it is flat and of whatever thickness they ordered. The packers load it up and it goes to other factories where it's combined with a layer of plastic to make safety glass and then shaped into a windshield or window.

Several hundred people work there, men and women... it was nearly a thousand once, but they have machines that do some of the work now, especially the more dangerous parts!

I think Honey's part in it is rather dull. He is an electronics technician, not a glass maker. His job is to keep all the computers and sensors and glass scanners and cutters running correctly. He doesn't do anything with the glass, although he does have to gear up in a hot suit and get up on top of the furnace once in a while... there are sensors up there to test for heat and for noxious gasses escaping...

[bluegerl]

Hoooey, that is fascinating. Yes, I'd forgotten windscreens are layered with the plastic in between. But Yes, of course no one could get near it when its so molten, esp with the 'float' beneath... Taffy is too damned hot to stick fingers in as well! tho when its being 'pulled' its fun. Don't do that with glass do they, except in Murano... hahah going to write about that tomorrow.

when you think how far glass has come from being a lucky find ... to being turned into the first pair of specs in Murano for a miniaturist painter... who then told the monks who copied in appalling conditions and who told the Pope who wanted a pair and they became The Fashion thing... in 1446 or there abouts.And now it has a HUGE HUGE factory which is like a dragon 24/7 for months on end... and a machine works most of it... and the glass is so FINE ... I wish you could have seen the bowl thing they were making in Murano - it had porcupine spikes all over it and the guy had to be sooooo careful when he had to put it back in the oven to keep it hot without it melting... ..Takes 15 years apprenticeships to just become a glassblower... it's a lifetime to become a Master. The glass in the Danielli windows was original bottlebottoms used to expand light in those ancient days. Like our square blocks ones. The Things we LEARN! XXXXXX HGS love, and I'm glad Honey doesn't have to get too close to hot stuff (except it's called Rubyelf in a dress!) sporfles!xxxx

[rubyelf]

I am fortunately not hot enough to melt anything...

[bluegerl]

Just as well!!! Causing burns on Honey's jewels would be awful.