Broom Making 4, Dye Basket Reed with Acid Dyes...

 

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The new lesson on You Tube, 'Broom Making 4', covers the steps for Dyeing cellulose fiber materials with Acid Dyes. The technique illustrated is won through trial and error and works to set the color in the reed with only a little bit of bleeding when making brooms or baskets.

The color was derived with Cushing 'Turquoise Blue' Acid Dye...


After the Brooms or Baskets are dry, use some sort of sealer to enhance and saturate the color of the reed. This will make any item a 'Festival Favorite'!

Dyed Reed for Brooms and Baskets

 

Homestead Tip: Positive Behavior Modifications for the Chickens...

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3 things motivated us to build Oak Knoll Farm on a run down property in the middle of the great flyover...

Bees, check

Chickens, check

Sheep, check...

 

Getting all of them figured out makes every day interesting...Some more so than others...

Fake Eggs for Fooling the Chickens

One of the issues that we encountered with our small flock is that they all wanted to use the same nesting box and were breaking eggs as a result...
A couple of articles suggested using a fake eggs in each box to fool the chickens into using the ones that were not currently in use. One fake egg in each box...
It works!
One small thing fixed an issue that seemed intractable...

Homestead Eggs Taste Better

 

 

 

The Maremma Breed: Bear the Noble Protector

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Images and Photography: Copyright TheDancingGoats...TheImaginariumForge, is the ETSY Shop BLOG of TheDancingGoats…Http://TheDancingGoats.com

 

The Maremma Dog: Bear the Protector:
http://www.maremmaclub.com/the-maremma.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maremma_Sheepdog

Hundreds of hours went into the research for a guardian animal for our flock of hand spinners sheep. We currently have 4 Shetlands, 3 Finnish Landrace and 1 Shetland, BL Cross Wether.


We settled on the Maremma breed and got a 4 month old mom trained working dog at the same time as our proto flock of Shetlands...
All of the research paid off and Bear is now 2 years old and owns Oak Knoll Farm and all of its creatures...

 

The little poster below is my way of communicating the qualities of this breed...Having a Maremma around is like having a permanent 6 year old without thumbs...They are perfect for their job though and Bear even chases hawks and buzzards when they fly over and he really hates the owls...The only command he knows is: Git UM!

These working Mastiff dogs have not been damaged by the 'Pet Market', and should never be made into pets...Known as the White Wolf Dog of the Alps, they are adapted to manage a flock on their own and not need or want any guidance in doing their job. I was skeptical when reading about these traits, but after 2 years, have determined that the Noble Maremma is a breed in a class by themselves and perfect for the task of small stock management...

Cautions:
They are by nature independent and require an Alpha pack leader...This is not an option with them. Bear weighs 150 pounds.
Firm, but gentle guidance is essential.
They know what you are saying and Bear hangs his head down when getting instructions.
'Bear Side Eye', is a good indicator that he does not agree!

The 10PM, 'I would like a Milk Bone bark', and the 'Something is wrong bark' are not the same...Never ignore the 'Something is Wrong Bark'

 ...

Benefits:
Best of all is their Sixth Sense when something is wrong or someone is not trustworthy...They will let you know.
Their unsullied multi thousand year genetic heritage of protecting sheep...
A willing partner in  your endeavors.
The Lights are On and Someone is home!
A Natural Warrior...They hate other predators, but are loving to their charges and family.

 

The Perfect Small Stock Guardian: The Noble Maremma

 

Lesson's 1-6 Shallow Relief Woodcarving

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The new series of Carving Lessons on TheDancingGoats You Tube channel, illustrate the steps involved in Shallow Relief...Keep projects simple and use classic elements...A well executed simple project is always admired and appreciated. Lessons 1-6 are just about Shallow Relief work...and the boxes in the lessons are the primary place where shallow relief can be found in my work.

The lessons were done during one very cold day in January and constitute a 12 hour day of carving.
One full day of carving time per box is usually my target...

 

Pistol Case Front with Wolves and the Moon

 

Turn a photo or illustration into a line drawing...Lay out and shade for staining or color...

 

Pistol Case Top: A Stylized Stampede of Bison Bison

 

Celtic Art is a festival favorite, is tedious to carve, but always worth the effort...I never have more than one of these boxes at a time...

 

Celtic Jewel Case with the Anglo Saxon Runic Futhark
'Not all those who Wander are Lost'

 

Glass or stone cabs, hobnails, hasps, corners, hinges, handles, shelves, padding, mirror...The carving is just the start and that adds up to more than the sum of the parts...

 

Grace Note: Kiln Fired Glass Cab...

 

Woodcarving in Shallow Relief Lesson 1 of 6, Layout

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Images and Photography: Copyright TheDancingGoats...TheImaginariumForge, is the ETSY Shop BLOG of TheDancingGoats…Http://TheDancingGoats.com


Basic Relief Carving Lesson 1 of 6... new You Tube Videos...
Learn to carve with 'TheDancingGoats' Folk Ways Studio...
Lesson 1: Layout

A 59 part Celtic Mantle in Linden

A space to carve need not be big, just an alcove where work can be picked up at any free moment...

Caving Bench, Tools, Lighting...A perfect combo...

 Shallow relief work is found in many places and applications...
Decoration and Ornament styles from England and Germany are the styles to which I aspire...In particular, Grinling Gibbons...How did they do so much with so little?

The Ever Popular Elf Doors with a Tolkienesque Flair...

 A Mantle with Capitals and Entablature all carved in Shallow Relief work...

Entablature and Capitals in Sassafras and Mantle in Linden

The floor to ceiling cabinet work and woodcarving and lighting, accounted for a little over 400 hours of work.

 Megaloceros giganteus, The Lord of the Hunt

Shallow Relief Work

In the Hobbit, Thranduil rides a Megaloceros giganteus...
This animal has been extinct for millennia but the Cave Painters of Lascaux knew and painted them. The Lord of the Hunt is found on an ancient Celtic Standing Stone and is a memory of a time when we hunted them...Done in shallow relief in Sassafras... 

 

The Luminous Landscape Essays: A Book Review and Results

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Images and Photography: Copyright TheDancingGoats...

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Mastering Landscape Photography: The Luminous Landscape Essays
A Book Review and Results:

For the serious Landscape Photographer there is a grail to find and chase...It is not the Golden Hour as many go on about, but the golden 15 minutes at Sunrise and Sunset that lay the foundation for stunning images...The Grail of capturing Lemon, Orange and Purple in one lurid desert image is only possible during this magical time...The Luminous Landscape will help with the logistics of this most difficult assignment. Pre shot reconnaissance, sky chart and map drawings for sun angles, sun rise and set times, test shots and a 3 day shooting window is all that is required for that take home shot everyone will envy. LL will help bring it home. ( )

Look at any magical photo in print and chances are it was taken at Sunrise or Sunset.
The time of the Luminous Landscape...

All Alone in Jasper Alberta

52.811742, -118.036221

A 3:00 AM get up alarm and half hour drive during high Summer...The only problem?
It was 18 degrees F. That is just one of the challenges in capturing
The Luminous Landscape...To get this photo required, test shots and 2 days of travel in Jasper National Park to find the likely candidate...1st morning out had no sunrise and snow...Back to the lodge...The next day was clear and cold, but perfect for capturing Jasper's beauty.

Looking Towards the Home of the Manitou...

52.728668, -117.637931



An ancient wreck of a light house on Lake Michigan after a gray day of rain and solid clouds...Let's just go out and see?

After the Storm and In the Water to my Knees!

45.055239, -87.088962

After a lifetime in heavy industry with too much noise and way too many folks at every turn, the solitude of nature at Sunrise and Sunset, when no one else is out and about has its own reward. Leopold, Muir, Thoreau & Abbey's words are guides and the palette of the lens the window on Gaia's wonder...

Spider Woman's Home...She Brought Weaving to the Navajo

36.114250, -109.437782

The Luminous Landscape Essays are not a magic' how to' and like any thing worth doing, there is an exceptional amount of work involved in imaging this most captivating time...

I have found that only the last or first 15 minutes of sunlight is the true window on the Luminous Landscape...A thing worth doing just for the sake of it. 5 stars...

 

Landscape of Legend

36.980539, -110.094193

 

 

 

Plying with the Nostepinne and Tibetan Spindle New You Tube Video

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Images and Photography: Copyright TheDancingGoats...

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Http://TheDancingGoats.com

New Folkways Lesson: Learn to make finished yarn with the Tibetan Spindle and a Nostepinne!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lAIBev0wRo

 

For new spinners, we recommend trying a bottom whorl support spindle as a 1st spindle, the cost is low and the learning success rate is high...Many spinners tell us they have quit using all of their other spindles in favor of my Compromise Tibetans.

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There are many to choose from in our ETSY Store!

Look for my customer feedback on this tool...

 

The Tibetan Spindle form is an ancient tool and spindles in this style are found all over the world.
The most common of spindle types in the early anthropology texts and early Smithsonian Ethnographic reports. 

Bottom Whorl Tibetan Spindle in Apple Wood

 

The Nostepinne or Yarn Stick and a Tibetan Spindle are all the tools required to make a finished yarn...Great for demonstrating at Festivals. My Nostepinne has a 30-1 taper and that makes a tight ball of yarn very easy to remove 

 

The Ancient Yarn Stick

 

All of the over dyed Shetland Yarn in the image was made on a Tibetan Spindle.

Ready for my Navajo Loom...

Over Dyed with Cushing Acid Dyes...Available in our ETSY Store