Thumbs Up

Earlier this summer, my husband hit his thumb with a hammer, while building my wonderful vegetable planter boxes. A few choice words and a couple months later, it's still in the healing process. The nail is growing out, exposing the bottom of the dead nail.

This morning, Cabana kept sniffing and sniffing his nail, probably able to smell the dried blood between the nail layers. It reminded us of how some dogs have the ability to sniff out cancer and other unseen ailments. She even gave his thumb a few tender licks (Cabana isn't usually a big licker).


Then, she came over to check out my thumb nail! After finding nothing interesting with my thumbs, she went back over to my husband's and gave it some more attention. Wouldn't it be fascinating to know exactly what's going through her mind?!

Skull Respirator: A New Project

I've decided to make a new respirator (I'm defining a respirator as a device that covers the mouth and nose, as opposed to a gas mask which covers the mouth, nose and eyes). Top hats and respirators go nicely together in a steampunk world, and heretofore I've only made the one pictured below, plus the Defender's anemone respirator, both of which have two canisters. I wanted to try something different—a respirator with just a single central canister.


As I contemplated just what that canister might look like, it occurred to me that I had a small skull that was about the right size and shape. I found this partial plastic skull several years ago at a yard sale, without knowing just what I would do with it. This seems to be the right project for it.

To make it look steampunk I will need to punkify it. I want to join the natural with the mechanical, combined into a single integrated unit. I am planning on casting the skull canister in a faux pewter (cold cast aluminum), and attach it to a leather mouth and nosepiece, with leather straps.

Human teeth are laid out roughly in an arc, a shape which allows me to replace these plastic "human" teeth with gear teeth. While I rarely utilize the symbol of the gear in my work—due to its ubiquitous appearance and overuse in so many things that are called steampunk—I do think it is appropriate in this instance. In the photo above I have removed the lower jaw, flattened the back of the skull, and sanded off the upper teeth in preparation for fabricating and installing the gear teeth.

Cabana the Happy Camper

This past week, we went camping with a group of friends to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. It was a brand new experience for Cabana, as well as for us since we've never gone camping with a dog before.

I think camping might be Cabana's idea of heaven--loads of people to enjoy, squirrels and chipmunks bounding past, endless trees and shrubs to sniff. She could hardly contain her joy. Of course, we did keep her either on leash or in her ex-pen. (Our friends were amazed that Cabana never tries to escape from her ex-pen. She doesn't have a clue that she is quite capable of jumping over it--but sshhh, she never needs to know!) She didn't really mind the ex-pen because there was a lot of activity around to entertain her--but on leash, that's when she couldn't contain herself and pulled like the dickens no matter what.

Being a bit of a neat-nick, I TRIED to keep Cabana clean. I put a straw mat in her ex-pen to keep her from wallowing in dirt. My efforts were altogether futile.

Later, I gave up and just let her lay down in the dirt. After all, when you're already covered in dirt, what's a little bit more?

Running through the middle of the campground was a beautiful meadow. And how thoughtful--they had built a wooden path so we could easily walk through it. A wildfire was raging somewhere in the area--you can see the smokey haze in this photo.

But the best part for Cabana was when we hiked to a river. Because dogs are technically not allowed on the trails (silly rule, if you ask me), we had Cabana wear her jacket, just in case someone gave us a hard time. Now there's a perk for being a guide dog in training! But shortly after we got to the river, we took the jacket off since we weren't on the trail anymore and no one seemed to be monitoring us anyway.

Cabana had a blast, dashing about in the cold water. She couldn't decide whether to run, drink, or shake--so she often did all three at the same time. She even went into a deeper section and REALLY swam--but she only did that once. We tried to coax her out there a second time, but she wasn't buying it again. She definitely prefers being where she can stand as opposed to totally immersed.

But the best part of camping, at least in my book, is getting back home, where you can get CLEAN and sleep in a soft bed. Cabana spent quite a few hours napping on her own soft bed this afternoon--I think she appreciates those things, too!