Welcome to Harper

A couple of weekends ago Harper celebrated its 150 year birthday, its Sesquicentennial Celebration. I set up booth there for hat selling, but mostly to introduce myself and let People know that I am setting up shop in Harper in about a year. The funniest response to that was, "Why?" or "Why Harper".  So I would explain my situation and my Dad's gunshop and that I do a lot of my selling at shows and on the internet anyway.
A nice thing that happened was that I had a few oldtimers tell me how great my Dad was and how they miss him, how many guns they bought from him etc. I knew he was a well respected man about Harper, but it was nice to hear anyway.
The best part was when i told people about my plan to host saturday Tea parties, it generated a lot of excitement, people were genuinely interested.
So meanwhile back at the celebration in the park: There was a parade and people dressed up in costumes and good barbeque, and old friends.  Here are a few pix of the parade and the doins' at the park:

I had a dream

A few days ago I had a dream, it was a little of a Dr who dream, except it was my Dad and he had a key to a tardis like something, but it was the key to the shop!  My dad wasn't very much like Dr Who, but when I was a kid I remember people calling him "Doc" all the time, he was a Doctor, a PhD in range and forestry sciences. Somehow all the Dr Who watching with my kid, fez and Bowties are cool, Making Fez, working on the shop all coming together in my mind shaped like the episode where Rose tries to prevent her father's death, causes changes in the timeline, bringing monsters when and the Dr calls her stupid monkey, and there is the key. The Key. My key. My Dad giving me the key to the tardis and it is up to me to start it up. And it is much bigger on the Inside.
It feels like as much of an approval as I could ever hope to get from my Dad. Wherever he is, I believe he is proud of me.

Its beginning to look like... something, not sure what yet.

I worked this weekend(first weekend in April 2013) at the shop. Saturday I kinda milled around and wasn't sure what I was doing, I swept out the storage room, sorted some more newspapers, not sure what was important. So I decided to work on the front, thinking that if I can get the shop area looking like something, then the rest of the space will sort itself out.
So before one of the last dump runs I took the UGLY mustard colored vinyl off the counters and it left behind some sticky adhesive that new was going to dry out. How to deal with this? I tried some stripper, some industrial strength cleaner, sanding it off, and if it did anything, it kinda pushed it around.   Hmmm what to do what to do. I decided to go by several gallons of goop off, or whatever that product is that get sticker adhesive off...
 Then something wonderful happened. I went that night to my brother's house and took some of my home made kombucha and we had a little tasting. chatted, and mo was in the other room watching a show I hadn't heard of, "Flea Market Flip". I wasn't paying attention. Well after we were all talked out me and mom went back to her house and I stayed up and watched some mindless TV. I watched som dumb show about a girl apartment hunting in Bankock, and I couldn't get over how much of a brat she was! then Fleamarket flip came on again. They pit 2 design teams against each other and give them 3 design "projects", such as a lighting solution a storage solution and an art piece, give them a budget and they go to a flea market to buy components to build the things. Then they go re-sell them at a more upscale arty show. Really some interesting ideas.
  Then that's when it happened. I got the Idea, or rather they gave me the idea of how to deal with the sticky counters. Decoupage! but not just any decoupage, vintage sewing patterns, layers of thin printed tissue paper, only I will modify it with layered in images from godeys' lady book drawings, and Harper's Bazzar pictures of men in top hats and they made an antiqued patina by staining it with soy sauce!  Brilliant! so I raided my mom's pattern box(with her permission) and found some ugly dated patterns that I didn't think should ever be used again, and in the process found a few more patterns for clothes I think I will be making sometime soon.
  So back at the shop, with patterns, glue and sow sauce, I watered down the glue and set to work. The first layer went on easy because I was using the adhesive that was the original problem that I had to deal with, now it being an advantage, instead of being a problem! So I kept applying the tissue and layering it on, and since I didn't have the other images that I want to layer in handy I stopped feeling renewed with a distinct purpose and vision for how the shop is going to look. Then, as I looked around I could see how the different areas of the shop should look and I could see it coming together in my imagination.  I moved the now partially reclaimed countertop from where it was to where I had already wanted it to be, and felt like I had made so much progress! Leaps and bounds!  So next time I go to work on the shop I will go with the images needed to layer in and finish the countertop project. After it dries then I will coat it with layers of thick Urethane. Shiny!

 This Counter Covered with Goo! Oh dear what is a hatmaker to do?

 

Layer on pattern paper!

 

 

the trim off the extra and Apply Soy Sauce!

 

And serve :)

 

 

 

 

This counter is going to be so cool!

 

  with the counter moved and a couple of hats hanging up, its starting to look like, um....well something different than what it was.

While I was there this weekend Tavros made a brief appearance.  Kooky little lizard.
Can you see him?   Look closer... 


Next time I will tell you about the dream I had, just before coming out to Harper this time...



making progress

So a week or two ago I went out to Harper again and worked on the shop, Tavros wasnt around but i did get a few pix of the progress I am making.
I decided to mave some work benches around, and the two in the main room "were" hooked up with power above them.. untill I strted messing with it. I got a bit impatient and cut the top off one of the benches so I could move it, because I didnt need power because there was power along the wall I am moving it to. SO once I had the bit of wood with the power cut loose and when it dangled it put stess on the wires and ZAP! POW! sparks flew and a big flash. I was afraid I was going to burn my shop down, so I turned off the breakers to the power in question, and called my brother and he thought I had thigs under control, and a few days later my brother followed up and fixed my mess. I am thankful for my big brothers!
While I was there it was my other brother's birthday and we went out to dinner and he had made a gluten free pineapple upside down cake, and it was Yum!
anyway on to the Pix!

 Various handles for rifle barrel cleaning rods

Hats in the hat shop!

 The slag pile phase 2

 The new location for the 1st workbench

 This is where the first workbench was, and where the fireworks were. 

 

I hope to see Tavros again, and I will be back working on the shop in another little while. I am excited! painting soon...

The Slag Pile and the resident lizard

So it is still slow going fixing up my dad's gun shop, and I forgot to take my camera(!) last time I went to work on the shop. But I gotta tell ya scraping the slag pile off the floor really wasn't all that exciting, or photo worthy. But! I thought I might tell you about the resident lizard. I went in one time and T om thought he saw a rat, but I had already seen the lizard a few times by then, this time I saw him he was definitely bigger, I guess hes been eating well there in the shop. He about 7" long from nose to tail, He is what my dad called a mountain boomer, I will have to do some research but he is not a Gecko, the latest non-resident species to get to Texas. Geckos are cute and s shaped on the screens and eat bugs and all, but they are not these desert lizards.
I remember lots of horny toads around when i was a kid, easy to catch and they would sit in your hand and look at you with those tiny black eyes in their dinosaur heads all tiny and pocket sized. My dad told me when i asked him where they had all gone, that the red ants gotem. A friend recently told me that they ate the big red ants that the fire ants have edged out, and the horny toads wont eat them, so in effect I guess he was right. An eco system is a delicate thing...
I bring up the horny toads, cause they look a lot alike, deserty colors and little spikes all down their backs, but the horny toads had bigger spikes, similar looking tho i guess.
Anyway back to my friend the mountain boomer, it had been cool, so he wasn't moving at all and he was covered with spider webs, he let me pull some off them off, Its gotta be weird to be a cold blooded creature and not be able to move when huge critters are pulling junk off you.
When i was in high school I had a run-in with a mountain boomer. I used to catch the bus to Harper high school at my dad's gun shop. One cold morning there was a HUGE lizard on the porch, I swear it was at least 18" and maybe more like 24". It looked like it might spring on me and go for the jugular if i went anywhere close to him, so I kept my distance. I had my back to him and there was a loud *crack* and i looked up and saw the grass making waves like a motorboat had just gone by.
My friend who told me about the horny toads and the fire ants also told me that these lizards run on their hind legs, I'm sorry i missed it...
So I asked my daughter what we should name it and she said Tavros. So Tavros the resident Lizard. If hes around I'm going to take a picture. Maybe i should find him some ants.