Oops I did it again...

So, I know I seem to be taking inordinately long amounts of time off from blogging, but that is mostly because I've kinda been boring for the last little while. We've done some slightly interesting things at school, that could have made for some interesting pics but I wouldn't have had much to say about them. Soooo, I'm going to put everything together in a mad mangled montage of stuff. (Which, sadly, is really not a bad analogy for my life.) Here goes:

Historic Roofing: Two whole days of discussing different roofing materials and then making a very poor attempt at roofing ourselves - on (if I do say so myself) the tiniest roofline ever. We tried out cedar, slate and copper - and ended up with a very eccentric looking roof. And yay, we got to work with lead again.

Incredibly realistic, as you can see, considering it is two feet off the ground.

Ruthven...again: Some of you may recall one of the historic places Tim and I visited a while back, the estate Ruthven in Cayuga, ON. At the time I only posted pictures of the outside since being cheapskates, Tim and I didn't want to pay to go inside. Lucky for me, we got to go on a (free) field trip and I got to take a bunch of pictures on the inside. It was very interesting because it is being maintained as a family estate - with all of its various permutations - including the whacky teal 1960s kitchen. But what was most striking - to me - was the fantastic elliptical staircase. Oh, and the family portraits.

I went a little artsy on it. But isn't it fantastic. This is looking up from the main floor. 

And here's my favourite portrait. This dapper looking Thompson, was wounded in WWI and upon being nursed back to health returned to Canada to become a Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod - hence the swanky outfit. We giggled a lot at his title, of course I got home and told Tim about him and he knew exactly what that was - apparently it's quite the big political dealy. Also, notice in the right hand bottom corner - I totally think his ghost did not approve of our giggles.

Carpentry: We are sadly finished carpentry for this year. Boo! I completed my panel, and we had moved on to the teeniest tiniest doors you've ever seen. Mine is 15'x 8 1/2'. It's adorable. But alas, we ran out of time to work on it in class. I am hoping I will be able to find some extra time to finish it up and make the teeniest of door frames for it. I am envisioning painting it red and putting it up along with my panel. Or maybe attaching it to a tree, like a tiny door to the elfin realm! I'm weird like that.

This was at the stage where I was just finishing up my tenons and was laying out my mortices. I have since begun to work on the teeniest panels you've ever seen, to fit into the dados. P.S. Shouts out to Doug, for letting us use his awesome multi-plane that allowed us to do our dados in 30 minutes instead of half a day. It was almost like using a
power tool.

Plastering: I didn't get any pictures of this. It was a little messy and smelly and really hard to get a chance to get into with so many of us clustered around a rather small wall mock up. And I'm still lamenting the fact that I don't know the ratios for the mortar and plaster mixes. Next week we are making a trip to T.O. to check out some great examples of plaster conservation, I'll definitely picture that up for sure.

Ithaca: Tim and I made a trip down to Ithaca, NY, to visit our friends Shaun and Amanda, made famous in my post about stained glass and wedding cakes. We totally crashed the honeymoon period. We even made it up to Cornell to listen to Shaun wax poetic on the troubadour tornada. The campus was beautiful but alas, I forgot my camera again -- which really wasn't that tragic considering there was a major blizzard going on. We did stop at a gorge on our way back home though and I was able to snap a few pictures of that...of course I was also drawn to the stone bridge.

The gorge falls, looking from the bridge. It was really cool. As you can see there are all of these  huge rocks that sit very proud of the water. It makes for a fantastic landscape...

...complimented by an almost equally fantastic stone bridge.

Aboriginal Perspectives: We had a wonderful man, Sakoieta Widrick, come and speak to us about the Mohawk people. He told us some incredible stories, taught us about traditional medicines, as well as some dances, songs and the peach basket game. But most importantly he imparted great knowledge about what it is like to be an aboriginal person in Canada and the U.S. It was a true blessing to have him speak to us, and I think we all felt like we learned a great deal, ecologically, intellectually and spiritually.

The Wall is Completed: I'm not sure I mentioned on here, but many of you know I have been doing casual updates on the work on the South-West Wall project at Willowbank. This has wrapped up just this past week, and as such I've just finished up my last update which should be up and posted in the next few weeks. If you are interested you can link to the updates on the Willowbank website and see what the project was all about.

And I think that is about it. Again, I apologize profusely for my lack of interweb communication. I'll try to be a better blogger!