Yesterday (Wednesday) we stayed here in camp, attending to lots of details and paperwork. Not much excitement for photo shooting, so I'll spare you the piles of papers I had stacked all over the trailer!
We had a late breakfast by the lake to break up the tedium of paperwork. How's that for dining atmosphere?
Our friend Steve had brought some local fruit, paw paws, for us to try. I'd never heard of them, except for the song from childhood, "Way down yonder in the paw paw patch." They were delicious! Kind of a cross between a mango and a banana, with about 6 good-sized seeds in each fruit. Yum!
We did enjoy watching a flock of Canada Geese on the lake throughout the day. They reminded us of our days in Montana and Idaho where they were a common sight, but one we never tired of watching and hearing.
We wanted to sit tight in camp so we'd be available for any news on my brother Dale's condition. I want to thank all of you who have contacted me to let me know you're praying. And many of you have added Dale to your church's prayer chain. Thank you so much! It's been a difficult two days for him and for the family, considering the need for a feeding tube and one doctor thinking he may have had a heart attack as well as his other concerns. But I got a brief message tonight that there was no heart attack. We're thanking The Lord for that, and we thank you for all your prayers. Keep them going...he has a long ways to go back to health!
Here's the most recent photo I have of Dale, taken with much of our extended family last December. That's Dale's companion dog, Tessa, there in the front with him.
We have decided to stay here for a few more days than we originally planned. That way, if we need to make a trip to California, we can just park our trailer and truck here down at the end of the line of campers, and Steve would be able to take us to and from the airport.
Today we headed into the nearby town of Lancaster and visited the Glass Museum of Ohio. The New York museum was all about Corning glass, and it's Anchor Hocking that's big here in Ohio. This was a much smaller museum than Corning, but it was fascinating because we got to watch a terrifically informative demonstration of glass blowing. I'll show you a few photos of the process:
He's heating the glass in a 1200 degree furnace.
Then rolling the ball of molten glass around to get it somewhat centered on the pole...
Just a puff of air is all that's needed to open up the inside of the molten ball.
He rolls it on a cool metal table to elongate it and further center it.
And now it's being shaped and centered even more with this bowl-like tool on a short handle.
Those steps are repeated after adding more molten glass to the ball. Then he rolls the hot ball in several different shades of turquoise of glass chips. It's dark now because of the added color, but it's glowing hot underneath! He has also added a disc of glass for the "foot" of the bowl.
Now he attaches a handle to the foot so he can de-attach the open part of the bowl from the original pole and begin enlarging the opening.
And he adds some more glass to the opening for a "lip."
After he has enlarged the opening, he turns the bowl upside down and spins it to form waves in the glass.
Then he breaks off the pole that's attached to the foot and smooths out the spot on the bottom where he broke it off.
At this point the bowl has cooled down considerably. It's about 800 degrees now, and very hard. He puts it in a cooling furnace and overnight the temperature gradually drops to about 100 degrees. He'll be able to remove it tomorrow morning and place it in the gift shop for sale.
What a fascinating demonstration! This glass-blower was not only a skilled craftsman, he was also a very effective teacher. I could watch his presentation again and again!
While we were out, we also went to WalMart to pick up a few things, and Curt ran into some of his buddies there:
As we returned to camp this evening and had our dinner overlooking the lake, we were treated to the sight of a man fishing, backlit by the gold trees. What a beautiful scene!
Now compare those photos to a picture I took from about the same angle at the same time of day on Monday, only three days ago:
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