Tracy Justus

imagine if they took literally 1/1000th of the time and computing power that it takes to make a video of the US president degrading his nation and office, and instead applied it to making tax forms comprehensible to humans.

Photo of an empty bird's nest in a a blueberry bush.

I found this empty bird's nest in one of my blueberry bushes. Bed and breakfast!

Blep!

Photo of a garden, heavily fortified with electric fence and wire mesh fence. Beehives and fruit trees in teh background, raspberry bushes in the foreground.

I *hope* this set up will keep out the rabbits, deer, and woodchucks. Electric fence with an inner perimeter of wire mesh. Beehives and fruit trees are in the background. The garden will be slow to produce because of late planting and animal depredations. The raspberries are doing great, though!

Photo of a cat, pupils big, lounging possessively on some fresh white linen sheets.

Luna "helping" me put on fresh sheets.

@realdollyparton.bsky.social 's seamstress FTW! (Sadly I couldn't fit this tag in the text of my post, but I'm grateful for her inspiration and the book on Dolly's stage clothing "Behind the Seams".)

A green dress in silk dupioni made for Dolly Parton in 1969, showing the seaming to fit her bust. Her seamstress's solution to fit is a combination of a princess seam plus a side dart. Photo from "Behind the Seams".

Photo of a blue duchess silk satin dress I made last week showing the seaming to fit over my client's bust. I combined a princess seam plus a side dart.

I made a duchesse silk dress for a client with a large bust to underbust difference. How to get a smooth fit in this unforgiving fabric? I remembered Dolly Parton's dressmaker had the same challenge. The answer: a princess seam plus a side dart. Left is Dolly's dress from '69, right is my dress.

Photo of a cat nuzzling a cast concrete gargoyle.

This morning I allowed Luna onto the back deck for a supervised excursion. Here she is checking out her spiritual sister, a gargoyle.

Photo of a blooming red and white amaryllis seen from above. The four blooms are equidistant in the shape of a cross.

The Christmas amaryllis that I put outside is re-blooming. The medievalist in me looked at it and said "Oh! a cross fleury!"

Photo of a deep hive box overflowing with a just-captured swarm of honeybees.

This is the large swarm filling the super that was used to capture it. The queen is inside so you can see all the workers in front marching into the box. I have all the hives I need so they went to my friend who is a professional beekeeper.

Photos of a large honeybee swarm in a fruit tree.

Photo of a small honeybee swarm in a fruit tree.

I've had two honeybee swarms in the past 10 days. The one on the left was huge, about 10 lbs. The one on the right was about 3 lbs. The boxes are close to my pear trees which I keep fairly short so both of these swarms were easy to collect.

Cat on a rug tugging hard on the shoelace of a sneaker on the ottoman right above her. Hilarity will ensue.

FAFO. A second after the photo was snapped the shoe bonked her on her head.

Photo of a sleeping cat, the front of her body twisted one way and her back twisted another.

How on earth can this be comfortable? -But she's purring.

Can you grow hazel? There are pricy blight resistant American Chestnuts available, but you need at least two and they'll take years to mature. There used to be a cultivated chestnut orchard in my county but it seems to have vanished.

Ruth Goodman has an interesting discussion about English medieval and tudor coppicing and pollarding in "The Domestic Revolution". It's an informative read.

With coppicing they are cut at ground level. Pollarding is done higher on the trunk. Good question!

Photo of a large queen bee, center, surrounded by worker bees.

A queen bee surrounded by workers. Five of the six hives came through the winter. The plum is blooming and the pears will be blooming by next week. Sadly two plums and one peach I planted last year were savaged by deer- if I replace them I will have to build a wire cage around each to protect them.

Photo of a cat in a window seat staring at a squirrel on a bird feeder on the other side of the window.

Despite the improvised baffle the squirrel found its way to the homemade bird suet. Luna *really* wanted it.

A single token consisting of a loop of wire with a blue bead and a white bead with a hand cast pewter 'coin' bearing the design of a winged cat, on a wool background. It is suspended from a pewter laurel wreath made by 'Billy and Charlie Finest Pewter'.

The tokens were a success. People had fun going through them and picking out favorite colors. All 600 were taken. As the maker I took advantage by selecting my own first.

Photo of a female cardinal at a snow covered bird feeder with snow covered leaves behind her.

A female cardinal in today's snow. She was startled by Luna jumping up beside me.

Gina Barrett says the cores were wood of possibly an early form of paper mache.

Photo of a tray of 600 tokens made for an SCA event. The tokens are in the form of a pendant with a hand cast pewter 'coin' and a pair of beads. More info on the next photo.

Photo of 15 tokens. The tokens were inspired by, but not copied from, Viking jewelry. The central 'coin' is a hand cast pewter disc with YMIR L on one side (the name of the event, and L for 50) and a winged cat (the emblem of the group, a kittyhawk) on the other. It is strung on a wire with a pair of beads. The beads are a variety of colors and materials- glass, stone, and shell. The shells are small cowries which were not, AFAIK, used by the Vikings but represent the organic components that they did use. Cowries *were* used in a talismanic way in the later middle ages, perhaps to represent a vagina dentata. When I made them I was also thinking of the necklace worn recently by Justice Jackson.

Last week I made 600 tokens for a Viking themed SCA event this weekend. They were inspired by (though not copied after) historical pendants. The hand cast pewter 'coin' is the size of a dime and says YMIR L (L for 50) on one side and has a winged cat on the other. More details in the alt text.

Photo of a jewelry making project on a bench, with pewter tokens, jump rings, and a pair of pliers- and a large fluffy cat tail draped across the whole thing.

Luna 'helps' me with my latest project, tokens for an SCA event.

Photo of two cats, one outside a window and the other inside. The inside cat is meowing at the photographer.

There are stray cats in the area, and Luna has Opinions.

LOUD opinions.

Photo of a pair of hand-knit socks.

I finally finished the socks I've been knitting on for a couple of months. (They were laid aside for some holiday knitting.) I'll have to wait until the weather cools down again to wear them.

Photo of a cat peeking out of a paper bag at the photographer. A favorite toy, a wad of paper, is nearby.

Luna's favorite toys are inexpensive, thankfully. Paper bags and paper wads. Sadly she's one of those cats who does not react to catnip.

Photo of a cat in a paper bag on its side, looking at the photographer.

Ooooo, Luna got a bag!

Johnny Cash expresses how I feel right now.

A mini Dachshund looking up for a treat wearing a hand knitted sweater I made. The blue band around her belly is sparkly and has embroidered gold stars.

This is my sister's mini doxie Olive in one of the sweaters I knitted for her. I was thinking about the night sky- the blue band is sparkly, and I embroidered stars on it.

You do!