Mum – TJ Fox: Sharing the Experience

Mum Petals In Black & White

It is on the colder, drearier side today as we are well on our way to seeing the end of the nice weather. We do still have a day or to this week that might allow me to open my windows again, but those will most likely be the last.

It will be a good time to be in the garage starting to play. I have some practicing to do, playing with all my new tools so by the time I actually start working on building cabinets, I actually know what the hell I’m doing.

I’m still on the fence about buying a table saw as it is really expensive and I think I can get away with a circular saw that is much less expensive and will most likely be used more after this project is done than a table saw would. There are certain things I need to be able to do that a table saw is apparently the best tool for the job. It can be done using a router (which I have), but it is supposedly a little harder.

I have ordered the router bit I need (could not find it locally) and it should be here today. My goal is to play around with it using some of the wood scraps I have from previous projects to see exactly how difficult that may be to work with to get the desired result.

It’s exciting because it feels like I’m moving forward and making progress even if what I’m doing is just messing around.

Now, if I could just get the bid back from the last guy, I’d actually know what was going to happen and when, or (and I REALLY don’t want to go this route) I start looking into electricians and figuring out how the hell I’m going to frame this damn thing myself.

Morning Mum

Prints and products featuring this image are available in TJ Fox’s Redbubble store.

Black & White Mum

Opening Mum

Snow Topped Mum

This is the second year in a row that my Mums didn’t last long because it got so cold so early. My purple one hadn’t even fully opened up yet and the freezing temps will have killed off all the flowers. I really hate it when we skip seasons.

Hint Of Color Mum

Purple Mum

Purple Mum Bud

Black And White Mum

Black And White Petals

Sunny Yellow Mum

Almost Bloom

I have one of my mums just now starting to show some color and petals. I have 2 or 3 different colors (I honestly can’t remember if one is different or not) and this is the only one that is starting to put on color, so I have a little ways to go before I get some actual flowers.

I’m hoping that the storm we had blow through here last night didn’t do too much damage. I’m not certain I’ve ever been in a storm that kept dropping hail for that length of time before. It would start, hail for a few minutes, then drop off to nothing or almost nothing. Within 10 minutes or less, we’d get another round. And we aren’t talking little pebble or pea sized hail, either. This pattern kept repeating for almost 2 hours. It was a little freaky to say the least.

We also got a ton of amazing lightning. I took advantage of the opportunity and attempted to get a decent shot, trying out what worked well the last time by doing a video. Turns out, I’m an idiot. I had managed to capture this incredibly amazing mass of bolts. It was stunning to watch. I saw it show up on my camera screen so I knew I managed to get it. I got to edit it out of the video only to realize I didn’t have it completely focused, probably because I was shooting through the glass door and it was rain coated. I could have cried. I had this epic, probably damn near one in a million shot and I was out of focus. *sigh* It looks okay when I keep it REALLY small.