Wizard Nebula

This one is known as the "Wizard Nebula". I guess it looks like a wizard...maybe I'm missing something? Found in the constellation Cepheus about 7000 light years from us. Again, I chose to process this image using the Hubble palette. I gathered photons over the course of 5 nights just about a year ago. It's hard to believe that last year I was almost constantly taking images from October till mid March. This year, nada. Either it clouds up in the evening or it's clear with a full moon. Really lousy weather for astrophotography, but great for doing things around the house.

Busy in the kitchen

Erika has been busy in the kitchen. These are sourdough rolls with sweet potato creme. The creme tastes just like custard...only healthier.

The chocolate sourdough is made with cocoa and dark chocolate chips. Amazingly chocolaty, moist, and deeeeeelicious!

OMG! These sourdough blueberry (grown in our garden) scones are incredible.

Sourdough apple pie with rum soaked apples. Yep, they are as good as they look.

The chocolate sourdough loaf is smaller because Erika was testing a new recipe. I really enjoy being the guinea pig for these experiments!

Sourdough sandwich with grilled BBQ chicken, salad (mostly grown in our garden) and home-made minestrone soup. Yummy!

Sourdough baguette that was exceptionally light and chewy. I must say that Erika has become quite a sourdough lady. Our small village loves her! Can't wait to taste her next creation...

 

And so it begins

 

Since the original drawing was for copper foil, some modifications were needed. The lines needed to be drawn thicker which required adding and leaving out some stuff. The panel is much smaller than the original. Design and color changes are required.

Here's the finished design. I may change some things before the panel is complete.

The color palette...

...including this landscape glass which came from the U.S. I enjoy getting the grain and texture of the glass to blend in with the design. For me, this is a large part of the hobby that interests and challenges me the most.

And so it begins. It's always a big surprise to see the finished product in the sunlight. Sometimes I use enamels to shade in areas and to make things just right. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Bread, bread and more bread

 

Erika has been busy making sourdough bread...lots of bread. 

Here's a quicky pizza and chicken katsu sandwich...delicious!

Look at those air pockets...amazing. She has been experimenting with some other recipes and using me as the guinea pig to do the tasting.

Next Project

 First, let me apologize for the picture quality. The first three photos are photos of photos taken way back when I still had a full head of hair (2000). I had to leave this glass with the house that was sold in California. The buyers insisted and I had no way of transporting several panels to Seattle safely. I knew one day I would remake all the panels I left behind. Well, the time has come for this panel. Hey, it only took me 24 years to get around to it.

The original panel was copper foil and quite large. The new panel will be lead and about half the size. I could easily reproduce the same size panel, but why? It was nerve racking to lift and place that monster in the window frame. I'm too old for that kind of stuff. BTW, I can still see that glass in the window when I Google map my old address. 

Believe it or not, this was one of my first stained glasses. I never believed in starting small. I learned a lot of lessons from that project. One thing I learned was a glass that large was far better to do in lead. Getting those solder lines to look decent took me forever. Another thing I learned is that a panel that large really needs a frame and reinforcement. I did the reinforcement, but I only used zinc as a frame. Lots of flexure and I sweat bullets whenever I turned the glass to clean it. I had to build a redwood stand just to transport and wash the glass. Do it again...I don't think so.

If you take a close look, you can see in the background one of the bridges I built. I created a dry creek bed that lead to a very large koi pond. I have a post about the Japanese garden.  https://japanhomesweethome.blogspot.com/search?q=japanese+garden

Here's the panels final resting place.

It was a real beauty. Hopefully, the next one will be even better. There's a small frog in the right lower corner that I will also reproduce. I'll also use some of the leftover glass from that panel. This should be fun!

The Kimball Collection is complete

 The Kimball Collection is finally complete. After a brief "break" from glass (due to the heat) I got this project completed. Time to do some chores around the house and yard since the weather has cooled and autumn is in the air. I love this time of year! The next glass project is ready to go. I'll write more about that later.

The finished piece matches the prototype...that's a good thing!

Fresh off the soldering iron. Little tricky getting those angles to match.

Who is that old handsome guy in his work apron? Erika just gave me a haircut.

This looks much better than than white cover.

Very dramatic effect

Ok, that's it for now. Lot's of stuff to do around the house while the weather permits.

Cygnus Wall

 Alrighty then...here's the Cygnus Wall. I guess you could call this one of the most powerful walls in the known universe. A star forming region approximately 2600 light years away and 20 light years across. Taken with narrowband filters, integration time: Ha, OIII, and SII each @ 15 @ 600sec. Processed using the SHO palette in PixInsight. Images acquired in November 2023 @ 1960mm with QSI 583wsg, Celestron Edge11HD, guided Paramount MyT, over the course of three nights using CCDAP. I almost sound like I know what I'm doing...Ha!

I was busy the end of last year and the beginning of this year taking images. The weather was unusually clear and steady. I hope I can repeat the same for this year. More images to come. Please stay tuned.

It's the real thing!

 San Francisco Sour Dough bread in Tsukahara, Japan baked by my super talented wife, Erika. It's amazing! Of course, the secret to sour dough bread is the starter. This starter began way back in 1849 at the start of the San Francisco Gold Rush. Local bakeries have kept the starter alive all these years and now we have it, here, in Tsukahara. I can't believe how healthy it is. The starter triples in size in a matter of hours! Unbelievable!! 

With a little teamwork, I'm in charge of keeping the starter alive (the starters name is, "September") and Erika is in charge of the sour dough creations. Let's see...pancakes, french toast, muffins, pizza crust, and of course breads. We're both excited to share this incredible bread with neighbors and friends. You can't buy this kind of bread anywhere near here...maybe not even in Kyushu. Wooo hooo!

It has certainly been a while...

 ...sorry about that. Summer has been (pause) hot. I believe we have had record temps just about everyday in Japan which is unusual for our neck of the woods. Tourists come to Tsukahara to get out of the heat, but not this year. I have been busy around the house doing various things such as painting the rooms on the first floor. I managed to finish most of the stained glass projects in the living room along with installing a glass I made a few years back for the hallway. I'm just now getting around to working in the shop again, at least in the morning hours. I also read a good book, Lime Creek by Joe Henry. Meanwhile, Erika has been busy creating some delicious sour dough breads and such. I purchased some San Francisco sour dough starter from the U.S. It's supposed to be over 150 years old! It's a good thing.

Well I guess I'll share a few picks of what I've been up to. BTW, my mom mentioned I haven't posted in a long time and she was giving up looking at it. SOOOO, I'm posting. If you all had Facebook(facebook.com/george.kimball.984 ) then this wouldn't be an issue. I've been posting all kinds of stuff there. Here's my lame excuse for not posting on blogger, I'm lazy. Life is busy and who has time for social media...besides Trumpsters. No offense, but I honestly can't stand that clown. I really hope Ms. Harris tears him a new a--hole in this next election. Moving right along, I've also done quite a bit of astrophotography processing. It's nice and cool in front of the computer I use for processing. 

Doggies are doing very well. Sky and Holly have settled into their new home and have a routine everyday. Sky's mast cell tumors come and go. It's been a battle, but so far he's hanging in there. Holly is a crazy little Jack Russell who does her best to make us laugh each day. They both have brought so much life and light into our home. One of my favorite things to do is to watch movies with Erika. We love our home theater and use it quite often. Last year we watched over 325 movies. The reason I mentioned this is because last nights movie really hit a chord with me. The movie, Revolutionary Road, brought up some issues that I had not considered since relocating to Japan. Without beating around the bush, I never considered how others thought about us moving to Japan. Did they think we were crazy, irresponsible, wreckless, etc.? Or, were they envious of the fact that we had the guts to go out and chase our dreams instead of living the everyday rat-race and following the rules of society? By rules I mean, work at a job you generally dislike, buy a house and car, have kids, grow old and die. The movie explores the reaction of outsiders and friends at the prospect of a couple leaving the country to find new meaning in their life. Unfortunately, it didn't work out for them as they did not do the research and make the commitment required to change one's life dramatically. The movie explores many other issues, but the one I was most interested in was this one.

So, how about those pictures?

Here's a sample of the newly painted walls in the green area of the house. The paint is more vibrant and durable than the other stuff I used. 

I finally got around to installing this glass in the yellow area of the house.

This is a view of the newly remodeled guest bath. The new colors are make the areas solid and "mature". 

The finished ceiling lamp

Some wall lamps and...

...another lamp

Here's the before shot of the hallway.

Doggies!! Holly and Sky

This is the prototype of a lamp cover I'm making for a ceiling fan.

This is the ceiling fan. The current cover doesn't fit in with the rest of the glass, but that will soon change.

Eagle Nebula taken last October

Inside the Heart Nebula taken October 2023

Helix Nebula taken in November last year

and my favorite, Pelican Nebula. If you look closely you can see at the end of one of the long gas "arms" an upside down"V"shaped object. That's a star blowing back the gas from the nebula at some ridiculous speed. Kinda cool, huh?

Alrighty then, so you're all caught up. I have more pics, but I don't have more time. Thank you for your patience and hopefully I can post again before the end of the...year? Maybe sooner.

Something a little different...sort of

Ceiling lamp time. This lamp came with the house when we purchased it way back when. It has never been my favorite, but has always been a target of interest for me. How about turning it into a mission style lamp to match the other lamps? Looks like a lot of work and wouldn`t it be easier just to buy one that`s already been made? Where`s the fun in that? After talking myself into doing this project, I got started. I don`t do round lamps. So, how do I make a round lamp fixture into something square? Also this lamp uses those tiny lamp bulbs, I want something that will light up an entire living room. The black wiry thingies are kind of a distraction. This lamp needs more substance. Okay I know what I want so what`s next?

Well, first I removed the stuff I didn`t like and gave the fixture a good cleaning. Those bulbs and glass fixtures gotta go...now!

Yuk! I can`t believe the amount of dead bugs that collected in each of these cup thingies. It was literally filled to the top of each cup. The insulator looks bad, but it`s not. The rest can be cosmetically repaired with enamel paint and some elbow grease. Now, how to make those round things square?

Easy. Use a square brass cap and fit to shape. How about getting rid of those tiny light bulb sockets?

No problem! Adapters to the rescue! To help beef up this lamp, the larger bulb stands about 2.0 inches taller than the original. This might seem like a problem, but with some imagination a larger lamp fixture can be made to accept the taller bulb. Hence, the entire fixture looks beefier and less wiry. Make sense?

Getting ahead of myself, I experimented fitting the brass cap and it looks like things are shaping up. Some work will be required though.

Simple enough. Make the center hole bigger to fit over the insulator.

It`s important to secure the brass cap to something before drilling or grinding as it gets real hot, real fast. Safety glasses and a mask are also recommended. Mark the hole and grind away.

Dremel makes the perfect tool for the job. Each cap takes about ten minutes.

And now for a brief commercial message...it`s finally Spring around here! The juneberries and blueberries are in full bloom. Looks like a bumper crop this year.

The bins are planted with carrots, lettuce, radishes, peas, ground cherries, artichokes, and stuff I forgot to label.

Here`s the drawing for the glass which was derived from...

...this prototype. As with all of my lamp projects, I make it a point to first make a cardboard prototype. This allows me to visualize what works and what doesn`t.

I then use the prototype to get the required dimensions for the drawing. This method saves a lot of heartache and glass. Alrighty then, that`s where the project stands today. The glass cutting will begin shortly. Each piece will need to be cut 36 times! That`s enough for nine fixtures. Five for the ceiling light and four for the wall lights. Please stay tuned as I`ll try to post when one fixture is completed.