A fascinating new experience

Yesterday, the University of Kentucky

Metal Art department

Had their 17th annual "Iron Pour".

So the girls got a scratch block

and carved a design.

Emily and Ashley carved their hands

and Kayla made an FFA 2009 carving.

Students and artists from all over

send in their molds to be poured

each year on this occasion.

Some are small but others are big and heavy.

Most are brought in by forklift.

(Dennis was happy to see they use a Clark forklift

for this very important task!)

All afternoon they stoked the fire

and melted the iron.

After dark they finally poured the molten iron

into the molds and onto the scratch blocks.

Today we went and picked up our casts.

The girls were thrilled.

What came out was an iron tile

with their design in relief......

well, two out of three anyway.

Something happened to Ashley's scratch block

the tile didn't form but she still got her hand in iron.

It looks very abstract....a happy accident.

We all loved the experience which was both

fascinating and educational for all of us.

It brought to mind my dad

casting his weights in lead for his decoys

in the neighbors kitchen in Ste-Barbe.

And that made me smile........

Wow... that worked !

As you may know
I enjoy the unusual.
Something I haven't seen before,
done before, tasted before,
heard of before, ever knew existed.
You get the picture......no pun intended.....
Today I was trying to take the picture
of a "Clark" forklift (we do that now )
in front of a building on Main Street.
I always get the red light at that intersection...
except today!
So as I was driving away,
in very slow traffic,
I took this picture in my rear-view mirror.
I didn't think it would work.....
It did. Kind of.....
If you zoom in and flip the picture....

It's that little red thing, to the left of the door.
It's still cool.....
The girls said." Is that what you see
when you look in that mirror?"
I never thought about it but they wouldn't know
would they?

The whole experience made me smile.....