Chipping Away at the Forest

Dear Reader,

In life, the big rewards often come from persistence, and The Squirrel King isn't so different from life ...

Our quilled flammable forest has been under construction for a few weeks now, and finally the time has come to really cover the landscape in trees! Rest assured we have a plethora of trees for the covering (that box on the right is just a small portion of the almost 1000!).

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Alien Fashionistas

Dear Reader,

A fun weekend in the sun, and you can all see that our darling Aliens have inherited our costume designer's sense of fashionable flare!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Scaling the Dam

Dear Reader,

As promised, here's a couple of stills from our effort shooting the dam the other day :)

On the right is a still of Justus hanging from Paul's feet as water gushes out of the dam below him!

And finally after much effort, atop the dam, Justus and Paul took a moment to survey the countryside around Nesting.

Back to the flammable landscape now!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Our Crane!

Dear Reader,

Some time ago we fashioned a crane (from some 2x4 wood, a clothes line and the Aliens' old bicycle training wheels), well more of a jib arm really, but either way it's our biggest piece of home-made equipment. Yesterday, we rolled it out for the dam scaling sequence.

Bill Watterson, in character as Paul, amused us with his befuddled awe at the device, while Justus and I watched in amusement.

Tomorrow I promise to pull some stills from the effort :)

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Lip of the Dam

Dear Reader,

We started with some cardboard boxes and drizzled on white paint.

The Aliens then swirled and stroked the white into a smooth texture ... and drizzled some black.

The black was mixed in and finally the finishing touches were affectionately applied ... an homogenizing synthesis that took us from Matisse to composite concoction.

With the lip of the Nesting dam looking great, I'm off to film its scaling and burst!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

A Smattering of Trees

Dear Reader,

I'm pleased to report that the landscape we've been working on has sprouted some trees!

Obviously there's still a thick forest to come - with many trees still to be grown - but it is great to see a few stands already littering the landscape.

Interestingly, quilling turns out to be infectious and I've had a slew of excellent foliage propagators helping out. Those background mountains will not be bare for long!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS. That big foil swath through the center will become a river at some point :)

Live, from Nature, Musings 3

Taking a break partway through "Powerglide," I remembered what Viktor Frankle had said about the first time you climb something, he said:

"Climb it as if you were climbing it for the second time, but this time, at this moment, do it right."

Well, suffice to say, that was the motivation I needed to huck for the jug way up high.

I missed, so from now on I'm going to climb routes as if for the third time. I'll report back soon.

~Justus