More time inside the bell shop

So, here is a little more insight into bell making.

                                                                   Grinding!

                                                               Close up.

                                                    The finished product.

Here are sails after being cut and now ready for the "patina" treatment to start.

 

So, today 10 boxes went out on the UPS truck and Philip met a customer in Boerne to deliver one more. We are rolling for Christmas, taking orders by phone and through the website. We have printed and mailed out the last of the holiday postcards. We are keeping up with your orders and STILL getting to keep up with those all important addictive TV dramas - Homeland, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire and yes, Glee.

 

And, one final note.... while Philip has mastered the creation of your bells, this Thanksgiving holiday he spent one evening putting together a dollhouse for our only granddaughter's Christmas (thanks to Aunt Jenny and Uncle Michael). This was not as easy as one might think!

 

 

 

More inside time inthe shop

An Inside Look

Ok, so in honor of Cyber-Monday, I thought I would give you an inside look at the Windsongs "operation". It might be be interesting to know that all bells since 1976 have been constructed within the walls of this same metal shop. Now, the shop was first located near Marion, Texas, actually on the Zuehl Airport grounds. Then when we moved to Boerne, the shop was moved also. And, it's been there ever since. There's been a succession of shop dogs who have been underfoot and there to great customers. This is the current resident, Toast.

She's in her golden years, like the rest of us. If you come visit and want her to like you, bring her a dog cookie. She doesn't hear all that well any more, but her appetite is good.

Now, this is a long, narrow building and the "heart" of the operation is where the welding occurs, of course. And that is way at the back in an area Philip has reworked many times to provide a survivable climate in either winter or summer.

He can close those wooden doors, turn on the air conditioner, turn up the radio and survive the heat in the summer. In the winter, the doors stay open and the larger heater is cranked up in the middle of the shop so we both can work "comfortably".

                         This is what the piece of steel look like before the welding begins.

Some action shots. "Close your eyes - don't look directly at the weld!"

I'll post more later - gotta go cut sails out in the shop for now!!

Young Entrepeneur Update

Just an update on our purchase from young entrepeneur, Chris. Our bracelets arrived this week. Just thought I would post a picture for you.

                                                    And here is a closeup of one of them.

                                                                               

                                        Notice the cute pink one for our only grandaughter!!!!
                                            They are going to be stocking stuffers, I think.

Now, dear art and craft readers, should you also want to purchase a hand crafted knotted bracelet for the child or grandchild in your family (like for a stocking stuffer), let me know. I could certainly contact young Mr. Chris for you. I do not have his permission or that of his dad, to post his email, so I would certainly be willing to contact him on your behalf. Each bracelet was $5.00.

As for us, we are diligently working in the bell shop these days. Your Christmas notification from us should be in the mail to you all very soon!!

After Huffines

Well the Huffines show has come and gone. It was a good show. A little cold .... okay, it was really cold. In fact, it was in the thirties in the mornings!!  Customers were treated to a sight they almost never see.

   Philip in long pants.

 

 

You gotta give these Richardson and surrounding area folks credit, they came out to shop even in the cold. It warmed up a little in the afternoons each day, but basically we stayed dressed in layers of clothing the entire show.

 

This is a small show, held in the park surrounded by soccer and baseball fields, a fire station and a middle school. But it is very well organized, very pretty and lots of people come to shop.

 

 We met this young entrepeneur. This is Chris who is still in middle school. He makes these really cool bracelets from nylon cord (sorry, I did not take a picture on them). He and his dad came by the booth and each of them were wearing one of Chris' creations. We admired them and eventually ordered some from him for our grandkids and ourselves. We are eagerly awaiting our purchases. it is always cool to see a young person doing something creative. He is currently exploring the best way to market his product.

I will post a picture of the bracelets when we receive them.

 

On the way home on Monday, we visited with the wonderful person who created and monitors our website. We had a great "business" breakfast with he and his wife, Eme. They are two folks involved in lots of things, one of which is a business called E Z Vinyl Expressions. They can create a label, sign, embellishment for anything. He is a link to their website;

http://www.ezvinylexpressions.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Bonaire

Here are a few more quick photos related to this trip. These are all above the water. If you want to see the fantastic life "under the sea", please go check out Bill Goodwin's website (see last posting).

It rained several days just on one end of the island, briefly, and then the sun shone the rest of the day.... except for one day close to the end of the trip when it POURED.

The mosquitos were more abundant this year!!Hmmm,so now this fall I have been stung by Texas mosquitos threatening me with West Nile Virus, then African mosquitos for whom we took the typhoid vaccine and then the Caribbean mosquitos who carry dengue fever. Such adventure!!

                      One of the outdoor restaurants we ate at several times!

More animals.

 

 Yes, I am posting pictures of grocery carts, but only because these were so interesting. There is a swanky new Dutch grocery store that opened since our trip last year. You had to put a quarter into a slot at the front of the handle (our friend Jay is demonstrating). That then allows you to pull out the key from the other side of the handle and take your cart into the rest of the store. When you are through shopping, you simple pushed your car back into the line of carts, reinstalled the key hanging from the first basket in line and out popped your quarter.

 

 

There were no baskets littering their parking lot. However, you had to carry your own groceries out to you car in big bags or you had to bring the cart all the way back into the store to be able to retrieve your basket.

 

And then, there were the sunsets.

Every night, this was the view from our porch.

After the sun set you could see the lights from the big dock where the tankers pulled up to load up with oil. We saw more tankers this year coming and going than we ever saw in previous visits. For a couple of days a big supertanker even docked there to fill up.

 

All in all - another great trip!

 

 

 



Second Trip

Home again, home again, jiggity jig... Yes we are home, having just finished up a second great fall trip. It was a scuba diving trip in Bonaire. It was a whirlwind. Our plan to get home from the Morocco trip and have four days to unpack, wash, repack, reaquaint the pets with who we are AND check on the windchime orders was scrunched a little by the plane fiasco. Air France is not my favorite airline (long story) and our one unplaned night spent in Paris was not romantic (long story). So... we lost a day in between trips. But all was good here at home and packing to go on a dive trip to the Carribean is somewhat simple - dive gear, bathing suits and a few short and shirts.
The trip flying over on United was good and this year, they did not lose my dive gear like last year so all was good. At least it started out that way.
We always stay at Captain Don's Habitat and this time we were staying in a Villa with two other couples who are friends we met, in fact in the past in Bonaire. This was the view from our room. We arrived early in the morning, had a great breakfast, had our dive briefing, went snorkeling and waited for the first of our friends to arrive. Had a great dinner and turned in early.

This was the view INSIDE our room the next morning after a night of a small rainstorm.

That shiny reflection on the floor represents the inch of water we woke up to the next morning. The drain system (two holes in the patio wall) did not work and water silently backed up into our room out our front door, into the hall and into the other two upstairs rooms (not occupied). What is unbelievably lucky is that our laptops, my kindle, our cameras and even our suitcases did not get wet. The dive gear laid out against one of the wall did, but that was ok. My paperback was swollen to twice its size, but still readable! AND we did not get shocked when we stepped into this surprise.

After some insistence on our part , we were moved to another villa which turned out to be just fine.

This is the front entrance

The back of the villa.

PD  relaxing amid all of our dive gear .

This is a view looking toward town. You can see sailboats in the distance. This was the week of the annual regatta so there was a lot of sailboat action.

This picture really does not do justice to the color of the water. The contrast was even greater than this photo shows.

This is a picture of the salt pans. This is a big industry (Cargill) on the island and has been a part of the history of the island.The back pond was actually very pink. I think the drier/older the salt is, the darker or pinker the water is.

This is the salt once it is harversted. There were about 10 of these pyramids of salt waiting to be loaded onto a conveyor belt and then loaded into a ship.

The island is home to many, many flamingos. Apparently, some fly back and forth daily between Bonaire and Curaco and others just stay put. The island is considered a sanctuary for them.

The island also has a good sized population of donkeys (part of the island's history) and there is a sanctuary for them.

And did I mention the iguanas and parrots?

We set out a plate of veggies and fruit every morning and the small to medium iguanas came to eat. The yard area was full of them. The big lizards hung out down by the restaurant nearby.

We ate, slept, read, snorkled and dove.

We did all of our dives from shore this trip. We were just one of many people in little white rental trucks driving out to dive sites, gearing up and walking (or stumbling) into the water and going under.
Dive sites are marked by these little yellow stones.

This was the rough side of the island where we did NOT dive. Waves too big, wind too strong and the shore was piled high with broken coral.

We did not take pictures under water, but one of the other couples did. In fact, Bill and Donna Goodwin are great photographers. Bill is going to send me a few pictures to post. Bill is an award wining photographer. He has a website called Feral Divers Media and a blog at http://www.thefirstanimal.blogspot.com.

I will post again as soon as I get some photos from Bill.

A Final Moroccan Post

I feel as I now (belatedly) have recounted a brief overview of a wonderful  trip.  My pictures do not give justice to the beauty of the country of Morocco. Seeing our family was the most important aspect of the trip for us. Our young grandsons are growing up well. Our daughter and son-in-law are living their dream of living in interesting places in the world. So for those customers who have been with us a long time and started reading those postcards about the family, this is just another chapter for you.

I will include some final pictures below to hopefully just give you a final feel for Morocco. Remember, I have about a thousand more, if you ever need a picture of a gate, an archway, desert, a camel, scary mountain roads or adobe buildings. Just contact me. I can fix you up. And finally, remember my advice on traveling to Morocco – take a baby with you.