Learning a new craft.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved stained glass and have longed to 'have a go'.
One of our contacts in the Farmers Market makes some lovely things with stained glass and talking to his wife last week we found that he also runs two hour work shops, so we signed up.
The work shop was supposed to last two hours, but he is a very patient man and we were there for three hours. The work shop is mainly to give you the feel of working with glass,

Grinding the edges to a smooth finish.  

the correct way of cutting it, the buffering of the sides so there are no sharp edges, then the correct way to apply the copper edging and assembling the item ready for soldering.
Cutting plain window glass is fairly easy, cutting coloured glass is hard, or we found it so, although Rainer made it look easy. I guess it's one of those things that comes with lots of practice.

Buffering the sides was easy as it is a high speed water cooled diamond buffering stone, you can also do  a certain amount of reshaping on this machine.

Copper taping the edges.

Applying the copper tape requires a steady hand and good eyesight , neither of which I have, I found it hard to get the glass edge exactly centred on the tape.

Soldering the bird together.

The soldering part was fairly easy, but both of us have done soldering before although not on glass but on plumbing, where you don't have to be too accurate.

Simon's humming bird.

However, we both finished our first project, with quite a bit of help from Rainer.

My butterfly.

Will we have another go? Yes, I would like to do a stained glass panel for the inner front door, but it will have to wait until  the Autumn , there is too much to do in the garden to take time out for hobbies.
We both enjoyed our introduction and are pleased with what we managed to make. Unfortunately it is not a craft that can easily be done at home, you do need certain equipment which unless you intend to do lots of stained glass work would not justify the cost, so we will content ourselves with the odd workshops.

As calm as a mill pond.

After we had left it was still sunny and felt quite warm, as we crossed over the Boyle river  we stopped to take a few photos,

Lovely light reflections.

 the river was so calm it was like a mill pond

The Boyle river.

and reflected the early evening light beautifully, but just twenty minutes on we found ourselves in a blizzard, the sky turned from pinky blue to steel grey and suddenly we were in a white world. The snow persisted all the way home and we awoke the following morning to a light covering of snow, it seems winter is not done with us yet.
Meanwhile seed planting continues, salad bowl lettuce, calabrese, cauliflower and mange tout peas have been sown in trays and root trainers, these will be grown in the poly tunnel for early crops, the new raised beds are warming under polythene and the first early potatoes, Duke of York and Maris Piper are chitting ready to plant out on St Paddies day.
Colour is now showing on the Daffodils, another week and they will start blooming, colour is also showing on the Camelia bushes, and the primroses are all out. Spring is nearly here.

Shredded branches to use as a mulch.  

A garden shredder, bought two years ago has, at last been tried out, we are very pleased with it and it will shred  dried branches up to an inch with ease. I am hoping we have enough dried branches around to make a worthwhile mulch for the outside strawberries and some other crops.
More hedging bushes have been added to our shelterbelt hedge row, which is half way down the garden field, more Rosa Rugosa which do very well here, plus ten Hornbeam and ten Field Maples, this hedge row will in time give good protection to the vegetable garden as well as attracting the wild birds and the bees.

Pilot cloche project, to see if it withstand the winds.