Dr. Alan Hook works at St. Edwards University and he offered to take us over to the
Blunn Creek Nature Preserve and talk to us about wasps (his speciality) and other insects. We said Sure!
On his way walking over to meet us, he saw two
carpenter bees and he captured them in these little containers so we could hold and observe them. How often do you get to get up close and personal with a bee? These ones were big, fat and black. Under other circumstances we might find them a little unnerving.
Yoli said you could feel the container vibrating when they were buzzing inside.
We found some oak leaves that were chockablock with
gall wasps. Fun fact: did you know that
Kinsey specialized in gall wasps before he went on to his more well-known work as a sexologist?
Checking out two bees in a cactus flower.
He found some
cochineal, which is a tiny bug that nests and lives on cacti. It has been used as a red dye throughout the ages, and until very recently it was used as a red dye for sodas and juices. It is still used to color the soda Big Red! Gives new meaning to the term 'bug juice', eh....
You can see how he's crushing one and it's just filled to the brim with bright red juice. So wierdly gross and amazing! If you ever want a natural red dye you can find it around here in cactus patches by the thousands.
Texas used to be under one giant sea oh, 40 million years ago or so, and the hill which we hiked up used to be an adorable little volcano.
This little boy Henry was so excited that he discovered a bug for Dr. Hook to identify. These are some leaf-footed insects that sand wasps like to feed on.
Dr. Hook specializes in solitary wasps. They have homes in the ground by themselves rather than in nests with others. Obviously, solitary wasps are a lot less likely to give you trouble than those in a nest... you won't get attacked by angry hordes defending the nest.
They were doing a crackerjack job of getting rid of loads of invasive species of trees down in the nature preserve. This is stacks and stacks of
privet. I want that wood so bad! I'm salivating to do another
lashing event. And when I was in Northern California at Gever's house, we did some lashing with a whole bunch of eucalyptus trunks, which are an invasive species there and are incredibly long, straight and strong. Building with 15 foot trunks rather than four foot long sticks makes it possible to achieve incredible height and strength of a lashed structure in almost no time at all. I'm itchin' to make a real Swiss Family Robinson mansion of a treehouse. Who's with me?? I need some help hauling out this wood.
Another great morning with the Creek class thanks to Dr. Hook (who told us we could call him Dr. Hook, Mr. Hook, Captain Hook, or Fish Hook).
Our teacher was the fabulous Kathleen McTee who was Really funny and Really knowledgeable. My gosh, did you know that you can use liquid dishwashing detergent as a dandy little bleaching agent on fabric?? So you can print with it, do all sorts of cool things with it. Lindsey, I can imagine you having a field day with that one!
ALSO, my gosh, did you know that soy wax actually washes out of fabric in the washing machine? So you can do batik or just any sort of cool print-making with the wax and then wash it right out. Not so with paraffin wax ...
She showed us how to make prints, roll it over textured surfaces (like neat-though-tacky plasticky doily placemats), and even screenprint with thickened dye.
Pause to breathe heavily over the rolls and rolls of deliriously beautiful fabric.....
After she had introduced all the techniques she just let us loose for about two hours to do as we pleased... it felt like someone had set up a crafty playground for us and our only job was to overcome our inhibitions and PLAY. My gosh, I think I will, thank you very much!
It was all in the name of experimentation so I'm not too attached to my outcomes, but I do really like the one where I rolled the dye over a wood-grain texture, and I like the turquoise blue one where I used Kat's beautiful screen she had made with a beautiful Indian mandala. And my eyes are opened to a wealth of possibilities... I'm really excited to do more.
All told a major hit. I can't wait to go back. Kat has a screenprinting crash course one-time class going on this Sunday... I'm going to be out of town or else I'd go. Looking forward to more time on the playground....
