Pony express sculpting

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch is getting a new ride this season called the Pony Express. We are building the water tower sign. The water tank is fully sculpted, and today I hand-sculpted the epoxy onto the routed sign. I had a blast, and in about 45 minutes, the fully dimensional sign was ready for paint. The bottom support structure is now fully welded and ready to begin the concrete sculpting. Stay tuned…

Test phase

The Yarrow Days Parade and Hazelnut Inn Open House are now only ten days away, and preparations are going ahead at full speed. Final decorating of the parade float will happen at the last minute, but in the meantime, we are in the operational test phase. We know the smoke machine works perfectly on house power, but it needs to be fully portable and battery-powered for the parade. Our properly sized inverter arrived this afternoon. We enlisted our neighbour Gord, along with his batteries, for the power. The smoke machine draws a fair amount of power, so today’s test was to see how long one battery would last. We will then do the math to determine how many batteries we will need to last the entire parade route. Next week we’ll do a final test with Henry to make sure we are ready for the big day. Stay tuned…

Painting on the magic

Laura spent her day brushing on the base coat of paint onto multiple features. The first coat is the most difficult as the concrete features are very porous and rough, and suck up a lot of paint. The challenge is to put the paint on as thick as possible without creating runs and drips. The second coat is a little easier, and the third blend coat is much faster. The final glazes go faster yet, and the dry brushing takes but a few minutes. All in all, a feature like this treasure chest will take one person seven or eight days in total. The end result will be pure magic!