The past several days have been exceptional. That’s because of the amount of new things I’ve seen and learned in such a short span of time. Orchid flowers I’ve never seen before and learning new building skills as I work on the studio. I’m not sure they can be called ‘building skills’, though but I don’t know what else to call it.
The new things I’ve seen all have to do with plants. As you know, if you’ve followed me over the years, I love to document the plants I find out here at Wild Ozark. This land is incredible for its biodiversity. After living here more than 20 years, I get excited when I find something new. It’s only new to me, not that the plant itself is new.
New things I’ve seen in the past week include two different orchid varieties in bloom, and a colony of orchids in a new location I didn’t know were there. Also found lobelia inflata in an area I hadn’t seen it previously and Partridge berry that I’d never seen here at Wild Ozark at all.
Of the new things I’ve seen and learned, this was the simplest
It’s so simple it’s embarrassing that I didn’t know how to do it. Loading the staple gun for installing the insulation in my studio.
Rob is working on his deer blind project right now and I’m working on the things with my studio project that I can do on my own. So when I went down to the shop to get the supplies I needed today, he gave me the staple gun, some staples, giant scissors, and I already had gathered my long sleeve, mask and safety glasses.
Installing Insulation & Stumped by a Stapler
I never put up insulation before, so this is a new thing. But back to the staple gun. So my office stapler has a rail to put the staples on, then the spring pushes them forward on the rail. I figured this staple gun worked the same way and spent FAR too much time trying to figure out why it wasn’t working this morning. Convinced it was broken or something I went back to the shop to ask Rob to look at it. It works fine. I just loaded the staples wrong. They don’t go on the rail, they just drop into the opening when you pull the spring thing back. Embarrassing.
Back on track
Now with the stapler working properly and user error corrected, I went back to learn how to put up the insulation. That didn’t look like it should be very difficult and it’s not. But I only managed to get one perfect panel (the one beneath the window). The rest are pretty wonky looking but will work. I cut them too short and stuffed extra at the bottom that I had cut off of the far right one.
That far right space was too narrow for the width of the batting, so I used the pieces I had cut from the bottoms of the other pieces. That’s what the giant scissors were for. They made the task a lot easier.
It’s not heavy or hard work, but it is hot because of mask, goggles, and long sleeves. I quit when my glasses wouldn’t stay unfogged and I started sweating. So I’ll get this done a little at a time but it shouldn’t take forever. Now that I know how to work the stapler I can get right to work tomorrow morning, haha.
Another new thing I learned
I can use my rock pigment to add to acrylic wall paint base to create my own local color for the walls and ceiling! Whether the paint-desk at Home Depot will do it or not is another matter, but I’ll just buy the base and mix it at home if they won’t. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
The idea came from a search on how to make limewash paint, because originally, that’s what I wanted to do on the walls. But that can’t be applied to wood because the high pH will make the wood grains swell. A solution is to just add the pigment to a flat acrylic base paint to create the same effect, just not genuine ‘limewash’. That’s what I’ll try!
I think that’s it for new things I’ve seen and learned this past week.
Have you seen or learned anything new recently? I’ll be 62 years old this year. It makes me particularly happy to still find a thrill in learning new things. It’s hard to understand how boredom can exist where there’s just so much left to know.
Do you want to:
- learn how to make paints from rocks, soil, or clay?
- Begin Nature Journaling?
- Take plant walks?
- Create nature art or crafts?
Interested in forming a partnership with nature?
Soon you’ll be able to join me at my studio here at Wild Ozark for classes on these things! Sign up for my newsletter to stay abreast of progress:
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Author/Artist Info
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In the summer of 2018 I began making watercolor paints from the rocks, clay, and other resources of our land here in the Ozarks. In 2023 I began experimenting with the same pigments in oils. I love this medium and now paint in oils almost always. I call them Wild Ozark Paleo Paints, because they’re made in a way very close to the same way paints were made when man first put a hand-print on the wall of a cave. I use very small amounts of outsourced pigment for blue, white, and sometimes yellow to offer a greater range of hues built upon the earthy local pigments. My specialty is painting nature, specifically the nature that surrounds me here in the remote hills of northwest Arkansas.
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Madison Woods
@wildozark (Instagram, Twitter, Threads and FB)
madison@wildozark.com
