Wednesday-3am

Leah brought her paper shredder with her yesterday.

I was basically the shredderer (hehe!) and assistant to Leah. We decided the perfect shredder for the job would be a crosscut shredder--but this one is saving us a lot of work. :)
Even this bigger tub is too narrow for the brand new larger papermill--so we will have to scout out a larger tub. Took measurements and Leah put them in her phone. She was going shopping with her younger sister and brother last night and said she'd keep an eye out.

Hard to show the differences, but we were experimenting between making 1.5 sheet and 2 sheet paper. The 1.5 seems the best.

We were also experimenting with blending longer (one minute instead of 30 seconds) and blending twice. I don't know if you can tell, but the two on the left here are smoother from using that twice-blended process.

Then we dug out this powdered additive I had purchased from Arnold Grummer's and played with that. It is supposed to make the paper acid free and a little smoother. This one is made with that additive.

Leah also came up with the idea of trying a brayer as we lay the paper down--to see if it would help reduce bubbles.

This was what we got done yesterday--and they are still drying on the table right now. The three in the front were made with the additive. We won't be able to tell all the differences until they are all dry--but it is taking a long time since we have had rain and thunderstorms all night.

And we also made up more paper moulds with Plaster of Paris. Those of you who follow the blog might remember how I had to sit and make the rubber molds by layering 10 layers of this liquid rubber stinky stuff on the original paper mould.

We plan to use up the rest of our Plaster of Paris making more snowflake molds. [Leah is really good at this now because of her new job!! She makes molds of teeth at work now! Cool!] Anyways--then we can make a whole bunch of the cotton linter papers from the molds at one time. They have to dry in the molds--so the more we have the better! :)

Note: I don't know why all my life I have had this tendency to use British spellings?? I have to stop and think to write "mold"?? Mould--mold--you know what I mean.

Anyways, I was sawing logs by 7pm--but woke up at 12:30am and couldn't get back to sleep. So here I am blogging in the middle of the night--hehe! I'll have to try and catch a nap toward morning--I hope. Leah is planning to come back and work on the paper and moulds again today. Dagan is coming by after work and they said we're going to order in a kind of late Mother's Day dinner for us! Such a treat for me!

I love the low rumbling of the thunder and the sound of the rain! I actually go to sleep to that on my sound machine every night. I find it soooo relaxing. The glistening of the rain the on window screens--back lit by the garage lights--looks like a million diamonds!! Occasionally I can hear the Canadian geese honking and chattering--in the middle of the night?? How strange!

Just very happy. :):)