Breakfast with Hyenas

Breakfast with Hyenas

Mornings in my house are a bit like an African segment on the discovery channel. You might recognize this particular scene: Lions peacefully devouring their kill under an acacia tree.

And in the periphery, the scavangers the jackals, they hyenas and the vultures slowly move in to harass the lions.

These opportunists are skilled in the fine art of pestering to the point of the lion being ticked off enough to leave, but not mad enough to consider the scavengers part of its meal.

And here a parallel scene, set in a 1920’s Sears Roebuk house on the north short of Long Island:

My daughter breakfasts alone on schooldays, she’s so good; toasting her English muffin to perfection before she drenches it in butter and honey and carries it gingerly to the table - ready to devour her loot.

As she sinks in at the table Mojo, cat with cattitude en masse swiftly slinks up on the tallest part of the sofa behind the table, Elfin, frenchie who can jump 6x her own height while snatching objects of interest positions herself under the table and lastly Buck, the lanky lab appears. Buck is an undercover agent who while pretending to be really really stupid swiftly applies third degree of hypnosis with his beautiful deep wells of eyes.

As soon as I am out of sight a Mayhem break loose:

Here’s the soundtrack, a mere 15 seconds long - pay attention:

Isabella : “NO, Buck NOOOOOO! STOP BEGGING!!” Isabella: “ELFIN!!!! STOP JUMPING!”

Isabella: MOJO!! Off the Table”

Isabella: “MAMA!!!!!!”

And here the gory details, reader’s discretion advised.

As Isabella raises the muffin to her mouth, Buck plops down an inch from the muffin-less side of her chair and plants a big paw on her lap as he gazes into her eyes. As she turns to push his paw off her lap with her muffin-less hand, Elfin jumps towards her other hand, and snatches the muffin.

In the midst of this mayhem, Mojo jumps down to bat the other half of the muffin off the table, and they all take off to devour their scavenged treat.

Isabella sighs and reaches for the muffin I hand her as she heads out the door to catch the school-bus.

Interesting, this never happens when she has cereal for breakfast; my scavengers are picky, just as I imagine hyenas, jackals and vultures would not bother if zucchini replaced the la carte zebra.

Conflict free Carbonado black diamond fine silver ring

Yay, set my first Carbonado! Exquisite ones. Let me tell you, nature did not check out what kind of settings wold be available trillions of years later before accepting these diamonds from outer space:D I selected a 1.2 ct stone to begin with.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=44371074

Roll of drums......

Carbonados - Diamonds from the Sky

So excited, checking the mailbox every day for my diamonds from the sky.... well, from the sky via my diamond-guy:)

So what are they and why are they so exciting, well Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonado and Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0612-mystery_diamonds.htm helped me to put the puzzle together:

Carbonados, often called black diamonds, a black carbon formation that resemble diamonds, have been show to have a chemical spectrum that indicates they originated before the formation of the Earth; their high hydrogen content suggests they are from a star-like environment. Since this carbon is only found in two locations on our planet, the Central African republic and in Brazil they may have arrived via an asteroid!!!!!

The term "carbonado" was coined by Portuguese in Brazil in the mid 18th century because it resembles porous charcoal. Carbonado diamonds are so tough that it took a 20-ton hydraulic press to break one. This means it is almost impossible to work carbonado into jewelry settings, since they are too hard to be polished or cut -- except with another carbonado. They get their hardness from their structure. While conventional diamonds are cut from a single crystal that breaks easily along a natural line, carbonados are made of millions of small crystals stuck together. Carbonados were first used to polish Brazilian hardwood before transporting it to Europe. In 1905 it was used to drill the rocks for the Panama Canal.

The origin of carbonado is controversial. Some proposed hypotheses are as follows:
1. Direct conversion of organic carbon under high-pressure conditions in the Earth's interior, the most common hypothesis for diamond formation
2. Shock metamorphism induced by meteoritic impact at the Earth's surface
3. Radiation-induced diamond formation by spontaneous fission of uranium and thorium
4. An origin in interstellar space.

None of these hypotheses for carbonado formation was generally accepted in the scientific literature by 2008.

Dr. Stephen Haggerty, a geoscientist from Florida International University, in the attached video, proposes that their material source was a supernova which occurred at least 3.8 billion years ago. After coalescing and drifting through outer space for about one and a half billion years, a large mass fell to earth as a meteor approximately 2.3 billion years ago, possibly fragmenting during entry into the earth's atmosphere, and impacting in a region which would much later split into Brazil and the Central African Republic, the only two known locations of carbonado deposits. Wow!
SO, to sum it up, Black Diamond also known as Carbonado is one of the most rare and most expensive diamonds that are existing on earth. Based from the experts black diamond was occur in irregular or rounded fragments, rarely distinctly crystallized, with a texture varying from compact to porous. Its natural colour is black or dark grey, and it is more porous than other diamonds. Can't wait to make my (the???) first eco-friendly carbonado ring!!! And they are conflict free, Brazil is part of the UN mandated Kimberly system of warranties


Meanwhile, back at the farm, it has been raining and raining and raining and I have been busy making rings, like this one http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43567963 , and this one http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43050668



And awesome Natural Awakenings Magazine, gave me a shout wahoo! http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1n9ks/April2010/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2Fesmeraldadesigns%2F153351130475

RInging in the new year-showschedule 2010 sort of final:)

Finally most shows confirmed my presence or not-yay. This is an iteresting game, barely able to digest the holiday foods you have to hurry, hurry, hurry to make the mid January deadline for spring/summer/fall shows...writing checks in $$$ for application fees from funds you need for the yearly March sales tax or ...:::sigh:: that vacation you foolishly envisioned when your back account had more than three digits before the full-stop.

Hence, and then the waiting game begins, especially for the hard core juried ones...

This year I got accepted to a really neat show upstate, the St Lawrence Rustic River art show http://www.stlawrenceriverrusticshow.com/ and waitlisted for ArtRider http://www.artrider.com/lyndf2010.html and Rose Squared http://www.rosesquared.com/
with backup show incase waitlist just stands for -we have not had time to say no to you, yet- and it does not want this time around...and in all there is 26 shows. Sugarloof festivals and Renegade Brooklyn shows decided I should not leave my quarantine yet, or something :b"...meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tonto disguised as a teabag is up to his neck in hot water." and I am making rings shows or no shows, just because I love to.