Sepia Saturday 181; the bling we love;

This is one of my mothers old jewellery boxes. It is made of velvet but the top of painted silk is deteriorating rapidly.  I have chosen three of her everyday pieces she wore. I wear the ring with the ruby. A small brooch of 24 carat gold, it is very soft and has a diamond in it. I like the simple gold brooch with a row of garnets. My sister and my eldest daughter have necklaces, bracelets and rings. I have also her wedding ring which is double with the added ring of my father when he died. It was the custom to add the husbands ring. All these pieces are very old. 

Double string of Mikimoto pearls; they have never changed their lustre, but had to be restrung from time to  time.

Mikimoto had received a patent in 1896 for producing hemispherical pearls, or mabes, and a 1908 patent for culturing in mantle tissue, but he could not use the Mise-Nishikawa method without invalidating his own patents. Mikimoto then altered his patent application to cover a technique to make round pearls in mantle tissue, which was granted in 1916. However, this method was not commercially viable. Mikimoto finally made arrangements to use Nishikawa's methods after 1916, and Mikimoto's business began to expand rapidly.

The new technology enabled Japan's cultured pearl industry to quickly expand after 1916; by 1935 there were 350 pearl farms in Japan producing 10 million cultured pearls annually.

By 1935 the Japanese pearl industry was facing oversupply issues and plummeting prices for Japanese cultured pearls. Mikimoto promoted Japanese pearls in Europe and the USA to counteract falling prices. He publicly burnt tons of low-quality pearls as a publicity stunt to establish a reputation that the Mikimoto company only sold high-quality cultured pearls.

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Monday; mail;

Send a message!

Photo/ enhanced buzz

Thursday; Bush Poetry;

Henry Lawson

Writer

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period.

Born: June 17, 1867, Grenfell

Died: September 2, 1922, Sydney

A Bush Girl

She's milking in the rain and dark,

As did her mother in the past.

The wretched shed of poles and bark,

Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.

She sees the “home-roof” black and low,

Where, balefully, the hut-fire gleams—

And, like her mother, long ago,

She has her dreams; she has her dreams. 

The daybreak haunts the dreary scene,

The brooding ridge, the blue-grey bush,

The “yard” where all her years have been,

Is ankle-deep in dung and slush;

She shivers as the hour drags on,

Her threadbare dress of sackcloth seems—

But, like her mother, years agone,

She has her dreams; she has her dreams. 

The sullen “breakfast” where they cut

The blackened “junk.” The lowering face,

As though a crime were in the hut,

As though a curse was on the place;

The muttered question and reply,

The tread that shakes the rotting beams,

The nagging mother, thin and dry—

God help the girl! She has her dreams. 

Then for “th’ separator” start,

Most wretched hour in all her life,

With “horse” and harness, dress and cart,

No Chinaman would give his “wife”;

Her heart is sick for light and love,

Her face is often fair and sweet,

And her intelligence above

The minds of all she’s like to meet. 

She reads, by slush-lamp light, may be,

When she has dragged her dreary round,

And dreams of cities by the sea

(Where butter’s up, so much the pound),

Of different men from those she knows,

Of shining tides and broad, bright streams;

Of theatres and city shows,

And her release! She has her dreams. 

Could I gain her a little rest,

A little light, if but for one,

I think that it would be the best

Of any good I may have done.

But, after all, the paths we go

Are not so glorious as they seem,

And—if t’will help her heart to know—

I’ve had my dream. ’Twas but a dream. 

Henry Lawson

Photo taken in Bourke Ts

Tuesday; beauty;

Paraffin wax

Doctors use Botox and collagen to rejuvenate faces. They also use silicone inserts to enhance breast size.

Is it insecurity or stupidity that makes women submit their bodies, their health  to such awful and unnecessary procedures? 

But the history of wrinkle reduction and breast implants actually starts much earlier than people realize. 
The first recorded attempts at wrinkle removal and artificial breast enhancement were carried out prior to the 1900s.
The procedure involved injecting paraffin wax directly into the wrinkled area to smooth it out, or directly into the breast to increase its volume. 
The practice quickly fell out of favour for good reason. Harsh infections were a common side effect of this technique. It also caused the formation of hard, painful lumps known as paraffinomas. 

Now this Paraffin wax technic is called primitive.
Perhaps in 20 years time Botox and silicone procedures will  also be called  primitive!  Paraffin wax is a white or colourless soft solid that is used as a lubricant and for other applications.

Paraffin
Alkane
Kerosene, a fuel that is commonly known as paraffin in Britain, Southeast Asia and South Africa.
Tractor vaporising oil, a fuel
Liquid paraffin (medicinal)
Mineral oil
Petroleum jelly, also called soft paraffin

Botox

Botulinum toxin is a protein and neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinumIt is the most acutely toxic substance known.

Botulinum toxin can cause botulism, a serious and life-threatening illness in humans and animals. Popularly known by one of its trade names, Botox, it is used for various cosmetic and medical procedures'

In cosmetic applications, a Botox injection, consisting of a small dose of botulinum toxin, can be used to prevent development of wrinkles by paralyzing facial muscles. As of 2007, it is the most common cosmetic operation, with 4.6 million procedures in the United States, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Qualifications for Botox injectors vary by county, state and country. Botox cosmetic providers include dermatologists, plastic surgeons, aesthetic spa physicians, dentists, nurse practitioners, nurses and physician assistants. The wrinkle-preventing effect of Botox normally lasts about three to four months.

Silicon

a tetravalent metalloid, is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, 

Symbol: Si Electron configuration: Ne 3s2 3p2 Melting point: 1,414 °C Atomic number: 14 Atomic mass: 28.0855 ± 0.0003 u Discoverer: Jöns Jacob Berzelius Since the mid-1990s, the Fifth generation of silicone breast implant is made of a semi-solid gel that mostly eliminates filler leakage (silicone gel bleed) and silicone migration from the breast to elsewhere in the body. The studies Experience with Anatomical Soft Cohesive Silicone gel Prosthesis in Cosmetic and Reconstructive Breast Implant Surgery (2004) and Cohesive Silicone gel Breast Implants in Aesthetic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery (2005) reported low incidence rates of capsular contracture and of device-shell rupture, improved medical safety and technical efficacy greater than earlier generations of breast implant device.

Beauty is not perfect.

Photo/ rose/Ts

Sepia Saturday 179; a barrel of...

My three girls in the barrel in the late sixties.  It was supposed  for a dog, but our dogs never used it, but the girls loved it to play hide and seek.

The canton of Thurgau is known for its fine agricultural produce. Particularly, apples, pears, fruits and vegetables are well-known. The many orchards in the canton are mainly used for the production of cider.

Farmers had a barrel like this one in the cellar. In autumn after the apple harvest it was filled with sweet apple juice that fermented slowly. Every night 1 full jug  was taken up and drunk, as the barrel had to be emptied and cleaned out again for the next harvest.

www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

©Photo Ts

Thursday;...found...

....again a note, or better sort of  a map for me from my granddaughter, hidden in  this cookbook

 I had not taken out for a while.

 As I was leafing through I found a map, the paper crumpled to make it look old.

♥

The map shows some part of my home . It must have been for a while in this cookbook. I always get these little surprises from Fabrizia. She is an interesting child always leaves me little notes hidden somewhere in books. She loves to write and carries always many note books around the pages full with small stories.
She has done that since she was tiny.She also liked to keep the receipts from the shops, which she carried around in envelopes.Letters and numbers  fascinated her. In the library she did not want picture books, she only took the ones with letters or numbers. She loves to go into a shop where they sell beautiful notebooks, sometimes I buy her one she especially covets.  It is fun to have grand children, in the holidays they come for sleepovers and they give you  spontaneously big hugs, I love you.

Fabrizia, January 2010

©Photo/text Ts

Wednesday; Bookshelf;

Lawrence M. Krauss

Physicist

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is a professor of physics, Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of Arizona State University's Origins Project. 

A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing is a book by physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, first published in 2012, discussing various scientific ideas related to cosmogony.

Michael Brooks for New Scientist writes "Krauss will be preaching only to the converted. That said, we should be happy to be preached to so intelligently. The same can't be said about the Dawkins afterword, which is both superfluous and silly.

Whatever is said about his books;  

Lawrence Krauss is brilliant. His books should be on every bookshelf.