Pastures of the Blue Crane

Pastures of the Blue Crane, First Edition Cover, front by Annette Macarthur Onslow

, and back, a bit less inspiring.

Pic and Illustration about "Gidget" from

.....the book "Surfing USA"

Achingly beautiful, page 1 and Annette Onslow's pic of cafe life in 1960's Melbourne. Paris eat your heart out.

One of the surfing pics. Once again, Onslow has nailed it.

Hi

Since I was quite young I have been a surfer, and even when I can't be near the ocean, I have sought out some equivalent adrenalin charging pastimes. A while ago I gave up skateboarding but still ride bikes including some I've designed and built myself. Books on surfing have interested me and I knew about the American "Gidget" surfer girl books and movies but have never seen or read them. Until a few weeks ago I wasn't aware of any Australian equivalent.

Then I came across"Pastures of the Blue Crane" by Hesba Fay Brinsmead. The book is still in print, and there are reviews of it on the internet thingy. Here, I just wanted to highlight the surfing content of the book which is small in quantity and possibly incidental but to me, great in meaning.

The main protagonist in the book is Ryl, a young orphan who migrates to The Goldcoast of Queensland from Melbourne with her crusty grandfather. Ryl ends up hanging out with a few surfers and learns to surf herself, but she never ends up addicted to surfing or anything else. She goes for a surf on a big surf day. What is good about this scene is that it is not written as an end in itself, but more as a story about mateship. One of her fellow surfers on the big day is a land surveyor and they bond over surfing, then later this mateship helps her.

So this is a coming of age book but I think all ages and genders can get something out of it. There are bits about race and skin colour and general tolerance but no alcohol fuelled violence or car crashes. Highly recommended!

The philosophies of "Blue Crane" are highly regarded and there is even a Facebook fan page. Not bad for 1 55 year old book.

Regards

Steve Nurse

PS My copy of the book is now on its way to my neice Cicely who lives on the Goldy, and I've ordered a replacement 1969 version through ebay.

Update: 1969 version of Blue crane arrived today and I am very happy. A photo of the main differences is below, some of  Hesba Fay Brinsmead's other books are featured on the back cover and fly leaf, and there is a picture by Peter Farmer.

Model TV's

3d printed assembly in TV's is 2 printed parts, a skewer which is bent as a bow to secure the parts together.

Individual parts, skewer, plastic screen protector, 3d printed front and back, printed picture from "The Jetsons"

All the screen parts together

TV #1, "Smart TV"

Making the Future TV, plywood was marked out, sawn and drilled. Some balsa wood used in the last blog post was used as a ruler and to get the right distance of holes from edges, and I had plenty of brake cable inners and outers in the shed.

Finished. Bicycle brake cable outers hold the sides together in the same way as the house was made last time.  They also form the legs of the TV.

Decorations include bicycle brake cable inners, and 3 different colours of 1.75mm 3d printing PLA filament.

Mounting of TV on front gate.

Front gate as it is now.

An old bike about to be restored. Damaged gear and brake cables are ready for harvesting and upcycling as some sort of sculpture.

Hi

For the past few weeks I've been experimenting with some building techniques and posted about what I've done here and here .  After making and displaying the last house, I decided to make something else using some of the same techniques, and settled on a "Television" based idea. Firstly I made the screen surround, and this turned out exceedingly well.

I waited around a few days and then made a small TV with screws representing controls and legs, and a black and white picture from the 1960-s tv show "Get Smart". This show was repeated endlessly on Australian TV in the 70's and 80's, and my brother Richard and I can recite large chunks of dialogue - well at least the catchphrases. And so the TV is a daggy big black and white model with no remote control. That's right, prehistoric really. Because its related to Get Smart, and because I can call it whatever I like I am calling it "Smart TV". Yes, I am jumping 50 years ahead of myself with that name, I don't care!

Having got the Smart TV representing the past out of the way, I set about making another "Future" model with a construction resembling that of Easter Egg House #2.  Its nice to see it next to the older and slightly more relatable Smart TV. Below is the pic I used from the Jetsons animated series circa 1962. They got the large curved screen TV just about right, although the guy in the bottom photo could chill out a bit, and get a more interesting haircut.

Regards  Steve Nurse

Stop Press: A friend came round and was admiring the sculptures on the front gate and said she especially liked the aquarium which was the new sculpture. I was bemused, "Um, Aquarium? I said", and she replied, "Oh well, yes, I saw the Shark on the front, so then I figured out what it was". And yes, I get it, Jane Jetson's couch looks like a shark.

regards  Steve Nurse

Update, July 27, 2021

The files to 3d print the basics of this TV are available on Thingiverse, here is the link, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4917954 .