Gifts from the soil -- job benefits and slow jewellery

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions before, one of the job benefits my sis and I enjoy when working in the potato fields is collecting stones and especially flints. The other day, when removing some of the fiberweb (the white sheets the early potato fields are covered in during spring) I made my best find yet. A flintstone arrow head! It really made my day, I was just so thrilled about it!

Since beginning to collect/hoard flintstones as a kid I've dreamed of finding something like the one and a half axes grandpa found in his fields, but so far I've just found stone and nuggets that, as a layman, I could just guess might've been partially formed by a human hand. This is the first piece I've found that I'm 100 % sure has been formed by man. It was pretty exciting to find, especially since I found it while being busy working and I was so close to not picking it up. Luckily, the unusual rectangular shape and light colour made it stand out and tempt my eyes. I was just pure luck that the edge of the fiberweb stopped just there and that the plowing and digging had unearthed the piece just in time for me to find it.

Now you might say "well, have you reported the find?" I'm very well aware -- and very proud -- of the laws protecting our cultural history, but generally flint items are so common länsstyrelsen in Skåne isn't that interested in single finds like this (I asked them once because of the beautiful stone age axe my grandpa gave me so I'm not just going by hearsay on this). Though I would be interested in contacting someone to learn about the age, use etc of my find. I've seen similar arrow heads that's been dated to the end of the ice age, ca 11-12 000 years old. That's as far back as you can go with artefacts in these areas that used to be covered by the ice sheet.

It isn't a big piece either. I didn't have a ruler nearby so I took a photo of it next to an AA battery for a size comparison:

In other news, I just sowed some jewellery making supplies. Another gift from the soil that I expect later in summer.

No, I'm not being barmy: what I'm talking about is sowing flowers to dry for making cute jewellery. Like this:

(Screen shot of an Etsy treasury I made. Many pieces are sold,
but you can still find what's left of the treasury here.)

I know you can buy dried flowers, but not always the ones you want and buying from a florist or what few commercial cultivators of everlasting flowers there are in the 21st century can be a tad expensive. So I thought I might as well try to sow a few seeds. I'm not useless at gardening, but I'm no expert either. It was dad that was the expert, lovingly caring for an expanding garden -- and teaching us kids the art and craft of it. I haven't cared that much for gardens in years, mainly because I haven't had one of my own where I could do what I wanted.

But this year, I was so inspired by the poetic mori-style jewellery I couldn't keep myself from buying some seeds. Fingers crossed I've got green fingers (or green thumb as some of you say) and there'll be at least a couple of flowers to harvest.

You've heard about slow food and even slow cities, well, I guess this is slow jewellery! I'll take me months to make a simple pendant if counting from yesterday when I sowed the seeds.

If any flowers do seem to be popping up, I'll keep you updated.

And if you wonder about the fiberweb, it's not to keep the soil and seeds warm or anything -- it's mainly an attempt to keep the cats from thinking the newly weeded and raked soil is a big new litter box... Think it'll keep them out? Well, perhaps as long as they don't realise how warm it can be under a sheet like this, or indeed on it. Then they might want to sleep on it instead, something the plants won't like either. Gardening with cats isn't always easy.