XDA

One of the good things about the Christmas season is the parties and not just the office one. I went to a fundraiser, for hounds for the Arapahoe hunt, which is 75 years old and would be hounds and rich folks on horseback after foxes if the coyotes hadn't eaten all the foxes and taken over their niche. So it's guys in pinks and everyone dressed up on nice horses tearing out after coyotes. When in Rome... Heck, I'd take care of their coyote problem in a week with a recording of screaming rabbits and my Winchester Model 70 in .223, but what would be the fun in that.

Anyway, the fundraiser was advertised as a wine tasting but the focus was very narrow, in that they only had one wine and a chardonnay at that (but a good one). The owner of the vineyard was there, as were old friends, a client, artists and world travelers. Heard thrilling tales of stag and roebuck hunts from horseback in France and heard about something I might have picked up on before--metal clays.

About 15 years ago a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary invented metal clays, that is, pure silver or gold powder in an organic matrix which can be fashioned and worked like real clay, fired in a kiln and the pure metal is left in exactly the shape of the clay. It's called one of the first real breakthroughs in metallurgy in over 200 years. Here is more on it. Mitsubishi and now Aida Chemical Industries provide the clay to America. Now anyone can make clunky ugly to exquisite jewelry pieces with absolutely no metal working skill. Cool. $6 for 3.5 oz. of the silver clay on E-Bay. I hear a whole new hobby's siren song.