Tuesday, Apr. 24, 2012 - 5:40 a.m.

Yesterday, inspired by my recent visit to the Desert Museum, where I was assured that cacti of all sorts have loads of fibrous tissue in them, I finally got around to messing with the cactus I had cut up a couple of months ago. It had sat in a vat of water for...however log it was, and then the water evaporated. It was, in a word, nasty. But I re-soaked it, drained and rinsed a little, and covered with water and added my soda ash and was all set to cook it up, but the gas canister didn't work. Foiled again.

Maybe today.

I still harbor my little fantasy of making wildly successful handmade-paper jewelry that's all local and stuff and traveling soemwhere different every summer to collect what's there and make paper jewelry out of it. I think it's a grand idea. I can't believe I'm stuck on the finding plant material part of the thing. I posted another plea for trimmings to the gardenweb AZ forum, and no response. Again. What kind of gardener a) doesn't have trimmings and b) wouldn't give them to someone wanting to make paper? That would be so cool! 'Any of them' appears to be the answer.

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