Potatoes!!!

  Here is my tater harvest this year.This is just a part of the whole harvest as I dug some early ones up already.

Nothing too terribly exciting going on. I am working as a temp for an online retailer. It's ok, at least it's a paycheck for now.

The Bf has been busy with his hobbies. So far he's got some home brewed hard apple cider that should eb ready for Thanksgiving. Plus he's made a bronze melting furnace from scratch. Not sure what he's going to be doing with that.
Today we went to the Seattle Art Museum. They had an exhibition of some of Michaelangelo's sketches for the Sistine Chapel. I had known of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but had never seen all of it.
They had a few panoramic pictures of it.
I was very interested to see that along with the Theotokos, Jesus and various other saints and people falling into hell there was one saint who appeared to be holding something familiar to me in his hands.

After closer inspection I saw he was holding wool combs, just like mine at home. So a little research led me to this Wikipedia article..

Saint Blaise (Armenian: Սուրբ Բարսեղ, Sourb Barsegh; Greek: Άγιος Βλάσιος, Agios Vlasios) was a physician, and bishop of Sebastea, Armenia (modern Sivas, Turkey). According to his Acta Sanctorum, he was martyred by being beaten, attacked with iron carding combs, and beheaded. He is known as San Biagio in Italy, and San Blas in Spain.




In iconography, Blaise is often shown with the instruments of his martyrdom, iron combs. He blessed throats and effected many miracles, according to his hagiography. The similarity of these instruments of torture to wool combs led to his adoption as the patron saint of wool combers in particular, and the wool trade in general. He may also be depicted with crossed candles. Such crossed candles are used for the blessing of throats on the feast day of Blaise, which falls on 3 February, the day after Candlemas on the Roman Catholic calendar of saints. Blaise is traditionally believed to intercede in cases of throat illnesses, especially for fish-bones stuck in the throat.[1]



Indeed, the first reference we have to him is in manuscripts of the medical writings of Aëtius Amidenus, a court physician of the very end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century; there his aid is invoked in treating objects stuck in the throat. He cured animals and lived in a cave. Before being killed, he spoke to a wolf and told it to release a pig it was harming. The wolf did so. Saint Blaise was going to be starved but the owner of the pig secretly gave him food in order to survive. After a while, he was tortured because of what he believed in but did not give up faith. He died in the year 316.


Wow, to be tortured with wool combs is pretty darn harsh!!!

Yep, those are basically nails with handles..so if you happen to get a fishbone stuck in your throat while your combing your fleece...St Blaise is for you