Let it rain, rain, rain ...

Meg and I went to a "new collection preview" at Diana Seidel's house last June ... invited by dint of my having signed an e-mail list at the Gruene Clay Festival the previous fall. While there, I found a "Fins and Buttons" vase for my dad's upcoming birthday (of course, it had flowers in it and was the only piece without a price sticker ... but hey, it was the one I liked best, so I asked if I could buy it ... the answer was "yes"). I also spotted a Melanie Fain etching of a kingfisher, and congratulated myself on recognizing her work.  
  
As we left Diana Seidel's, I noticed rain chains hanging from the eaves on either side of the front door ... links of copper designed to channel the rain into a rocky bed below. "Too cool," I thought. So I started looking. Come to find out, they're pretty pricey. And besides, I rationalized, who wants a rain chain that looks like everyone else's rain chain?  
   
You probably won't be surprised that I decided to make my own rain chain. Like so many of our recent creative efforts, this one began at the By the Bridge antique store in Wimberley, where YD spotted an old copper funnel.  "A perfect rain spout," in his estimation. Then I went on Pinterest to see what else was out there. A search on "rain chain" yielded a fair number of hits, including the one above. Inspired, I started to eye the silverware that was passed on to us from Papa's mother, Cora. But I came up empty when I searched "silverware rain chain" and "flatware rain chain."   
  
I was undeterred, but likewise, I wasn't rash. YD and I did due diligence, checking the value of the silver plate in the old wooden silver chest, sorting out the best of the silverware to keep, then making a separate stack of duplicate forks and spoons. "Are you sure about this?" I asked with pliers in hand. "Go for it," was YD's response. 
  
More reading and video viewing on the Internet ensued, where I learned that bending silver plate is considerably harder than bending sterling silver. Undaunted, I started to bend spoon handles and twirl fork tines. And it is, indeed, hard to bend silver plate ... although it's remarkably easy to break it when you bend too far too fast. Nonetheless, I made slow progress and a couple of feet of serviceable rain chain began to take shape.  
  
The next challenge was hanging the nascent chain and the copper funnel. A previous owner of the house conveniently left Christmas light hooks in the eaves, so I had a place from which to launch. After banging a couple of holes into either side of the  funnel, I threaded a crab pick through the end and hung a bent fork handle over it ... then alternated spoon, fork, spoon, fork to the truncated end of the chain.   

  
And waited ... and waited ... and waited for the rain. Because there was no way I was going to take a picture of water from a hose running off the roof on a sunny day.  I wanted the real deal ... real rain. And not just any rain, mind you ... I wanted rain I could see ... while at home ... not at work. It was a long wait ... but today, the rain finally came.