Fishy Friday

Here  are two small prototype fish I have been working on.

Both will be glazed and single fired.  The white one on the left has it's base coat on.  The terra cotta one is still drying.  To single fire the pieces must be absolute dry before glazing. 

These are the beginning of an idea I have for larger fish whistles.  Single firing gives me results in one step.

I just realized it's the long weekend so we will be off to do errands, hopefully, before things become too crazed.

Celebrate and remember those who fought so  hard and gave so much for our country.

As always, thanks for stopping by............*s*

Sometimes

You just gotta paint a fish!

I have been gathering up the fish, turtles and mermaids that I put in various parts of the garden, fish pond,, and pool.  I found this lonely little guy with his white base coat, but nothing else.  Soooooo, he has been getting some bling.

It just started raining here.  The upside is that it really does in the remnants of caterpillar infestations from the last two summers.  We may actually be able to use the pool for more than a few weeks in August-Sptember.

Toes crossed that all who have been experiencing torrential rains and flooding are safe and dry.

As always, thanks for stopping by...........*s*

Sign of Spring!

• Sun and clouds with temps in the sixties.  What a treat!
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• I took my first real morning morning walk around the yard, looking at what needs to be done. And I raked the leaves off the crocus bed.  The daffodils are up enough so that I will use the leaf blower to get the dead stuff away from the house.
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• I found this little viola blooming in one of the pots I didn't empty last fall.  Their hardiness is always a surprise!
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The fish are swimming sluggishly  The water is still pretty cold..  Proge left the small pump in last fall to provide a bit of circulation.  It appears to have helped.  We don't usually take the net off until the trees are leafy and some of the water plants are covering a bit of the surface.  Otherwise we have visits from Hawk, Owl, and Heron, to say nothing of raccoon and fishercat!

Warm weather this early can be chancy.  The wild blueberries are apt to bloom then freeze if we get down to more normal temps.  We'll see, grasshopper....we'll see.....

Toes crossed that all are enjoying weather throughout the world.

As always, thanks for stopping by......*s*

Weather.....or Not!

Yesterday it was cloudy and warm.  The fish were swimming happily in the pond.

Today we woke up to this!

Needless to say we are staying inside and going nowhere.  Even the mail will have to wait.

If a tantrum would do any good I would have one.  Alas, such is not the case!

  I am sure there will be people who will not listen; please don't be one of them!  Stay inside and don't drive!

Have a terrific week end, and as always, thanks for stopping by..............*s*

Busy Days; Busy Potter

I have finally been putting my fish out around the pond.  I sort of forgot about them, but now they are here and happy.  This blue guy is the first large one I made.  He started as a demo for a class I was giving and grew.

I enjoy making these, so when I have more clay I will indulge myself and make more!

Which leads to an oh fer duh! moment.  I was all set to start making stuff when I discovered that no I did not have 100 lbs. of clay ready to go, but a lot of clay waiting to be recycled.

The photo below is a small portion of what I have been doing.  I like to get all my clay for the year ready during the summer so I can do it outside, thus avoiding at least one potential studio mess.  I beat it to a slurry with my glaze mixer and put it out to dry on screens.  This came inside as a rescue when it started raining.  Good thing I did too as we had over two inches of heavy rain.

More recycle today!

I did find a bit of my low fire white so started a couple of three-legged mugs.  I want them to look a little more tilted and funkier than they do.  A paddle will beat them into submission!

We were cutting down a lot of sassafras sprouts that have been invading since last year.  In the process I found my old garden rattles That I made in a workshop with Elsbeth Woody in Port Chester,  NY around 1987.

They are some of the last thing I did in high fire clay.  It was Elsbeth's clay body fired to about ^8 with a red iron oxide wash.  They have beads of clay in them so they rattle quite nicely when pushed around.

I never followed through but I always had an image of some sort of lawn game with undertones of croquet and bocce.

And last, two little frogs that are out by the pond.  We have quite a few of them this year.  I'm not sure why; some years we only have one or two.  There are at least two bullfrogs among them who enjoy announcing they are present in the middle of the night.

The person who extolled the silence of nature obviously never lived there!

Enjoy what is fast becoming a late summer!  Where did it go?

As always, thanks for stopping by........*s*

Spring? Really?

Mother Nature woke up last Friday and appears to have banished Grandfather Frosty!  

We are enjoying sunny days.  It may go up to seventy today!  We are so ready for this.  The ground is still pretty solid so no real digging yet, but a lot of raking is in order.

The crocuses bloomed on Friday, but yesterday, on my birthday, one daffodil bloomed.  I feel like I was given a most special gift

The fish are up from the bottom and swimming around.  They come over to where we are standing, expecting to be fed.  We did lose five fish this year.  We think it was a combination of old age and the ice and snow being too thick so that no light or oxygen got through.  We still have about two dozen plus some babies.  I swear they have all grown, although I don't see how they could.  We're going to but in a small heat ring next winter to keep a small area open.

We will keep the net on until the trees leaf out a bit.  We took it off too early last year and almost became a feeding area for hawks and animals!

Lastly, this is the mug I bought at the NCECA Cup Sale.  I know nothing about the maker, but I think the yellow is a cheerful color.  It's also pleasant to drink from!
 

Here's to a sunny week, with perhaps a little rain!

As always, thanks for stopping by..........*s*

Spring may Finally Be Here

Mind you, I am not saying it is spring, but KikiLaSois has taken to sitting on the plant shelves, something she only does when it gets warm.  Who knows why.

The photo below is Kiki lounging in one of my bird baths/serving dishes.  I took it last year.  This is a cat that loves sitting in my bowls.  If I don't cover them I can be sure of finding a cat in it.

Nothing, however, will match the day I walked into my old studio and found my five Siamese cats each sitting in a freshly trimmed bowl in a row on a table by the window.

Lots of daffodils are in bloom,but this little guy showed up by the pond this year.  I have no idea where it came from but it sure is cute!

We've been seeing lots of frog eggs in in the pond.  This big guy just showed up today

Sadly we seem to be missing our biggest white fish, Moby.  We are hoping she is hiding in the weeds, as mating season is starting  The males chase the females to the point of harassment.  They hide in weeds and roots to rest.

I haven't been doing a lot with clay as I have been trying to get my studio into a semblance of working order.  There's something about a clean studio that just calls to me.

Enjoy the week end and, as always, thanks for stopping by...........*s*

OOPS!

I just realized that I never connected this to Sunday Ceramics 14.  Go ever and take a look at the potters who meet up at Kim's.

Studio work has mostly been limited to cleaning and straightening my studio and chasing cats out of bowls.  This is a daily occurrence.  Part of the cleaning is making some covers for the front of my shelves.   It always amazes me how junk accumulates over the winter.

Enjoy the week ahead and again, thanks for stopping by..........*s*

Sunday Ceramics

It has finally warmed up enough to be able to work in my studio for more that thirty minutes at a time.  When I was up in New Hampshire in January, it was long enough without heat for the cement slab to cool way down!  Needless to say winter has gone for entirely too long.

I have a bunch of small clocks that I've been making.  I just barely sketched in the numbers; obviously they need better placement.  The flower design is waxed so I could do the background without smearing the colors.  I always enjoy getting back to painting and decorating.  After all, it is the reason why I work in majolica.

We actually have crocuses (crocusi?) in bloom!  A month late but finally here.  Hooray!

Proge put in the pond filter a couple of days ago, after five inches of rain in a day and a half!  Below is a rather blurry picture of one of the fish babies.  We've counted six so far.  They're just about the size of the photo.

This will be posted on Sunday Ceramics 13.  I'll also put a link up on Mud Colony on Facebook.

Have a great week ahead and as always....thanks for stopping by........*s*

Fooling Around

A few weeks ago I threw a bunch of small cruet/ tiny teapot forms to alter and in general mess with.  So far this is the only survivor.  It's not by any means done.....I want to add more slip on the other side and incorporate the slip with the handle, lid and spout. 

 I think I will return to hand building the next bunch.  When I work with slabs I don't have to wait for the clay to set up enough to begin altering the form.  The piece becomes one gesture that way.

 I did another slow rise bread experiment.  This time I let the initial mix bubble and proof for thirty-six hours.  I also added about two-thirds of a cup of whole milk greek yogurt which helped the process and gives it a nice flavor.  After I added the rest of the flour I folded and kneaded with the aid of my bench scraper (Yes, I do keep one for the kitchen and one for the studio.) for about ten minutes.  I then let it rise and folded it down in the rising bowl another four times and let it spend about eighteen hours (overnight +++) in the refrigerator.  I folded one more time, let it rise wrapped in a cornmealed napkin and baked it in a preheated cast iron dutch oven.  This time we managed to let it sit for a good six hours before slicing.

I think it's one of my better efforts.  In the meantime we had cuban bread calzones and a loaf to tide us over.

I took this pictures last night.  I love the way fish look when they are swimming in the dark.....like they are flying through the night.

I also put up a new set of shelves.  They are stable and will work fine for my storage which is fairly light weight.  I would not use them for the canned foods and equipment that is pictured on the carton.

What state do I live in?  CONFUSION!  I just realized that it's Sunday not Saturday, so I'm going to rush over to Mud Colony to post this.  You should take a look too.

Enjoy the day and as always, thanks for stopping by...........*s*

Cake and......

A Tomato.

We picked this big beauty last night for a BLT supper.  Home grown tomato, locally cured bacon and farm stand lettuce on beer bread.  The ordinary elevated to the extraordinary by choice of ingredients.

The sandwiches were delicious!

Plum Cake......it came from the Food 52 site.  Unfortunately the site is not connecting today.  Fortunately I printed the recipe.  So without further  ado.....

PLUM CAKE

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Prep nine by two inch round cake pan.  Butter pan, cut parchment paper to fit bottom of pan and butter. Dust with flour.

Measure and sift together in small bowl:
1&1/2 Cup flour
1 Tsp. baking powder
1/4 Tsp. baking soda

Beat together until light and fluffy:
1/2 Cup soft butter
2/3 Cup granulated sugar

Beat in one at a time:
2 Large eggs
3/4 Cup sour cream (I used whole milk Greek yogurt)
1/2 Tsp. Finely grated lemon zest

Beat in flour mix at low speed (I did this by hand)

12 small plums
2 Tblsp. Brown sugar

Cut plums in half and pit.

Spread half the batter in the pan.  Sprinkle with 1 tblsp. brown sugar.  Place 12 halves, cut side down on batter.  Dollop and spread remaining batter.  Arrange remaining plum halve cut side up.  Sprinkle with remaining sugar.  (Depending on size and variety of plums you may need fewer than 12.  I used eight.  The recipe originally called for prune plums, but any variety will work.)

Bake 50 - 55 minutes, turning pan halfway through baking time.  Inserted toothpick should be clean.

Let cool 20 minutes.  Invert onto plate, then invert again onto serving plate.

Serve with sweetened whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or plain.

This recipe can be found on Food 52-Your Best Plum Recipes.

(As I mentioned before the link is not working, but this is a site worth visiting.)

Later edit:  The link is working.  There's a nice how-to pictorial there Plum Cake.

And finally.....KikiLaSois looking disgusted at Winter's antics.

And more fish, which all the kitties would probably enjoy 'meeting.'  Thankfully they are all indoor cats!

 Enjoy what  looks to be a beautiful day.

As always, thanks for stopping by..............*s*

Happy Birthday.......

Mr. President!  Nothing political here, just a simple wish for a happy day and one more dance round the sun!

Another fish.  I think the mouth needs more work, but I'll probably leave it. I'm happy with the eye spots.  I read somewhere that it's thought that they are to intimidate larger fish.  This one's a rattle rather than a whistle.


Also Percy Bysshe Shelley's birthday....died just before his thirtieth birthday.

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy.  Not because I care about their mood, but because I know they're just sitting there, thinking up ways to get even."

Percy Bysshe Shelley........1792-1822

Aloysius has taken to sleeping on the top of the plant shelves.

It's about time you got rid of those stupid plants!

Enjoy the day and as always, thanks for stopping by...........*s*