August?

Not sure how that happened.  It feels like we were celebrating the Fourth with friends just last week

Here are a few of the new bunnies I have been making to wish all hares and rabbits!

 I have a very few day lilies that have not been scarfed up by the deer.  These are two of my favorites.  They have been sprinkled liberally with chili pepper dust.

I think this Oriental Alba is a surviver from the red beetle infestation of a few years ago.  It's tucked away next to the house.  It's probably a bulblet from the original plant.  The scent is wonderful.
 

And last, 'the littlest sunflower' or 'the little sunflower that could.'  It's growing next to a dead tree stump.  Obviously a bird feeder surviver!

Even though it was late getting started we are now enjoying summer.

Pottery, pool and popsicles!  That's the ticket!

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

Time Fugits

It's been a long time since I posted, but as they say........

 Time flies like and arrow; fruit flies like a banana (Groucho Marx)

This rather lonely cardinal has been hanging around lately.  I think he's a young male, looking for a lady friend.  It's nice to see birds around.  We didn't have many this winter.  I think it was because there was so little snow that they found plenty to eat in the woods.

We can hear the birds in the woods; it's mating season! 

Finally the weather has been warm enough to start opening the pond and pool.  This is what we call the Dribble Fountain.    The little frog sat on the water table for the better part of the day.  Everyone enjoys a warm, sunny spring day!

I bought pansies, delphinium and another columbine yesterday.  Today is cloudy with a little drizzle and mist, perfect for planting!

I've been busy in the studio making more whistles, but mostly cleaning.  There is a reason it's called Spring Cleaning.  Even after this mild winter we need a lot of it!

Enjoy your week end wherever you are.  Hope my down below friends are not too cold yet!

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*

Sunday Ceramics

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!

I must admit to having mixed feeling s about this day.  On the one hand I love the idea of the original day which promoted by Julia Ward Howe as a day of peace, against the carnage of the Civil War and the Crimea to be celebrated on June 2. ( Her idea never got off the ground.  The  day we celebrate nowwas promoted by  Anna Jervis, who was not happy with the resulting commercialization of the day. ) On the other, I hate what all retailers have done with what is supposed to be a day of honoring those who gave us life, which is to turn it into a guilt ridden day if you don't spend a lot of money on flowers, dinners and what-not!

So I acknowledge the day, but don't really celebrate it.  May all of you who disagree with me enjoy your day!

Doris Gravenhorst Caswell ca. 1939 -1940

The photo is of my mother, taken when she was about thirty years old.  How strange to think that she would be celebrating her one hundred and fifteenth birthday this coming December.

My first saved pot. 1965

 We have been talking about our first pots on one of the facebook sites I post on.  I'm sure I have posted this before, but I thought I would put it up again.  I say first saved, because I threw out everything I made for about four weeks.  I'm not in love with the glaze but it has sentimental value because it's an ash glaze of apple wood from my fireplace.  Don't ask anything about process because I have forgotten what was complete gibberish to me at the time.

Twenty years later I returned to pottery in ernest and wondered why I had ever stopped......life gets in the way I s'pose!

Violets

White Violets

Lance Leaf Violets'm

Finally we have spring.  The top two photos are the common violets that grow everywhere.  The bottom photo is of lance leaf violets.  They are tiny, about a third the size of other violets.  There's something very sweet about the way they grow in grass and pots.  Unfortunately the wind picked up as I started taking their photos.

I am going to link this over to Sunday Ceramics 17.  Hopefully others will post and see what is going on in the world of clay!

Enjoy the week ahead.  As always, thanks for stopping by........*s*

Presence of Mind

OR.........

Remember to cover the clay at night that you have been drying outside all day......or it may rain and you will have mud again.

Can you see the puddles in the clay?

I was asked for some mugs that are smaller than what I generally make.  They hold ten ounces.  These are the first ones I made when I was considering handles.....and believe me, I spend a lot of time thinking about handles.  The originals were too sharp on the edges.  They wouldn't actually cut the hand but the possibility was there.  Satanic mugs for Halloween! 

Due to our continuing warm weather we are finally getting morning glories and moon flowers beyond the one or two blooms we've had.  I love it when it stays warm enough for them to completely bloom out!

This was a particularly nice moon flower, starting to sag in the rain.  For some reason wilting moon flowers always make me thing of drooping ballerinas......Swan Lake perhaps?

Autumn is showing up even with the warm weather.  There has been enough rain for the swamp maples to show some wonderful color.  I love the way they look like watercolor washes.

Mist and rain today, gentle but definitely putting a damper on doing much outside today.  The colors really pop in the soft gray.

We have been watching The Hollow Crown on PBS, Great Performances. It's Richard II, Henry IV Parts One and Two, and HenryV, by the Bard of Avon himself.  Beautifully acted and filmed, it's well worth watching.

Have an enjoyable Sunday.  This post will also be over on Mud Colony.  Take a look at clay around the world.

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

And So It Goes.....

I actually remembered to take a few pictures while I was working on the ewer/pitcher!

The first one shows the tree in a light brown with dark brown to highlight.

 The next one shows the dark brown smudged into the light brown.  This is just the first step.  I keep adding and blurring until I have what I want.  One of the things I like about working this way is that what your see is what you get.  Some of the stains are not as strong, but once I learned how to compensate, I was fine.  Pinks and blues in particular can be a lot stronger than anyone would expect.

The preying mantis moulted.  From what I have read they like to do this upside down. The mantis in back is the empty husk.  She is now happily on another leaf of the dahlia, eating bugs.  We have started to think of her as a pet.

I have had one lonely morning glory bloom.  There are more buds, so, toes crossed, there will be many more.

My hibiscus has gone mad with blooms.  The pink and apricot become florescent at dawn and dusk.

 And last is the Angels Trumpet.  I just love the name and the variety of blooms.  I have finally found that these are datura as the flowers are upright.  Brugmansia has pendulous flowers.  I just wish I had the space to winter them over.

It's still humid with showers on the way.  There was a flash flood in Cranston yesterday and an apartment building had to be evacuated.  We are supposed to have lower humidity and real sun tomorrow.

Frederick Pohl, the last of the "inventors" of science fiction died at ninety-three. This was a man of many talents.  The Space Merchants still resonates.  Neil Gaiman has a remembrance of him on his blog.

Just heard that RI beach attendance was down this summer due to the weather.  Waddaya know people don't enjoy the sea shore in the rain and fog!

Kiln loading and so on today....enjoy yours.

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

Living In....

Wet Southern New England or......

A watched thing never dries....

We ended up with a sunny reasonably dry day yesterday so I put more clay out in the driveway to start drying.  I beat this batch into smoothness with the mixer that was originally meant for mixing joint compound and plaster smooth.  Unfortunately, I forgot to cover or bring it in last night, with the result that when I heard the rain start at 5:30 AM I sat up in bed and ran outside to cover it.  It has some rain pits but given time it will dry......she wrote hopefully.

Meanwhile I have been wedging the dried clay I have inside.  This afternoon Proge is going to rough wedge another 50 to75 pounds.  I finish it off in small amounts as I need it.  What I really like to do it prep my clay and whatever else I will be using the next day before I finish at the end of the day.

Just as watched clay never seems to dry, watched tomatoes never seem to ripen.  It feels like these guys have been green forever.  I may end up gathering my recipes for green tomatoes.

The cucumbers, however are in heaven!  This year I am growing them in pots on stands.  The one behind the tomato is a pickling variety.  I was going to get a picture of the cukes but the drizzle turned to rain.

We do have hostas and day lilies this year.  Last year the deer ate both. The hostas in particular looked like they had been mowed!  That was when Winter was still a fairly young pup and had not learned her job of keeping the deer out of the yard.  She is still quite shy but does a dynamite job of keeping the deer away.  We call her the little omega dog, as opposed to Breezy who was a total alpha female.

I'm still not ready to complain too much about the rain.  I remember recent summers when water was at a premium, forest fire danger was ever present, and we recycled almost every bit of gray water into the garden.  Tomorrow is supposed to be sunnier....toes crossed.  Today is a studio day.

Later we are taking Winter to the vet for shots.  She has been on antibiotics for a tick borne disease akin to Lyme. She has the Lyme prevention shots but this is one of the many Lyme-like diseases out in this part of the world.  We've had quite a go-round keeping the pills down. Sour cream seems to do the trick. The meds make it difficult to digest her regular food.  Cat kibble has worked; I mix it with chicken in broth.  We also bought some grain free kibble yesterday that she seems to be able to eat.  What we do for love!

This post will also be over on Mud Colony.  There's lots going on over there.  CLick the link and take a look at the world of clay.

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

Look What Happened

Spring finally happened, that's what!  

On Friday it started getting warmer so I was able to wedge some clay.  On Saturday I threw these little guys....I started with about two pounds of clay for each.  The white earth is a departure for me.  I use it for hand building, but I don't think I have thrown with it for at least five years.  But I had a dream about a bunch of little white teapots altered into various shapes and decorated with slips and underglazes while in soft leather stage.  Kristen Kieffer calls it suede, which I think is an apt description.  Then I saw Gary's ewers, and was looking at some little cruets that were my Nanu's.  So these little guys are going to be some sort of vessels with spouts and handles.  By early afternoon they'll be ready to play with.  We'll see, Grasshopper.......we'll see.

Lo and behold the daffodils have finally decided to bloom.  These are by the slab my house is built on which is the warmest part of the garden.  The others out in the yard are only up a few inches.  The bloom season gets stretched a bit this way.

The crocuses are going strong.  I don't know what happened to the snow drops.  I think little underground critters ate them.

I made a lasagna last night using the no-cook noodles for the first time, definitely an idea whose time has come.   I think these may be the best thing since sliced bread.  They are just as tasty as the regular noodles, but without having to dealing with wet noodles slipping and sliding around.  Not for nothing do we say as limp as a wet noodle!

Meanwhile Winter, Aloysius and KikiLaSois sleep through everything.....Except the smell of lasagna!

If you celebrate Easter may it be the most joyous of days.  

And happy spring days to all.

This post will also be over on Mud Colony.  There are lots of posts this week so click on the link and take a little tour of the world of pottery.

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

Back to Basics?

This is my old Amaco treadle wheel which was given to me in 1990 by my college art department.  Somebody had left it there many years before.  They had no use for it; I sure did.  I threw on it for years until I had surgery and had to switch to my electric wheel full time.

I had no difficulty in adjusting to the treadle as I was used to using a treadle sewing machine when I did leather work.  I had this in my old house in a corner directly under a skylight.  It was a gambrel with four skylights and a wide window across the south end.  I still miss working in that incredible natural light.  But then I think, if it were at all possible, I would live in a greenhouse!

I brought it out from it's storage tarp on Wednesday when we had no idea when the power would be restored.  I'm going to finish cleaning it up and bring it inside.  I think I will use it for trimming.  With a riser on it, it also makes a great banding wheel.

DID YOU SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK?

 Daylight savings ended last night.  Most of my time pieces automatically reset.  I have one or two battery clocks that I have to set, but that's it.

This was the sunrise.  The colors were actually far more intense, but I have yet to learn how to capture that in a photo.
 

i still have flowers blooming happily away in the garden.  This petunia is budded and ready to bloom.  I may dig it up and winter it over.  There's something so enjoyable about having them in bloom in January.  Yes, spring will come.

Give a cat a bag and he will come.  Aloysius thinks they are fine for all manner of things.  This morning I emptied a kibble bag into the bin and put the (big) bag on the floor for a little play-time.  Aloysius and Kiki were in the bag with Winter trying to join them.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of that one!

I'd like to thank everyone again for all your kind thoughts and wishes during and after Sandy.  We are pretty much back to normal, but there are many people in other places who are still hurting.  Several areas are going to be at least another week, maybe more, without power.

This post can also be found over at Mud Colony.  Go check it out.  There's always something interesting going on there.

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

GHOSTS!

There's something about the ghostly look that my animal whistles have after I've glazed them but before  I have started the decorating.  They have a blank look with only the large gesture being apparent.  I find that this frees me to design as I wish without becoming a slave to the original image.

They change so much after I have done with decorating sometimes it's hard to realize that they are the same work.  This challenge is another part of what I love about majolica.

Yesterday was so humid that I spent the whole day waiting for the glaze to dry.  For me it is better to let the glaze dry slowly.  If I put object under a heat lamp I often get uneven drying.  It's most disconcerting to be working on a hard surface and then suddenly find it's not.

Everything has dried very nicely, so I get to spend studio time today.  I don't think it's going to rain until much later so I will also put some reprocessed clay out to dry a bit.  It's such a sloppy process that I like to do it outside.  I'm going to prepare for the winter winds this year and get ahead in my clay.

In spite of everything, I managed to stay busy.  Proge and I spent the morning readjusting the pond filter and pump.  He was the one wading around in thigh deep water, but I still managed to get soaked.  If you are going to have water features in your garden you have got to enjoy messing about in water.

I made buns so we could have hamburgers.  The bread is from the other half of the recipe.  It's just my plain old Cuban bread, but the loaf is so handsome that I have to show it off a little.  The recipe is quick and easy so I have been trying herb additions.  Rosemary & Dill is especially tasty.

I am a fool for love (of plants).  Our pond guy is selling most of his plants at 25% off.  I bought three day lilies.  This peachy pink is my favorite today.  I also got a small rosy pink and a deep purple and gold.

Of course I need more plants!  I like to keep adding them until winter (the season) stops me.

And lastly here is Winter, totally mystified by how she got herself into this tangle.  Most of the time she gets herself out of twists and turns, but she needed some help with this one.

After a day of hot-stickies we had a heavy thunder storm yesterday evening which dumped almost an inch of rain in about half an hour.  No complaints here!  It dropped the humidity and added water to pool, pond, and well.

This post can be seen at  Mud Colony and Artists In Blogland.  Everyone should drop by and see what is going on; there are lots of new people to discover, plus old friends.

Did anyone watch the opening of the Olympics?  I was absolutely thrilled when Sir Paul led Hey Jude ...and opened with...."And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." 

Have a bountiful, happy weekend, and, as always, thanks for stopping by..........*s*

Vinca, Violets...........and a Pig!

The seasons have gone a little crazy this fall.  Vinca and violets are early spring flowers.  It's strange to walk around the yard and see them blooming at this time of year.  The little marigold grew from seed in a dead flower head.  I'll probably take it up and winter it inside, along with some petunias....summer does not have to end with summer.

We had a young buck in the woods on the north side of the house yesterday.  His antlers are his first.  He's not terribly shy, rather cautious.  He probably grew up in the woods behind the house. I almost managed a picture of him, but he spooked when the sun reflected off my glasses.

Mamas leave their babies in our woods because they seemed to have figured out that the dog would protect them.  Breezy had an overhead run of about 200 ft. The babies knew how close they could get without being in any danger.  Imagine a fawn nibbling tree shoots and Breezy woofing and completely puzzled.

vinca

violet

sport marigold