thanks to YOGI...

I was babysitting Yogi Friday, my neighbor's fuzzy dog, and he was helping with a bunch of projects..again!  You will recall he helped last week with raspberry oat bars. Well, Friday? He was back, helping with a pile of important projects.  You might wonder, in theory, how a HUGE golden doodle puppy could help with anything, but he is WILLING and able....
first we made blueberry oat bars, which I shared with Yogi's family and my guests Friday evening:  um, excuse me, I have made the raspberry version for years but the BLUEBERRY....! WOW.  Better!
Mmmm...click here for its recipe, and I used a smaller pan than it asks for, so they were a little thicker...



In other news, I opened the kiln Friday and there was stuff I was giving to US!  You will see how this all works out in a second.  But first, the cute yellow tile?  We have had zillions of bunnies all summer and I wanted to make mugs with little bunnies all around the base...and I did.  But I always try to use a test tile to paint a design before getting onto the actual pots...PLUS I was mixing yellow glaze and it looked WEIRD.  As in, the new bag of talc was grey, and made the yellow glaze mix LOOK grey....since when is talc anything but white?  So I tested it...and obviously and thankfully, grey talc fires the same as white, NOT ruining my yellow glaze mix :)  I also gave us a pitcher, which I put flowers in for guests to see last night (pic below)
But all these TILES???? Keep reading....


We have a wonderful picket fence.  We live on Main St, and the dump trucks, buses, 18 wheelers, Harleys, hot rods, redneck pickups and sportscars all consider the 35 MPH speed limit a serving suggestion...to be ignored.  SO, when we bought the house 7 years ago we had a wonderful and pretty picket fence put in, painted blue-grey last fall.  BUT, the fence posts are just cut off, as you see Yogi peeing on one here.  Water is getting into those fence post tops and creating some rot on some of them.
I have considered my best courses of action for years:  copper tops?  Wooden tops?  OR I devise I clever tile to affix to the top of each?
My 4 x 4 tile maker happens to be JUST bigger than each fence post, and I figured if I made a bit of a side and put in a screw hole....... WELL, guess what?  I WAS RIGHT!  Clever idea huh?  The wife knew nothing about this...she and guests came home Friday to a party in our back yard and....YES! Big surprise!  The tiles vary, and 2 have frogs....I miscounted and there are 12 fence posts.  I made the 12th yesterday thinking "this one can be EXTRA FANCY" and I will show it to you when fired next week...
(before-Yogi pees on a naked fence post, while Penny pees)


First tile!

Looking down from our back porch at our personal Stonehendge...and several newly topped fence posts... I considered what color the wife might like, and decided on my blue-grey glaze which is nearly identical to the fence paint, because I knew the wife would like that WITH the green accents, right? For a little tint of variety...and frogs....


Finally, I was drawing the dog sleeping....here she is with the cat...have a great Saturday!