every day should be...

Forget Christmas as your favorite day or even your birthday (unless it happens to be as perfect as Monday).  EVERY DAY should be like Ithaca yesterday:  82 and sunny, a little breeze, no humidity OH BOY!  And the wife was home too!  And our neighbor had a garage sale…where EVERYTHING WAS FREE (we didn't bring home too much useless crap) and I only saw the Godzilla snake once, and we made burritos for the 7th day in a row (I was practicing making a new brown rice tortilla recipe I like, this sucker is YUMMY). So, a perfect day, they should all be sweet like that.

AND HERE is a new trio of jars just out of the kiln, I am rather proud of them :)

a day around the house with a BADASS snake...

Well, I didn't spend the WHOLE day with the snake.  Actually, I kept my distance, until I needed to poke around in the garage and took a broom to encourage him to eat mice and bugs somewhere else for awhile.  As I told the wife "you THINK it is your garage, but we just pass through a couple times a week.  The snake is there all there time…he KNOWS it is his garage…".  Harmless.  But still.  Big.  With friends and relations, as one of these pictures shows….

Some of my potted flower seedlings looked a little anemic out there in front of the house so I bought some potted flowers.  Then we got an enormous and damaging thunderstorm…funny how it works--many seedlings stand up tall and strong and some are DEAD.  The natural world can be a tough place….

polar bears and poppies...

The wife is not crazy about orange, but because I like big and bright poppies, she grows some for me!  And check out her columbine…..what a little sweetie.

I was dreaming last night that a polar bear came into our house (it is in the 90s here, we have no airco, and the dog likes to sleep at my side..you do the math…). In the dream it was cold and snowy, and he was curious about our living room.  He was very cuddly at first, but rough, like one big friendly swipe of the paw could take off your head, so we needed to trick him OUT of the house….

anyway, all that and some new pots too!

the hail Mary pass in gardening...

I am just awful with plants.  They either thrive or they don't, getting very little help from me.  I have not the patience for it, therefore avoiding gardening, except my YEARLY HAIL MARY pass with the tomato seeds…and sunflowers, basil and cosmos.  Those guys do OK with me.  (well, the tomato plants always start OK then die a horrible death…it is true! I write about it every August…)

I think these tomato plants have a good chance.  The neighbors have these badass cherry tomato plants that come up every year and tomato blight, a big problem here, never touches them…and it has been years since they planted those things!  The plants are so tough and fecund they seed themselves and grow beautifully.  OBVIOUSLY it was worth trying to save some of those seeds, and so far this year they look pretty good.  I also saved a few seeds from an heirloom plant I had last year that wasn't 100 percent killed by blight…maybe it will produce a few….
as for the flowers, it got to be a big mess and I ended up tossing half the seedlings into a mass burial…I mean, I dug a trench, planted and watered them and told them I had done my best (which isn't much). Everybody got some stinky plant food which the dog always tries to eat, some water, then in the evening we had the nicest little rainfall, which may just help them on their way….

porridge with peanut butter and applesauce….

Feast your eyes on these new mugs while I tell you of the dream I just had:  I was feasting on the HUGEST omelette.  With cheese over toast.  You might think that is ordinary enough, but I am a super picky eater as you know, and thanks to various allergies and sensitivities and medicine that can make me nauseous, an omellette makes me sick to even think of…SO, I got up and had the usual breakfast of buckwheat porridge with a little peanut butter and applesauce in there…. mmmm :) My dreams, hmm?

ANYWAY, this blue mug shows that I can get the blue flower patterning on another glaze color, which has me THRILLED …have a good weekend!

ginger jars and Jessica Rabbit...

The wife tells me things about what I make "I love that ginger jar!" and "those pots look like Jessica Rabbit!" (the curvy silhouette, ya know?).

I just make what I think looks good….

the field trip...

Remember how you loved school outings and field trips, esp. when the weather was perfect?
I went to the Cornell Museum Tuesday to refresh the batteries for a little while. I was there with the wife Saturday and found a new exhibition space which is in the basement and holds storage items--so on the top floor are some fabulous ceramic pieces, but in the basement is a clutter of HOLY CATS items, all crowded together, my favorite:  Korean celadons!  Many other things too, like glass, and OH, this stunning little Japanese garden, all hiding down in the basement of an otherwise crowded museum…there is currently a Rembrandt print exhibit, featuring these lions, too…

my favorites:  a dragon handled cup, covered jar, those melon shaped ewers and the tiny little faceted bowl…

quick timeout for some CUTEness

Little Soupy the corgi is my neighbor's dog and she comes over to play with Penny sometimes.  A small beagle playing with a corgi that looks like her lower, shaggier, ears-up twin is probably the cutest thing you will EVER see :)

a beautiful world

I was just reading something that made my blood both boil and run cold.  At times it is wiser to get outside and:

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”

― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

Shortchanging readers: falling down on the job?!

This week I have let you down! I take photos of everything, right?  But I have been so pottery obsessed I have forgotten to get pics of everything else, because I KNOW you are dying to see my every last boring task….

For example--a wrecked bike was left out front of our place a month or 2 ago…the sheriff was called, came over, and when asked if we could keep it if the owner didn't call said we could just keep it in the garage and they would call if an owner surfaced.  An owner did NOT surface, and the "wreck" turned out to be an ugly duckling--I replaced the tires, tubes and seat, tuned up the brakes a bit, washed it, washed it AGAIN and holy CATS the bike is awesome.  I could see under the grime and mess that the chain, shifters, frame, etc (the bones and mechanism of the bike) were all in great shape, and it is a Trek, so I figured it was worth the work (and money for new tires, etc).  So, for very little cash and a very satisfying reclaim effort, the bike is nearly new and MINE! I should have gotten before, during and after photos, WHAT WAS I THINKING????????

And then yesterday we took it out for a long spin (one reason this bike is welcome is that the wife REALLY likes my bike, the previous one, so the new one keeps us all happy) and went to the museum at Cornell.  HOLY CATS after we looked at the Rembrandts (yes, Rembrandts--special print show) we were wandering the basement a little and found the most extraordinary collection of juicy, sumptuous, delicious Korean celadon pots I had never seen there before….they have quite a few on the 5th floor, which I know, but now display more in the basement, and HO BOY that is my FAVORITE type of pot (see above) and you know I am making my own versions of them (see below)…but where was the camera???????????? Then walking out we passed the wonderful Japanese garden in full bloom and WHERE WAS THE GAWDAMN CAMERA?

I gotta get back into the game :  Have a great day!

Bowlies!

You have seen me use this amusing graphic before, hilarious! You know I pull it out when I have a lot of bowls to show you….

Yesterday was my dad's 82nd birthday and they came over for cupcakes out in the sunshine…because OH YES we had some warm sun!  My dad is mighty healthy indeed….so where are the pictures?  Am I falling down on the job, I always photograph everything!  Must improve :)
Have a great Saturday!