back to normal-ish!

OK, so our house and home remained dry through this hurricane and flood, very lucky for us! I made applesauce, excellent recipe below, using apples from the tree in the neighbor's yard. I am gonna make more today, holy cats it is easy and stores well.

In other news, these pics show Penny down at our PO--our town is so small we have no home delivery, we all get boxes at the small PO ....but we are going to lose it, sadly. The postal clerk always puts a treat in my mailbox for Penny...we are sure gonna miss that.....

Take 3-4 pounds apples, about ten, and remove seeds and dice. Toss into large pot with a cup of water, zest of a lemon plus the juice from that lemon, many sprinkles cinnamon, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and start it boiling. When it boils, lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes stirring from time to time, pour mixture into blend and blenderize. Eat hot or cool and put into fridge and can even be frozen for up to a year!

flooding, hopefully, going down....

I think our flooding river peaked about 3pm, not a record, luckily...below you see me at the spot where the river is closest to our street, Main St, and another foot or 2 up and it would have flooded..but did not....ditto the back yard of Bruce's green house down there, he lives four doors down from us and the river came up to his back door.....and then a couple shots a bit down river including the Pinkney bridge--still above high water! We are VERY lucky in our town of Etna, but further downstream, like Binghamton, it sounds like the worst they have ever recorded on the Susquehanna....

eNORMOUS flooding!

This is a small 3 foot wide creek in our neighbor's yard--30 feet wide now---that creek feeds into the river below.

Below

in 2 diff. pics and angles, I am pointing at our backyard and how the river has come WAAAY up. Our house and yard are just behind those trees. Our house is high and dry. Fall Creek rose from yesterday, 1-2 feet deep, maybe 25 feet wide, to 7-10 feet deep and hundreds of feet wide---FLASH FLOOD.

Us at the bridge by our house, and below, a little downriver, super high water....

huge FLOOD!

Hurricane Lee has been messing with us, and dumping on us, and there are wicked floods all over central New York. We have a pretty little river behind our house, and suddenly it has come up several feet in depth and is over the usual banks and spreading. Our house is pretty high, and we are keeping our fingers crossed. It is worse for many people downriver from us, as the land is low and flat in spots further down...this pic from last night, gonna get more pics today....and don't we have some cute pots here too??????

**update later---the river is up to the edge of our yard, higher than ever before, but our house should remain dry....the sheriff has closed all the roads and ordered cars off the roads

****another update, at 11 am---we are personally still dry, the sun is out, the sheriff has re-opened roads :)

good things

(new pottery by Gary Rith)
Looking good eh? Kinda tinkering with these glaze color schemes--YES. Keepers! And you know I love the cow over the mooooon.....a favorite sculpture I like to make....I should make a 3 pigs one today too....

mega-kitchen MONDAY!

ALRIGHT, so, the pics all loaded backwards, OOPS. Welllllll, at the end of mega-kitchen Monday there was the spicy hot salsa....Joy of Joyful things shared her salsa recipe, and it includes the usual suspects, tomatoes (remember I told you we were at Amy's farmlet with Zippy the dog on Sunday, snagging tomatoes?) and garlic, hot peppers and lime and onion and is wicked tasty. I baked little quesadillas to go with that salsa--a little vegan cheese on a tortilla with seitan...and peanut butter chocolate cookies! The wife needs treats for the work week and it is my job to make sure she does not dry up and blow away...and actually, MOST of the day was spent:

making 22 jars of apple jam. You will remember we picked apples from the untended neighbor's tree on Saturday--suprisingly healthy and beautiful little apples, and we used ten pounds to make 2 batches apple spice jam. The longest part was chopping them, and we are too lazy to peel them. Basically, apple spice jam is apple pie in a jar, ready for your toast, and the house, these many hours later, still smells like apple pie :)
(when we were selling our house a few years ago? I would burn an apple pie smelling candle before customers came over, and believe me, the house smelled great and it sold quickly!)

not buttery colored, more buttercup colored....

You will be noticing a number of things here! As I said, I have been painting my display, and GOLLY it turned out a much more bright yellow than I thought I was buying...when you look at the crates above, I am sure you will admit that it is tres cheerful! Tres sunny!

In other yellow news, as you see here, we went to Amy's farmlet where the tomatoes and other things have TAKEN over. THOUSANDS of tomatoes...waiting for me....we brought Penny. Penny hates other dogs, but as you see here, she does not hate her "cousin" Zippy, another small dog who would kick ass if needed, but they like each other. Only the 2nd or 3rd dog Penny has ever liked, the rest she has tried to tear to pieces (well, she has barked anyway).

Lastly, you will see the small pigs above, salt and pepper shakers! The same design as a piggy bank, just small....and below a cute little pot....

I was gabbing while the wife was working

Across the street our neighbor has a massive apple tree with awesome apples. We went over and picked, as it turns out, nearly 15 pounds of them in about 3 minutes. It is easy to see how folks 100 years ago would have treasured an apple tree. Fill your root cellar with ten thousand apples from a good tree, and you have something tasty to eat all winter! In our case, we pulled a likely one off and ate it, no bugs! No worms! Good flavor. So, we picked a lot (no, I stood there with my camera gossiping with the neighbors while the wife picked), and then I made a yummy apple cake. We are going to make 2 batches of jam soon. **cake recipe follows


GARY's basic apple cake, not vegan but close

--grease small rectangular baking dish--the size that is about 8 x 11 inches and preheat oven to 350

--in large mixing bowl, melt 8 tbs margerine in the 'wave about 27 seconds then crack in 2 eggs and STIR!

--add 3/4 cup sugar, STIR! add one cup white flour and one cup whole wheat flour and one teaspoon baking soda and STIR. It is very thick

--presse dough into baking pan, top with 3 chopped apples pushed into the dough and top the whole thing with a mixture of 2 tbs sugar mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg, bake at 350 30 minutes :)

me, spokesman!

OK, do you know the life is good company, they make cute tee shirts and all? The asked me to fill out a survey after I got a shirt, and one question they asked was "who would make a good spokesman for us????" and I hit OTHER and filled in ME. I would make a great spokesman, as I said to them, because I love the cute, I love the colors, and I use that aesthetic every day as an artist, plus, of course, they have themes straight out of my life, like drinking a coffee with your dog. SO, I set out to photograph self with their HAPPY HOUR tee, (which I had gotten at a garage sale for 50 cents) Jake with his mug and dog, showing me and my mug and dogs. The funny part of it was, Penny and Buster both finished licking out the cup when I wasn't looking....

at the bottom of this series of pics I am wearing the San Diego tee Cheri gave me....I bought what was s'posed to be "light yellow" paint to paint my display. I wanted, you know, like butter color? Wow, what I got was a very bright yellow, to my mind, kinda ducky don't you think? The wife says it is eggy......




You might need a new piggy bowl or squirrel bowl or... :) Fresh stuff listed at my online etsy gallery, check it out!

go cute or don't go at all :)

Here you see some mugs I just finished: Helen tells me "my roomie took off....and took all the mugs too. Except one of yours with a bunny on it. I need something with frogs...turtles....and other reptiles or whatever, like a set of 4?"
and I am like
"frog, turtle, inchworm and snake???" and she is like "RIGHTO!"
Poor lady, down to her last mug, makes me feel like Superman, flying in for the rescue...with mugs....

under that
SO, like I keep saying, the quest for my personal holy grail = the CLP, or cute little pot. These 2 sugar bowls, not bad eh?

yo ho ho....

As some of you know, I decided that 2011 was the year of "more punk, more skulls!" back around New Year's, and golly, it has been a great year for that stuff. Teaset below, also a pretty blue pitcher-bowl set, because my only set like it sold last week, and the wife insists I always some like it around the studio....have an awesome day everybody!