apple sauce! the computer kind....

I am fiddling here with an enormous, to me, mac laptop. I don't know how to do stuff on it, but most seems easy---but how do you get, for example, properties of a photo? That is what I usually do, post pics in an album at facebook then copy the properties onto blogger. The http address is there, but that does not seem to be the full properties. ANYWAY, I am lovin' the mac! Big and quick!

Me and the wife biked on the Cayuga lakefront again Sunday--next year the trail will supoosedly be many miles longer, which is amazing, as it already many miles long and AWESOME. The ducks and geese are mighty friendly....

dig this teapot below. I liked the first so much I quickly made its brother.....yes, the zebra head sits atop a column, why the heck not?

I need a formalish portrait and head shot. I am rebellious. I am a scruffy bohemian. This is ME.

We went down to the farmer's market, where, as you will recall, I am in a big ART FAIR Friday, and saw our pal Christi with her fantastic drawings and paintings....
We also saw my old pal Jolene down at the farmer's market, so smart, so creative and friendly! She is a woodworker and sculptor, check her out!

chill.....

(small tile by Gary Rith)
I wanted this one for myself. Glued a pair of magnets to it, got it onto the fridge.
I was talking to the wife 3 weeks ago "I need to chill. If I drew it, what would the _____ say to the ____?" and the wife was like "Yah mon". SO! We get "Chill" and te response is an amusing "Yah mon". And I like to use cold weather animals for it, generally....

This is how the other convo went, a week or 2 ago:

Me pointing at computer screen "wife, look at this cute tee. It has a polar bear drawn on it!" and she is like
"cute bear, but its an orange tee. I don't wear orange!" and I was like
"But I am inspired by this polar bear. You need it because I want to draw something a little like it." and she is like
"NOT in orange" and a day or 2 of sketching goes by and I am able to do my own rather awesome polar bear without the wife's help in wearing an orange polar bear tee. The secret to drawing a polar bear, I find, is to think of them as a teardrop shape on its side!
We were over at Amy and Dave's abundant little farm the other day, picking broccoli (SUBLIME! I love broccoli and theirs is beautiful) and squash and tomatos and hot peppers. We grilled some of the squash and tomatos Saturday...with potatos....holy CATS you had no idea squash could be so tasty...

burning up.....

Not burn me down (warning: excellent heavy metal but not to everyone's taste).











(new pottery by Gary Rith)
Sure, you see the kiln on here, headed up to 2200 degrees on a nearly 100 degree day. The studio is a seperate but attached part of the house, and I tried to get my work done before it got hot in there (NO AC) and then I mixed glaze, as you see, in the pleasant basement, and then the wife comes home, we have the excellENT picnic (GO ANDERSON VALLEY beers with the horned bear cans!) and finally, watched that great movie LA STORY with Steve Martin...back in the basement (the basement is scary and full of spiders and dirt but soooo cooool).

**I should note: Jen yesterday commented, logically, that maybe I should not fire the kiln for a few days. I have a massive artist market in Ithaca Friday afternoon and need to make and fire the pots and then sell them. You cannot tell the baker he can't bake the buns because it is too hot! He has to earn money!

96+ degrees in the shade, real hot in the shade...actually 100

(new pottery by Gary Rith)




(love that song from Third World, 96 degrees in the shade)
I have never had an air conditioner. Wait, the summer I moved to Chicago in 1988 I had one. It was also the hottest on record up until then, most days over 90, most days over 100. I remember it was late Ocotber before it was NOT scary hot. Of course, future summers in Chicago were hotter....
anyway, people come to Ithaca in summer because it is so pleasant. A little too hot to be pleasant now, and no AC in the house. The lady on the radio said it was 100 yesterday, and our temps here showed the same. The river behind the house blows wonderful breezes all day long, thankfully, because the kiln is on today---headed to 2200 degrees, the studio will be wicked hot, 120 plus. I think me and the wife will hide in our basement and watch movies tonight...
You may need yellow mugs, beagle mugs, who knows? Get it NOW at my etsy gallery.

MORE raspberries and rabbits :) moremoremore!

(new pottery by Gary Rith-I wanted to make this huge teapot below, with the 2 bunnies on top, and as you see, on one side, bunny has his ballons, on the other side, bunny is losing balloons--which I think makes a cool decorative and humorous touch)



Early yesterday, before our un-cooled house warmed up to 98.6, I baked. Pizza for dinner later, also a favorite: raspberry bars from a PETA recipe. I have the recipe below-----I make them a little differently from the original. If you want the original, click the PETA link. I would not bother though, my version is superb :) Its funny, you are out there at a coffee shop or cafe and you spy a vegan treat and buy it and it is super tasty and.....it is a version of this recipe! Famous. My lazy self does not see why you couldn't use blueberries or chopped apples when it is not raspberry picking season OR EVEN just apple sauce!



gary's version, raspberry oat bar dessert

3/4 cup fresh raspberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup unbleached flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square pan.
• In a bowl with a knife, purée the raspberries.
• Take the raspberry purée, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes and remove from the heat. Stir and cool.
• Combine the sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, and rolled oats. Using a pastry blender or your hands, incorporate the margerine to form a crumbly mixture.
• Press 2 cups of the dry mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Top with the raspberry mixture, leaving a quarter-inch edge. Press the remaining dry mixture on top.
• Bake for 33 to 35 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow to cool before cutting into bars.

http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/recipes/pages/recipes/raspberry-oatmeal-bars.aspx

days of raspberries and rabbits.....

(new pottery with bunnies by Gary Rith----video of me making a bunny cup here)
You will recall that we picked beaucoup berries Monday night...raspberries! Fresh picked raspberries have a super short shelf life---you eat them hand over fist, but they are quickly ripening too, so you bake bake bake. yesterday I made raspberry torte, and holy cats, I bet every woman (and some men???) on earth wants to marry me now, for my torte! My raspberry torte is the tastiest gals, but I am taken.

You will also recall that last winter I invented the RATINI, the raspberry martini. Me and the wife mixed some of those last night, of course, the gestalt being: iced vodka and raspberries married together in cold wedded bliss....

Finally, yours truly is on a bunny kick these days, here are some of the latest out of the kiln, bunnies aplenty!

my name is Gary and I am a fruitaholic

I took the wife to Grisamore farms last night when she got out of work. Nearby and utterly beautiful. If you come to visit me in the growing season, we could go there and stop at the caboose in Groton for ice cream too. You would believe I live in a magical place.

The upshot is this: all winter long I am buying these tiny little packages of raspberries for like 5 bucks each. And you count them onto your breakfast oatmeal: "OK, I can have 6 today, 6 tomorrow then they are gone. Plus 3 in a ratini (my famous raspberry martini as you will recall). SO it is heaven to have a million raspberries all around you! They should have weighed me before and after, like the buckets, so they could charge me for eating berries!

WELL, the berries are growing all around upstate NY, and that is especially true up at Grisamore. The bank clock said it was 90 degrees. It must be VERY difficult being a farmer, 90 degrees late in the evening? What does noontime feel like? We had a blast though, and there were awesome breezes and shade, perfect evening.

The farm has this whole beautiful hilltop, corn, cherries, apples, berries, animals, etc.


The head of the county democratic party.


Mrs Farmer told us these goats are very mischievous. I bet!



Mrs Farmer told us that this is a very very friendly sheep. The wife might get jealous. Poor thing is HOT wearing its wool sweater in 90 degrees.




Lastly, these guys stripped nekkid and were gettin' DOWN on the berries. I know, there is something Garden of Edenish where you DO want to strip nekkid with your sweetie and roll around in raspberries, they smell so good. I did not pick any berries near this lewd and rude couple.....

beagle bagel!

Penny beagle rolled up into a tight little beagle bagel ball behind my bottom.






Before you ask, the answer is "everybody in my family went to Yale except ME and all I got was this lousy tee shirt for 50 cents at a garage sale" and I outta put that on there with a sharpie, because if one more person asks what college I was in at Yale I am gonna say "HUFFLEPUFF"--and let's talk about the pottery I am showcasing here instead, OK?
The joke around the house when the beagle curls up in a little circle is "BEAGLE BAGEL!". So, I drew a beagle bagel onto these plates I made for US and then the wife took embarrassing pics of me...

beaucoup biking

We were down at Stewart park Sunday, the gorgeous Cayuga Lakefront. We had the dog with us last time, which is apparently not allowed, as the police threatened tickets to a lady with a dog. We talked to her and she said she has ignored the police for 20 years! The birds come and go as they please....We biked down to the Ithaca Farmer's Market and saw Nance. In a week and a half I am doing artist market there, so I looked at my future booth--you could come down the afternoon of Friday July 29 and buy art!