Barbara's Critters get glazed

Whether these bisqued critters are chicken, fish, kitten or blue bird, this is how they look before glazing.

All the glaze work is done in Mayco's Stroke and Coat, which matures fine in our cone 6 glaze kilns.

What you've never seen a robin that fat?  How about the blue bird?

 At the same time, I get to walk by these lovely petals that sweep through the room smelling so wonderful.  (This was the rose that was supposed to be yellow)  

My work space is a bit of a clutter, eh?  My magnifying clip-on glasses are at the bottom on the bat next to cat.  I clip them on my close-up glasses and get another 1X magnification.  These old eyes need that.

More glazes will be applied at the BMCA studio tomorrow...like a nice blue for Mr. Fish, and white on the white areas that actually have no glaze at this time.

And now I finally get to tell you, this is posted as part of the Mud Colony meme...come over to see what other potters are doing these days!

a new friend visited

This was taken about 25 feet away.

Then he took off, probably close to 50 feet away here.

I followed the advice of my son, taking lots of shots so I could maybe get some that were focused.

My new friend took off after a few minutes,

Here he is in a tree across the street, now around 100 feet away.  Whow, a zoom lens sure is fun!  I've never been visited by a blue bird before, and am so thrilled.

Garden efforts

What a cool looking heirloom tomato blossom.  Unfortunately the only one so far, in the planter.   There are more tomato plants waiting to go in the ground.

I just worked 20 min. getting grass out of the bed where the plants will go.  I love the smell of earth, the hot sun on my back.  My hands aren't working right though, and cramp up easily.  I've got an appointment next week with a specialist.  Until then, baby steps.  Hope I can finish this bed today, but will just do what I can.

The bed is 1/3 finished and is only about 8 feet long and 3 feet deep.  I've got some top soil ready to work into it, and about 6 plants, some marigold seedlings next, and gladiola bulbs too.  I'm so wanting the garden.  Broccoli, cabbage, spinach, beets...peas, beans etc.  Flowers in the same bed of course, to make it pretty.  Oh zinnias will be planted there too!  What's that you say, a bit crowded?  I do hope so.

My quest for today is something to keep the rose buds from turning black and not opening.  Perhaps they got frost sometime when I didn't know it?  But both bushes (planted on opposite sides of the house) have had this happen.  Maybe I should blame the place I bought them from.

I'll wait for the next batch of buds.  I cut all these off hoping it won't lead to mold.

Will submit this beautiful iris to Macro Monday.  If I can find the meme.  I haven't used it for a few weeks.  I'll link to it here, so you can see some other beautiful things close up.

Wildlife and blossoms

My contribution to this week's Friday Fences #80 (click here to see others)

Right in the middle at the bottom is my wildlife I was watching, a carpenter or wood bee.  If he'd had stripes on his body, he would have been a bumble bee.

Here he is close-up, going for the nectar of some kind of berry, perhaps raspberry blossoms.  There are lots of thorns on the bushes.

The fence itself is rather mundane.  But the jungle of overgrown ornamentals on the other side just keeps trying to come through it.

Where does all that rain go?

I think I'm a sunshine worshiper, or is that a sun worshiper?  Nah, I no longer want to take my clothes off and bake in it (which several friend nudists do love to do.)

So the freezing Sat. mist for the Tailgate Market really put me off.  Then deluge started that night and lasted till Mon. morning.  I was gratefully ensconced inside all Sunday, doing genealogy stuff most of the day.  Needless to say, when I have no sales, and a physically challenging time at the Tailgate, I have little interest in creating in clay.  Wonder why.

Yesterday all the rains were pouring into the streets, gutters and creeks, but the sun came out.  So I got out to see the little creek that I like to visit nearby.

There's a lot of roar as water comes shooting down over rocks.  Notice it's still nice and clear at this point.  If you go downstream to the Swannanoa River or further to the French Broad in Asheville, it turns muddy.

Here's looking downstream from the little bridge.

As the water meets the bridge,

...and flowing so fast under it.  I actually stepped cautiously on the bridge, even though its supports are way up on the rocky banks.  It was thrumming from the sound, not the water hitting it in any way.

I hope there were not any hikers on the muddy trails today.

Mother nature sure has been sending some tests my way lately.  Cold and wet so far.  I am sure the hot and dry will come eventually.  Don't blame me, but I look forward to it.

My gardening adventures

When your front yard is a sweep of asphalt drive, you improvise to make a garden!  Left to right, tomato, basil, gardenia, catnip, chrysthaneum, and cilantro barely showing on right.

Kitchen garden outside the kitchen window, with aloe now in the ground.  Lettuce and spinnach are in pots as well as basil and rosemary.

More potted vegies, broccoli on left and beets next, lavendar then basil.  On bricks is another basil and a possibly rejuvinating purple shamrock.  In the great clay dirt are shoots of peppermint.  I may give them a dose of topsoil soon.  Do you think the potted vegies will make it, or should I put them into the ground?

It's finished blooming for the year, but the azalea is finally planted.

These are the sad looking buds that I left on one rose bush as it was transplanted.  They have been slowly opening over 3 weeks now. It's been cold and rainy for at least the last week.

white and red

Here's another small "blossom bowl" which nestles in it's slightly bigger one of the same design.

And a nice big casserole dish with a split rim detail.