Chickens and cats and birds

The critters are finished

Now what do I do with them?  Have them hanging around the living room or studio for ages?  I hope not.
So far I'm taking them to tailgate market tomorrow morning. After that...who knows.

But first, I really love the glaze changes on this plate.  It is hard to sponge glaze and get that pebbled texture.  Why doesn't anyone else like that?

Since I've heard others complain that blogger/internet is limiting posts, making things disappear...I'll post the cats, chickens and birds tomorrow!

Some thoughts

I've been busy, but not with pottery lately.  This is a kind of checking in, reporting on my last week.

Financials...the new tires are great, but the credit/debit card machine mistakes gave me 4 pending purchases even though I finally wrote a check...and the pending purchases tied up all my funds for 6 days.  None of them were actual purchases, as I had the $0.00 receipts to show it.  Anyway, I took some cash out of savings and changed my purchasing habits entirely.

Health...this has been the week to try to fix things with specialists.  Got a tooth pulled yesterday because (see financials) couldn't afford the possible cost of root canal and another crown.  I used to have some dental insurance...but don't any more now that I'm retired.  That's why I had so much dental work done when I did have it.

Hands have been really getting worse, so Tues was the hand specialist.  He put me on a week's worth of steriods for "trigger finger" which might help with the sudden cramping when I'm working with tools.  It has gotten so bad that I can't write with a pen very well either.  But the symptoms are sudden cramping sideways between two fingers, not just a the straightening of the finger, which is the symptom of trigger finger.  I do hope this works,and go back in 3 weeks to be re-checked.

Blood pressure  (maybe) when bending down has kept me from doing much gardening.  I can sit on the ground and work about 20 min (the last time I did at least) but getting back up I'm so out of breath and light headed (and I pull myself up slowly along the fence)...so I've got an EKG test scheduled in a week or so.  The doc that saw me about this wasn't my regular one, but he said my meds are working and my BP looks good.

Other happenings...I was elected to our church Board of Trustees.  I've been their secretary for the last 6 months, and we shall see if that job continues.  I hate that there's political stuff going on, which is evident when things are brought up that make little sense but seem to be planned to solve unspoken issues...and you either know what they are or you have to guess.  I'm not in the know about these things usually, and prefer to remain thus.  I can always abstain from any voting.

I've been passionately doing something this last week however.  For me to switch from visual passions is interesting.  I'm transcribing my ancestor's old letters, posting the final results slowly on Ancestry.com.  I haven't finished but stop every once in a while to research something or another.  They lived in East Texas just before and after the Civil War.  Places they named on their letters no longer exist, so I'm not sure where exactly they were.  Even the one soldier wrote from his camp and told of his regiment, which was supposedly going to be disbanded, so I don't know where he even finally served and died.

I wake up in the morning thinking of how the men and women met and married, because often that is the fact that shows in Ancestry...people from Massachusetts were all over the place in East Texas and marrying.  And their grandchildren met and married many years later too.  I wonder if they knew each other all along, or perhaps had tea and said "My grandfather was from Newburyport" and the other would say "so was mine!"

The air is fresh and cool this morning, and I'm about to hang some clothes out on the line.  It was thunder and rain off and on all day yesterday, so I had to turn off the computer to protect it from power surge possibilities several times.

Last week the Mudbuddies didn't go to the Tailgate Market because of the rain.  So I hope we have good sales, and a good time this week.

I work as volunteer today at the BMCA clay studio.  Wonder what I'll do since I'm forbidden to work with fingers for another week.  Maybe take pictures.  My critters are all fired, and I've got them in the car waiting to take their pictures.  Ah, then I can share the pics with you!

Muffin gave me a great whalloping barf this morning after breakfast.  I cleaned it up, then took the dry food out of the wet, and let her nibble on that.  She only barfs when she eats dry food I think.  Painter, the other cat, loves dry food though.  But will Muffin refrain?  Nah.  No sense in that little brain of hers!

So that's all that's new in Lake Wobegone of Black Mountain, NC, where (as Garrison Keeler says,) the men are good looking, and the children are above average...or something like that.

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.