Missing Willow Farm

I made Jack a bed for his kennel stuffed with some of the fleece from his beloved sheep.  He immediately tore into it and has been demolishing it a little at a time.   He makes me laugh.  Every.  Day.

I’ve been playing with the terrazzo glass sampler I purchased a few weeks back.  I made a few test vehicles (ancient engineering term) of pottery to try them out with.  I learned that some glass chips hold their color better than others at the temperature we fire at.  The little square dishes are ring holders.  I didn’t use nearly enough glass in them but can refire with a little more.  It seems the darker colors show the raised designs the best.  The birdbath dish is just something silly I made.  What I learned is this one also needs more glass (which I can fix with a refire) and since it’s a pinch pot, the surface is uneven.  I’ll try adding glass to a wheel thrown pot soon.  The last little dish was slab built and is my favorite.  It’s like a tiny town at the side of a lake.  Fun stuff!

Our peach trees are starting to bud.  Fragrant blossoms should follow soon.  Then the peaches will come and the deer will eat them.   *sigh*

We spent the weekend supporting a friend at the Charleston Wine and Food Festival.  The whole lamb on the spit was served as sliders on Friday at 11PM (we got back to our hotel really late).   Saturday night we served lamb ribs and kabobs cooked on a cowboy cauldron in the courtyard of the most amazing residence for a charity event.   One of those cauldrons lives in our backyard now.  We need to figure out the best spot for it… and chop some wood.

Our 2014 lambs are thick as thieves I tell ya!

The local empty bowl project luncheon was held last weekend.  Every single donated bowl (we provided 25% of them) was purchased, all the soup was eaten, 3X the expected funds were raised, we did pottery demos and took the name of 24 people interested in beginner classes.  A good day for sure!

Well… not the raccoon in the live trap.  We think it was a fox who let the raccoon dig under the side of our chicken barn, get trapped, then shoved the entire thing aside to come in and kill three of our chickens.   Brian has spent three days this week securing the barn.  It is currently buttoned up so tight a squirrel couldn’t even get in and the entire barn is wrapped in wire fence.  We’ve seen both a coyote and fox nearby in the past few weeks.  The trap is set up outside.  I hope we catch it soon.

I just received this lovely sampler of terrazzo glass chips and can’t wait to play with them.  The first thing I’ll do is fire bits of them in the glaze test vessels I’ve been making over the past few days.  After I find some combinations I like, it’s time to get creative in the pottery studio.

SO cute!  We’re up to 7 now.  They hang together like a tiny fluffy bouncy gang.

Beatrice had better get her nose out of FiFi’s dog bowl.  Period.