Last Week

 Did a craft fair on the weekend. Wasn't bad as far as sales. Saw lots of people I hadn't seen in years. Fun social event, some networking and a day out.

 Playing around with low fire clay and glazes. Lots of colour!! The customers like it more than I do.

 More of my student Violet's tiles using traditional designs. These are for sale $25 each mounted in a hangable beautiful alderwood frame.

 Helped two kids make these volcano bases today. I'll fire them then they can turn them into their science fair projects.

 This is why I am not getting any 'work' done. Spending all day out there planting/transplanting. Have to get up a couple times to put wood in the fire during the night but no biggie. Worth all the lost sleep. I'll have a couple of thousand plants in here before long.

First flowers on the hanging basket tomatoes. Usually about 6 weeks from the first flowers to the first red fruit. With all the sun we get you can see the plants growing from one day to the next.

Shibori!

Not so sure I like the 'new' Blogger. For an older technically challenged person like myself it ain't fun! Tomorrow I go back to making pottery. Just having a fun interlude trying all the Shibori dyeing techniques. I have a couple of silk painting with salt that aren't steamed yet. Very excited about them!
Making pots for a wood firing that should have already happened.....
Today we ate our first tomatoes!! Good old greenhouse. It was worth getting up at 4 am for a month to stoke the stove. Too bad the weather has stopped cooperating. About 6 degrees Celsius colder than normal. Hasn't seemed to stop the bears from waking up!!!

First Sunrise of 2011

These photos were taken around 9;30 am on January 1, 2011. Yes, the days are starting to get a bit longer. 97 seconds today! We have had a Chinook, so good bye to the -35 etc. At least for a little while. I am sure we will see their return sometime this month. Meanwhile we are enjoying the sunshine and warm weather.
Happy New Year and all the best to my customers, faithful readers and friends.

Reminder of Summer Past.....

After all the cold weather and the whinning I've done about it I thought that a couple of reminders of summer past would be nice. They are the two sides of my deck. I spend as much time here as possible, eating meals, taking my work out to do and just sitting out here with friends. The table is on the right as you come out of the house, all the dahlias on the left. That silver thing is the tarp over our radial arm saw. It is still there because this is the only level place where we can get enough power to run it properly. Hopefully it goes to the BIG shop when complete. Yippie, more space to put plants!

Right now I am getting ready to start seeds, proof the begonia tubers and just generally plan the garden and flowers for this summer. At least I have faith it will happen. Makes me warm just looking at these pictures. In past years when we've had a cold winter the summer tends to be warmer than usual. Sure hope it happens this year! As it was -45c again this morning.......