It's been a crazy few months - heavy work cycle leading up to the December studio tour, post tour cleanup and then getting ready for Christmas. Right after recuperating from a month long virus in December (fortunately it hit me late Christmas day),in middle January I was getting ready to get back to work in the studio when a sad little dog showed up at our door step late one night. After a couple of weeks trying to find his owners, we realized that the universe had given us this sad, frightened, traumatized little terrier. If that wasn't enough for the little guy, our other dog decided that he was going to try to get rid of him by being downright nasty. Needless to stay, my hopes of getting back to work were put on the burner while I got this new member of our family, who we named Bodhi, acclimated to our household. I tried to take him into the studio; but the studio cat Shino,immediately determined he was an enemy interloper and started attacking him.
Since my husband is allergic to this homeless cat who adopted us last summer, we had no choice but to take the new family member back into the house and let the cat maintain reign over his domain (the studio) until they got to know each other better. That also meant that I had to stay close by until everyone got used to him and he got used to his new surroundings and new house mates.
It's obvious the little guy had been abused and even the presence of a fly swatter sent him into uncontrollable trembling. Now after a few months, he's settling in beautifully, even willing to fight back a little with his nemesis, our Lhasa Apso Shanti tries to bully him; but most times Bodhi makes every effort to avoid conflict and remains his sweet gentle, self.
The vet, after a series of tests, shots and thorough examination, said he was healthy and determined his ago to be about 1 1/2 to 2 years. So it looks like we can enjoy many more years with this little guy and the vet can take a nice week end getaway on our fee!
Since I couldn't get in any studio time, I got started early on my seed starting and now I'm up to my ears in vegetable and perennial plants which are taking a lot of my time and a lot of house space.
We had an unusually warm March to the point that trees and shrubs were blooming too early and then the deep freeze arrived. I managed to save a lot during that first freeze, covering pots with old boxes, quilts, remay - whatever I could get my hands on, but we lost a lot of this years crop from our fruit trees, some of which were totally denuded by the cold and we also lost some roses and perennials which I'm now in the process of replacing.
We were fooled into thinking that the unusual cold spell was over and we uncovered the plants several days later to find that we had saved a lot of them; but then a few days after that another hard freeze was forecast. I took a deep breath, ran up stairs to grab am armload of quilts hoping to at least cover some of the more tender things. Well, I was in such a rush, that I missed the last step to the landing, went flying and wound up with a severe ankle sprain. And the only saving grace was that the hard freeze didn't happen.
So, after a week on crutches, and sitting with my foot elevated and surrounded with ice packs, I'm now able to hobble a little, which is an improvement from the step, drag the injured foot,I was doing last week. I called it my "The Mummy" walk imitation; but I still can't get into the studio to stand and wedge. All I've managed to do it grab some clay and make a lot of cone packs! So I'm back to gardening which I can do sitting down and I'm getting a lot done. I'll try to take some garden pictures this summer and post them here.
I've given up all hope of making and firing pots for the spring tour; but the garden is filling up fast with all this planting. It also gave me time to do what was necessary to get the kitchen remodel finished (the last of the granite backsplashes will be done Monday).
I also had plenty of time to design our new bedroom wing. This accident was a big wake up call; and we decided that at our ages, a first floor master is definitely the way to go; and it's also just in time for our ten year old Lhasa who is now finding it frightening to go down the steps lately.
I got one of those EZCube setups right before the accident and I'm eager to try it, so as soon as I can I'll try it out and take some pictures of a few more pots from the last firing. In the meantime I'll keep planting until this foot heals and I can get back to the studio.