Will Baker soda fired vase

Here's a lovely vase by Will Baker, one of the young, talented potters in our area. I love the simplicity and strength of the form as well as the heavy soda on the right side of the piece.

Today the house is full of workers- a couple of carpenters, an electrician and a painter and it's another non-studio day dealing with all this activity. I had to start dinner at 8:30 this morning since I have a doctors appointment early this afternoon and the lamb shanks I'm making for tonight's dinner take 3-4 hours to cook.

I'm sooo tired of having people around the house tearing things out, creating messes and a lot of noise; but at the same time we want these things done before our daughter and her husband visit next month. More than the dirt and noise it's the demands on my time that these projects are taking and the loss of studio time that I mind. One day this week we'll have to go out shopping for bathroom fixtures and probably tile since I'm not thrilled with the samples I got from Lowe's. It would have been a lot easier and probably cheaper to have bought a piece of land and built a new house rather than all this construction which have been ongoing for 5 years!

The Super Bowl was fun last night even though Jim's team didn't win. It was a nail biter in the last quarter. I'm actually getting a taste for football and not just the fun commercials! LOL

We got out in the garden for a couple of hours yesterday and I got all the roses except a couple of the climbers pruned and filled two huge garbage bags with dead plant material. It looks like a couple of the roses have bitten the dust, including one of my heirloom climbers, even though they were very well mulched. The climber looks like some critter just ate the whole root system! There's going to be another warmish, sunny day at the end of the week which will be an opportunity to continue the clean up. I'd like to get the garden really tidy before I start planting more perennials and potatoes, next month. I noticed that some of the perennials are peeking through already!

Time to stir the lamb shanks! All that wine, broth, garlic and herbs are wafting through the house like great perfume!

Till later,
June