Salad Nicoise

Here's the salad Nicoise I made for dinner last night. It's a great summer, main dish,  meal. I picked the yellow wax beans and tomatoes from the garden and got the potatoes, beans and eggs  cooked earlier in the day.  Before serving I poured my garlic, honey, ginger vinaigrette dressing all over. It looked like we'd have leftovers, but there wasn't a speck of food left when we finished!

I managed enough studio time to press out the other version of the stamps I made the day before, and dug out a badly settled celadon based blue liner glaze that I'll be straining this morning.  First I have to unload the bisque kiln and get my regular celadon liner mixed and sieve both glazes. I think mixing and straining settled glazes is probably my least favorite studio job.

The plan is to finish glazing and decorating today or by tomorrow morning and then get the pots delivered to the Energy Exchange for the maiden firing on the 15th of the new wood fired pallet kiln that Mark Peters recently built for them.

Time to water some of the potted plants and head to the studio.

More new flowers

Here's a new peony that opened yesterday and another one of the clematis in bloom. We have at least 6 clematis, maybe 7. I've lost count!

Lakers won last night - what a nail biter! Even though we were both exhausted, we stayed up till almost midnight to see the finish. Fortunately Bodhi let us sleep in.

Studio time came to a halt when Karen needed my input with the weeding and I wound up working with her for a few hours. We got enough weeding done for her to apply 15 bags of mulch. I did get enough studio time to get the temmoku and yellow salt glazes mixed and sieved and glazed some pots. Today I'll mix the Oribe and continue decorating.

They've changed the 3 day weather forecast and no rain is expected till Saturday, so hopefully Karen will be able to finish up the weeding and mulching and maybe even get some things planted for me. Sunday is the next planting/transplanting day according to the Farmers Almanac so if there are some clear skies in between the scattered thunderstorms that are predicted, I might be able to get some things planted. It's mostly small stuff that needs planting now and that should go very fast once I get started.

I didn't start any bread last night, since I had enough leftover from the cheese fondue; and I'll make garlic bread with that for tonight's gumbo.

Till later,
June

Variegated Weigelia blooming

Here's a shot of the variegated weigelia in bloom. This is it's third year and it's coming along nicely. I just love the contrast of the variegated leaves against the delicate pink flowers.

I got the second bisque fired yesterday. It was a little worrisome when the thunder started; but fortunately we got through without a power outage.

It was too hot in the studio with the kiln on, so Karin and I did a bit of weeding before the thunder reminded me that it wasn't a good idea to be out there with a metal weeding tools in our hands during a thunder storm.

We had our Friday porch sitting with our good friends Jim and Laura and after we finished off 3 bottles of wine, I'm a bit foggy this morning.

Jim will be going to Walmart after breakfast for more mulch. Karen will be back to continue weeding and mulching and I'll be in the studio glazing. We still have all the planting beds in the front of the house to weed and mulch but the flower beds in front of my studio are done and all the vegetable terraces are done.

I picked a few more strawberries this morning when I took Bodhi for his morning walk. I didn't check the flower beds, other than a quick peek out the kitchen window; and it looks like the first peony is opening. Maybe I'll get a better look later.