An at home day

It's been an "at home" day - morning chores in the garden, email, snail mail and cooking.
There's some fresh baked nutty fruity bread for tomorrows breakfast, and a ratatouille type sauce with veggies and herbs from the garden, which is going over linguini for tonight's dinner. A friend is coming who is on a no fat, vegan diet, so I managed to make a rather tasty salad dressing using orange juice, apple cider vinegar, garlic, ginger, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.

There's been no time for the studio the past several days due to family time at our sons place, grand child baby sitting and other chores around here. Half of one day was spent in search of the right Japanese maple tree!

For some reason the previous owners planted a crab apple right next to the driveway and after cleaning those apples off the driveway for the past week, Jim emphatically stated "that tree has to go"! So we found a decent sized, Japanese maple replacement which will hopefully be happy in that sunny spot after it settles in a year or two. There were a couple of the same species at one of the nurseries that looked great even though four of the five nurseries didn't recommend it for a sunny area. We were cautioned though, to keep it well watered if it's going to be in a southern exposure, which seems to be the secret, so we will definitely make sure it's never thirsty!

The tile people have now promised to be here Tuesday or Wednesday (they were supposed to be here last week), so we're going to make tomorrow a half a play day and drive up to the lake district with our friend Sybil, for lunch. Sybil is home alone this week due a  family health issue which has taken her husband out of town, and due to a recent health issue herself, she can no longer drive. So we're all going to play hooky for half a day.

I should have plenty of studio time the rest of the week now that the family has gone back to LA for a few days. They'll be back for labor day weekend, so I'll have to make it a point to get a lot of studio time before then. 

Under the Christmas tree farm scene

Jim spent a few hour yesterday setting up the farm and village scenes under the tree. Most of these are from my childhood, with a few new and vintage additions over the years. These go very well with my overly decorated, Victorian looking Christmas tree.

Started another nutty fruity sourdough early this morning and it should be finished it's first rise in half hour or less. I'll be back in the studio right after breakfast, then running back and forth to the house, dealing with the bread, as needed.

I met yesterday's goal of dipping and marking 28 new test tiles. That makes a total of 64 tiles now finished. There are two batched which I need to dip this morning and more glazes and slips to weigh out later today. Glazes are not a challenge for cone 6 reduction, but flashing slips are, so I've tweaked some common flashing slips, upping the Neph Sy in some, doing the same in others but adding some borax and/or soda ash.

We had a lovely steak dinner at the Knife and Fork last night, and brought half of it home, so we have leftovers tonight which means I get a full studio day. Life is so very good!