My old Japanese style studio

Going back in time again, this time to the early 80's, is the exterior of my Japanese style studio.

Yesterday morning, when Jim was walking Bodhi a mink came up through a wooded section on to our driveway. He wasn' t sure what it was until I googled various images of the weasel family. Further research on minks showed that we have the ideal situation for them - a stream, woods with felled or dead trees for their home, and a plentiful food supply. Seems minks like vegetables, snakes, etc; but their favorite food is bunnies. I'm not sure whether I should be relieved since the bunnies have been devastating some of my veggies, or be depressed because there's one more critter who thinks that I've planted a victory garden just for them!

Yesterday was a strange day - one of those man plans, God laugh days. Just about everything planned, fell through, other than moving the treadle wheel out of the studio and sending it on it's way to it's new home to my friend Shane's studio.

My friend Jim, who was supposed to come early to get the wheel on to Shane's truck and get my pugmill set up etc, etc, called to say they were running an hour late. While waiting for them , I got the gallery cleaned and organized, since I was also expecting an Internet potter friend to visit. Then I went into the studio trimmed a pot that I let get too dry, and emptied a big container of slaked scrap clay and added it to the clay mixer.

Shane arrived, and he, Jim and I had a nice visit while we waited and after a while it became obvious that our friends Jim and Aaron were going to be more than an hour late, so I gave the wheel a shove as I was trying to wipe it down for Shane, and realized it wasn't as heavy as I thought, so I suggested that the three of us might be able to get it on Shane's truck; and we did it, very easily. Good we didn't wait, because we got another call from our friend Jim that he had an emergency at home - there were out of water! That's not good news when your water comes from your own well.

Driveway people were supposed to come to gives an estimate and some thoughts on an asphalt type drive, and they had some major car problem and couldn't come. When I went in the house for a break and checked my email, I found that my Internet friend wasn't going to be able to come.

Needless to say, the day I have planned around these appointments and visits had to be re-thought. By the time I got the gallery cleaned up, and after the delay waiting for Jim and Aaron, it was too hot to start digging and planting. So I decided to just pull some weeds, harvest some tomatoes, and then made a salad for our lunch. After lunch I took Bodhi for a walk around the perimeter of our property. So with basket in hand, hoping to find some blackberries (most were gone already), and see if I could find any mushrooms after the rain (found a few non edibles under the pines), off we went. I was hoping to make it down to our stream area which I thought would be a good mushroom searching spot; but with all the rain we've had this year, the undergrowth is so lush and high, I couldn't find a clear path to the stream.

I weeded a bit more after the walk and then started on dinner - pork chops au poivre with a cream and sherry reduction (so easy and delicious), oven roasted garlic, rosemary potatoes and spinach. We also finished the last of the peach crisp and peach ice cream. There's still one more good serving of the ice cream which we'll have over the weekend. Tonight it's seafood buffet.