Throwing Pots and Playing in the Dirt

I haven't mentioned that I'm taking a pottery class: Intro to Wheel. So far I've thrown three reasonably good items: what's going to become a small herb-growing pot, a small pitcher and..what was the last one? I think it's going to be one of those straight-up-and-down Japanese tea mugs. Because *no one* needs another vase. Or mug. (I have a zillion of each)

I haven't done pottery since a community-school class I took while I was still married for the first time which means...twenty years ago or more? (Yes, I'm that old). And I thoroughly enjoy this. I decided to focus on the wheel because I've never been able to throw a decent pot--and the first night we got to do our own, I did a pretty good one! (the flowerpot). This teacher is excellent. I'll even get to try out some of our local dirt-clay! Heaven knows I dug up enough this spring.

I also want to take advantage of my free "open ceramics studio" time and make...a maki-roll platter like the ones they have in Japanese restaurants. I remember enough about slab-clay building to make one. Ken and I discussed texturing the bottom and I'm going to take his suggestion of using cheesecloth. I'll probably glaze it in cobalt blue, like most of the rest of our bowls and dishes, and our good glasses.

Garden Update

* My beans have beans!! I discovered that Monday evening. Now some of them look almost ready to eat
* The biggest tomato is about golf-ball-sized and mostly bright red. I might be able to make one serving of no-cook tomato sauce some time this week!
* Cucumbers are growing like crazy. I need poles!
* There's one section on the side yard where nothing will grow, not even the English ivy that loves to take over even amidst the super-hardy ground cover. I may just strew it with mulch and give up.
* BUGS have been eating the leaves of my beans, basil and some other plants. I decided to use a recipe I found for organic all-purpose bug spray: finely chopped garlic and onions or chives (I used chives since I have tons growing here) that you let sit for a week. Ken says it should just be called "repellant" because he can't stand it. I sprayed it this evening. If it doesn't work, at least I've pre-seasoned the beans...

Independence Day!

And what do Quakers do on July 4? We had a Meeting for Learning (that's Quaker for "Adult Religious Education") on the peace testimony.

Then, time for a nap. I came downstairs to find Ken watching 1776, probably my favorite movie for 4th of July (how can you resist a musical about the writing of the Declaration of Independence, with lots of jokes from Ben Franklin?). We skipped the end, leaving the Continental Congress wrangling over the wording of the Declaration, to have dinner at...Hana, our favorite Japanese restaurant.

Then we came home to Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney. What a great celebration of old Broadway and musical theatre in the pre-Rodgers and Hammerstein days.

All really very American, enjoying freedom of religion, food of a former enemy turned ally, and songs of so many great things about our country.

"The land I love, the home of the free and the brave."

So many people worked and still work to keep it so: those men of the first continental congress, Abigail Adams exhorting her husband to "Remember the Ladies" (a hope that didn't come to fruition until decades of suffragists endured beatings, prison and forced feeding to bring half the country the vote), and others struggling for equal rights from Sojourner Truth up to my friends working for marriage equality. Each of us does our part to help this country truly provide liberty and justice for all.