And she walked right in the door

Spring is here, she came as we were driving the back roads from our house to our son's house this past week. She came as a warm breeze, and a vision of purples. pinks, whites and yellows.
She came as if there had never been such as winter as we had this past year. She came as if to say to us, here I am, I was always here.
Did you think that winter would never leave?
Yes, we did.
I know that some of you still have winter, but we are taking in a fantastic and welcome spring.

After a week of being away to hold babies we are home and back at work.
We are basking in the warmth of the sun, I hope you are as well.
 

Going public

And making people.

The kittens are out of the bag.
My son and his wife are making people.
Twins, due this spring.
We are thrilled.

Meredith

Pretty Maids all in a row

 You just can not beat this cool spring weather.

 It is not often that we get to actually enjoy the coolness of spring. Last year was one of those years that danced us right over to the higher temperatures of "early" summer.
In fact by July we were hitting 3 digits.

Part of what I did this weekend was to walk around the farm taking in what was blooming.
I picked these pitchers right out of the spring garden, they were ripe and ready.

 Then I wandered over to check on the Iris to see if they had finally started to bloom.
I have dug up some of these and moved them closer to the house.
I am sure that those will not bloom this year since they will need to establish their roots first.
I find that Iris just take my breathe away with their color.
Pretty girls...

 I have been waiting for the peonies to open. I was checking them everyday and finally one day a bloom.
Then the next day 4 opened, then 4 more opened and then another 4 opened.  I had a dozen open in less than 24 hours.
I have them all over the house in small vases. They smell so good you would think we had been invaded by a perfume company.
 If you have never smelled one you must find one to put your nose in, they are amazing. 

I was also trying out the other camera that we own.
There are times that I think I should be able to figre out how to use it.
It is more complicated than my little point and shoot number.
I just went all over the farm taking pictures on Sunday.
Then when I loaded them up on the computer to look at them I spent the better part of an hour deleting all but about 6.
They were really bad.

It seems there are many things for me to learn about that camera. My little one is much more forgiving.

We have a bisque on to preheat today, pitchers; like the ones up top, are being made, tiles are being rolled, I want some fresh strawberries, clay needs to be picked up and there are many odds and ends to be done.





And, today is our son's birthday
Happy Birthday!
XXOO!

Joel and my Dad at Christmas...

Pots: out on the town

The other night I had a message from our son.
Hey, does Dad have work in 1705 Prime?
 I thought about that, we did have work in a restaurant that opened in downtown Raleigh but I thought it had closed.
Turns out it closed and reopened under a new name and format.
After dinner with his lovely wife he asked the bartender to get down and turn over the pot.
Mark Heywood, Whynot Pottery.
Yep, it was one of his Dad's pots along with two more.
He got a real kick seeing the work there and I got a real kick out of finding out they were still there.
One of them, a large egg shaped vase in our iron red with wood ash on top, was one of those pots we tried to keep.
 I took it to the house right out of the kiln.
 Then one day my sister Lee calls and says that she and Tony are working in a place in downtown Raleigh doing all the faux finishing, the bathrooms were gorgeous, and the decorator was tossing out some thoughts and she suggested they fill the places with pottery from Seagrove and to be sure to use some from Whynot Pottery.
( she was my sister, she was looking out for us.)
They came out and bought some really great work from a number of the potters, one of them being us.
We went when it first opened and had dinner there and enjoyed seeing the pots and my sister's handiwork.

Here is a quick shot Joel took with his phone.
You can see the iron red and another vase Mark made that sits back in the bar.
We just might have to find our  way there on one of our trips to Raleigh.

Cheers!
M