Feet

 I have been looking at my feet a lot as I am walking. Why? Because I feel that I need to see where I am stepping.
When you look down you can see that there is another world that is going on just under our feet.

The hole on the right is a rabbit nest. Mom dug a hole that she could squeeze into and had two babies.
Yesterday Mom and the babies hid very quietly outside the nest while Mark fired the kiln.
You could just barley see them tucked up next to the kiln shed being very still, not moving an inch until he finished firing.

On the trail I saw this log covered with fresh mushrooms. I took a class with one of my friends on mushrooms back in the fall, but I will have to look these up, or have Laurie tell me what they are.
I do love the colors.

 Speaking of walking, as we walk down the driveway there are some very friendly cows that come running to greet us. You might think how wonderful it is to be greeted by the cows, but really, they are just looking for a hand out. They are saying, do you have any hay, we would love some hay, why are you walking past us?
Don't make eye contact keep moving.

On the pottery front.
Gas kiln fired yesterday, unloading tomorrow.
Pictures to come.
How about you?
Staying busy?

Walking with the Hippos

I was a walker for many years and somewhere in the past 2 years with many fits and starts and, I will do it tomorrow thoughts, I just fell out of the habit.
In the past few weeks I am trying to make walking a habit again.
I don't think about it, I just go do it.
I started slowly by walking the drive, going past the end of the drive and now off to explore other walks.
Mark has been going with me when he can.
We find that there are days we like to drive away to get a walk in.
You know the, how can I miss you if you won't go away, it applies to where we live as well.
How can we enjoy driving back to the farm unless we go out now and again.
One of our places we like to walk is over at the NC Zoo.
When we went last week we found that the trail that we wanted to use was not open yet.
Not to be defeated, we walked out through the parking lot, looping to the far side we followed it to the entrance to Africa. We saw that the bridge to Africa was open and decided to walk down and back. When we arrived at the closed tickets booths we found a path to the right.

On that path down to the picnic area, and glory be, the bathrooms!, we saw these wonderful Hippos.
That little one is just way too cute!

I love the fact that the NC Zoo has a place for public art.
It makes me feel good about my tax dollars at work.

We are walking with the Hippos.
Cheers,
M

This is what January looks like

 January in the south can be capricious in nature, cold one day and 65 the next. Between yesterday and then today it was hard to walk over and go in the studio to work.
Sigh.
I hate to go throw when it is 30 degrees and I hate to go throw when it is 65 and the sun is shinning.
Do I detect a pattern here....?

I really do enjoy what I do it's just that sunshine can all my name so easily.

Instead I had lids to trim and here is my easy set up for some quick trimming.
I use a piece of plastic pipe that I bought at the local hardware.
This works just great to drop the lid in and trim it up.
 
 We also have a large collection of lids that we drop inside the lids to steady them as we are trimming.

 Sugar Jars in waiting.

 This was part of my walk today. The sun was so bright and inviting that I left work early before lunch to walk up to the mailbox.
The shadows were great company and decided that they would come along with me.

On the way back with the mail, no bills today (yeah) , I cut around the pond and walked through the area of the farm where the original house stood.
As I looked up I saw the side of the old grainery and it made me think of all the people who would have walked through that area of the farm when it was part of the yard for the house.
It is one of the few buildings left from those days. The barn that was just past this building is long gone. We had it removed after a tornado came through one year and knock it off its foundation.  

I still enjoy having this building here even though we don't use it as we once did.

So January is shaping up.
Pots are being made.
Walks are happening.
Bread is being baked.

Life and sunshine.
Cheers!

M