Last of March

 

Japanese Maple isn't making much of a statement this spring.

There have certainly been some challenges for me this month. First getting fired (it felt like that, but I was just a volunteer!) from editing Tidings newsletter for my church, then Pneumonia. Actually part of the reason I was asked to step down was my frequent fevers that kept me from coming to meetings. These have been with me for months, at least December. So now that I've finally bottomed out, and am on the mend, I sure hope they won't occur again.

And there have been joys this month as well. Meeting with friends either for just coffee and a few minutes, or lunches that could extend for hours...a great thing that some of us were really glad to return to after the pandemic.

I love seeing spring flowers, and with a very warm Feb. there were lots out already then, but some still continued to surprise me this month.

In front of the Arbor House B&B a bed of daffodils is still blooming.

Today's quote:

Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. -Hal Clement, science fiction author (30 May 1922-2003)

A nearby church in Asheville

I recently attended a performance at  the Land of Sky United Church of Christ

I went looking for the name of the church, and got distracted, thus this post is late to come out!!

It's the  Land of Sky United Church of Christ.

It was 32 degrees at 8 am this morning, clear and sunny, which means the frost is melting quickly from the roofs and cars which I see out my window. Yesterday I got a clean bill of health (isn't that a weird saying?) from pneumonia and am slowly getting my feet back under me. I'm glad to have recordings of the last two classes of Bones for Life, so I can now catch up on them. They just make me feel better, but when sick I didn't have stamina or attention span to complete them. I'm grateful to be well, and to have these classes to complete at my own timing.

 

Glazing like Georgia

 O'Keefe that is! Her poppies...or my version of them....(another repost from 2019)

On to plates this time.

This was just before coating the with a couple of layers of clear matte glaze.  They will be sort of creamy colored, with hopefully brilliant red flowers.

In case you wondered...first the yellow in the center is over a layer of black, so it probably will be black with a few specks of yellow where it was thinner.  The little dots will probably blend in.  That's the plan anyway.

And why did I make 3 plates, you might ask.  Because one had a crack, so there aren't 4. 

And when they are glaze fired, they'll shrink a bit more, and be nice sandwich plates.

NOTE from 2023: I decided to keep these, and love having sandwiches and small salads and even deserts on them

Today's quote:

Compassion is not weakness and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism. -Hubert Humphrey, US Vice President (27 May 1911-1978)

My friend's electric car

 

I've seen it parked before, but this was my first chance to ride in it.

One little control wand, and a very sci-fi lookin' dash

Friend is changing gears on the control wand, and away we go.

Very spacious front seat

Smaller area in back seat, plus the half door in back seat doesn't even open unless the front door is open. I would sure be uncomfortable there...no way out!

Today's quote:

There is freedom in admitting that you don’t know something, as that allows for a new learning experience to emerge.

Poppies everywhere

 

Can you stand another old pottery post? I promise I will give something more current tomorrow!

Repost from 2018

 The white of the outside is a smooth unfinished, but vitrified clay surface...I think it's a great contrast to the shiny bright red of the poppy.  Of course it's food safe.

Quote for today:
We now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust's jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection. -Oliver Sacks, neurologist and writer (9 Jul 1933-2015) 

O'Keeffe style Poppies

 A repost from 2018 to share my Poppies on pottery. This is a good way to sit here and heal (me) while you have something pretty to look at. A FB friend has started painting and I'm urging her on, of course. She asked me what my O'Keeffe style was.

Now I've done a vase, which still has a bit of Georgia O'Keeffe's style...and is pretty brilliant (meaning the colors are vibrant!)

I started with these 4 medium size mugs. All my mugs have Celtic Cross thumb knobs.

The same mug next to the vase.

The vase can certainly stand alone, or have some great green stems of flowers coming out of it...what do you think?

Everything is hand painted, while looking at an O'Keefe painting.

Today's Quote:
“Research suggests that one of the most effective things that procrastinators can do is to forgive themselves for procrastinating,” Swanson 

Survivors

 

These are supposedly the tracks of wagons going west in AZ. There is argument about it.

Annie  Liebowitz with camera and assistant - do you recognize the building? Photographed by John Leongard

Stalled on the desert near Idaho, 1937, taken by Dorthea Lange

Nebraska, pioneer family in 1880.

Apsaroke man in winter of 1908 in Montana, photo by Edward S. Curtis

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week, where a couple of strawberry vendors are a bit sad. Will they and their horse survive for another day? Who knows.

Today's quote:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, / I stand and look at them long and long. / They do not sweat and whine about their condition, / They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, / They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, / Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, / Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, / Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. -Walt Whitman, poet (31 May 1819-1892)

As spring arrives

Repost from 2020 

Spring Equinox

Yes, today finally there is as much daylight as nighttime. We have been dreaming of this for weeks...sharing our first blossoms together, sighing that this is so slow this year. But I looked at some of the blooms around me, and found they are within a day of when they bloomed last year.

Perhaps my yearning is what has grown longer, deeper, definitely more intense.

 March 20, 2018

March 23, 2019

March 17, 2020

If I were disciplined enough to walk every day, I might have actual days through the years, but these are pretty close.

Sharing with Skywatch Friday, and Floral Friday Fotos

Today's quote:

 

In a world that lives like a fist, mercy is no more than waking with your hands open.

MARK NEPO

Fighting the bug

 Well, not the virus which everyone has had, or avoided having for the last 3 years...the one that I caught has made my life miserable.

On top of a cough that usually is bothersome mostly in the evenings, I've begun coughing all day long. That's tiresome in itself. 

But fevers of 100, or 101 aren't so great. I feel really washed out, and take Tylenol or Ibuprophen, and then can function.

BUT it's like walking around feeling like I'm only halfway there. I have to watch each step.  Yep, a bit of virtigo that is no fun if I have to bend forward. I feel like I might keep bending down forever.

OK, you have no idea what fun this is not. So I'll just say after a friend thoughtfully drove me around to doctor and X-Ray imaging of my lungs, it was determined that I definitely have pneumonia. So tomorrow I have some new antibiotic to start. It was too late to get it filled this afternoon.

But I was well enough to eat a take-out of Baja Shrimp Taco and beans and rice from Ole's Guacamole. My friend was glad I didn't want the little bag of chips which were freshly cooked but somehow not to my taste these days....a paltry payment for all that time and energy she spent for me.

But she reminded me of Ram Dass' saying "We're all just walking each other home."

A pottery candy jar

 

This little Humpty Dumpty Jar wished some grandchildren a Happy Easter, full of jelly beans.

Ostara and eggs

 

Pysanky by Andrea Kulish

As most of us know (the elders at least) Easter in the western world is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

Couldn't get much more pagan than that!

Osestra included a celebration of the awakening world of vegetation and little animals being born. What's more appropriate than eggs?

Prayer Honoring the Goddesses of Spring

Hail, and welcome!

Green life returns to the earth

blooming and blossoming

once more from the soil.

We welcome you,

goddesses of spring,

Eostre, Persephone, Flora, Cybele,

in the trees,

in the soil,

in the flowers,

in the rains,

and we are grateful

for your presence.

Equinox ducks

 

Pair of ducks on Spring Equinox, 2011. I used to call these Wood Ducks, but stand corrected because there is now a photo identification posted at Lake Tomahawk.  This is the Mandarin Duck!  

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been..” ~Mark Twain

Old trees still bloom

This dear old tree is in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church
 

While the gazebo is charmed by this funny bright citron shrub at the UU church.

Sunsine comes through another old tree in full bloom at the Baptist Church.

A starling enjoying treats of some kind on a steep bank.

The current status of the maples outside my windows

A robin also enjoyed pecking for something in that grass.

Today's quote:

Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

G.K. CHESTERTON

A happy couple

 Sepia Saturday this week shares a lovely photo from days of yore. My photos don't come close this week

Please forgive my not having anything worthy to post this week.

My dear daughter-in-law on right, with an unknown friend (they both have on aprons, so probably another vendor at an event.)

My son R. and wife M. in December visit to Florida - remember 2022 chill at Christmas? 

At least I have a couple of happy couples!!

And a cute kitten.

I hope everyone has a happy Saturday!

Today's quote:

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely. -Lorraine Hansberry, playwright and painter (19 May 1930-1965)