Homemade rocks

Grandma couldn't cook. Overdone meat, mushy veggies and eggs sorta rubbery. She even gifted my mother a cookbook on her wedding day, and its inscription read

"To Marjorie, with the hopes she become a better cook than I"

But us kids saw it different. My sister and I still talk about the big slab of chocolate cake she'd put in front of us on a red flowered plate, the frosting dense with bitter chocolate and all washed down with a half a quart of milk so cold it froze your throat. Did I mention she made the cake with bacongrease?

But her masterpiece was Molasses cookies. And she made them in the big bowl in the top picture. Then she'd store them in a coffee can lined with wax paper. That can always seemed to be full of cookies. Chewey, gingery, and and big as baseballs.

So this morning I decided to throw out a batch of rocks. I've had the right molasses for weeks in the cupboard, it has to be Brer Rabbit because thats what she used. I am happy to trumpet the news I can still operate a mixer, follow a recipie and my spices are even reasonably fresh.

At the last minute, I decided to add extra raisins.

Here they are baked and stacked on a pedalstal cookie stand I made special just for today.

I only got sappy once while making these, the moment I took the first bite. The light-as-a-cloud texture, the cinnamon and dark molasses taste and I swore I could feel her standing in the kitchen with me. Its not really about the cookies, its about the love.
Pottery news: new pears in my shop tomorrow

Here's the cookie plate painted with a naturey theme. The base is made to look like a tree trunk.

Grandma's Molasses Cookies

One half cup shortening creamed with 1/2 Cup dark brown sugar

Add one beaten egg

3/4 C. dark molasses

1/4 C. boiling water. mix

dry ingredients

3 C. flour

1 t salt

1 t soda

1 t baking powder

2 t cinnamon

1 t ginger

1/2 t cloves

One cup raisins*

Mix to drop consistancy

Place on silpat well apart, they spread.

Bake 15 to 20 min at 350.

*I mixed black and yellow raisins and its very nice.

juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

A new workspace and I can't stop making pears

Thank you, sun, for blazing through the clouds this morning. I can now wear one tee shirt instead of three, reassure myself spring really is here, and take photos of my new claywork space.

A whole five foot worktable thats deep enough to allow me room for making larger pieces. Above which I've arranged some old plates and some of mine too. And a clock I like, which does not work, but reminds me not to fritter time away.

I can stretch out here, roll out big slabs to make things like this fourteen inch platter fresh from the kiln. A country lady with her donkey, rabbit and stripey stockings.

I don't have to scrinch in my elbows. And more than one spoon at a time!

A long bench to store clay, tools and works in progress. Can you see the boquet of lupin to the right? I risked jail time for that bunch of flowers. My mother informed me its against the law to pick them. I hope she doesn't drop a dime on me.

(Scene of the crime.)

See what I mean about pears? My sister and I decided this morning they are one of the most beautiful shapes in nature. Here they are drying on a shelf under a sunny window, which I can open when the afternoon sun hits. This was a bit of a motherlode in terms of time and sweat equity (Mostly my husbands), but I can't wait to arrive here in the morning, put on music and turn the lights on, one by one.

xx

julie

Look what Nina did with a couple of my simple bird charms..........

Isn't she amazing?

www.ornamental.typedad.com

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I Brake for Donkeys

I am partial to donkeys. If my father's people came from County Kerry in Ireland doesn't it follow that they may have owned a donkey to convey peat back to their cottage, and that donkey's name could of been Sally or Seamus? So its in the blood. Thats why I visited the Donkey ranch today in Harmony, just a few miles from our house.

They came up to visit me as I sketched. Donkeys like people. They are kind and sociable and I'm not just making that up. I have a first hand knowledge.The summer I was nine, the donkey ride came to our town and set up in the school playground.

I stood in line, plaid shirt starched , my favorite jeans turned up at the ankle and blue keds tied tight. I hoped for the furry, taffy colored burro with the flicking ears and thats just who I boarded. His name was Tommy. I thought I would take a benign stroll around the playground with the other kids who were riding at a steady gait in a large cirle, but Tommy had other ideas. Get away ones.

As soon as I was situated, bridle in hand, he tore off down the hillside and to the open field, carreening towards the eucalyptus grove. My ponytail streamed behind me as his hoofs pounded over the dry summer grasses. Soon the head handler galloped along beside me and bellowed "Tighten your knees!, Pull his head up!"

I knew riding terms from watching TV westerns, but for a moment I wanted to run off to the woods too. Me and Tommy camping under the canopy of stars, eating beans from an old tin pie plate while coffee percolated on a smouldering oak fire. But the ramrod cut us off and we stopped short. He pushed back his stetson and scratched his head. "Never seen the like" he said. and we turned and plodded back. My legs shook and my rear was sore, but I felt a little bit like Annie Oakley. I made plans to memorize cowboy songs and learn to play the harmonica.

Back at the playground I climbed off and felt sad to leave, but Tommy flicked his ears at me and almost sort of smiled. "What an adventure!" he seemed to say. and it was.

Donkeys can live to be fifty years old. That means my wild and free loving friend could be chewing spring grass in some field today, just like the one in Harmony. Maybe once in a while he even thinks of me. I know I think of him. Love ya, Tommy, wherever you are.

The tattered outlaw of the Earth,

Of ancient, crooked will

Starve, scourge, deride me

I am dumb

I keep my secret still.

from The Donkey by Chesterton

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Green Fingers

On Friday I delivered a pottery order to Birds of a Feather on Main Street, and thats when my temperature started to climb. Because the sun is back out on a regular basis and I think everyone around town has a case of March Madness. One of my first symtons is always a craving for nasturiums. On the way to Bonnie's I stopped at our garden center and found myself swooning over bags of compost and flowered garden gloves, which I never wear. I like to get soil on my hands and my knees damp through my jeans.

For the last few years I've been using the Hit or Miss gardening method. I have planted and lost, but I am not deterred. All arrows point to woody herbs, shrub roses, scented geraniums and the afore mentioned golden lovliness of nasturtiums.They grow so well here that I feel like an accomplished gardener as I tuck them in every available space around the fence. Even though I know in my soul of souls that even Charlie Brown could succeed with them. All my garden horizons are dripping with froths of Magnolias in blossom, clematis exploding over doorways, and cabbage roses so enormous I could lay my head on them to rest from all my gardening glories. In the meantime I've got the rustics.

I left the garden displays long enough to take pictures of some of the lovlies Bonnie collects for her shows. A gardening friend.

This is only a smattering of the ribbon.

A rural looking bird cage that relembles a cottage.

Can a person get heart palpitations over a garden hat? Yes, I'm living proof they can.

http://www.2birdsofafeather.com/

Candlesticks from Bonnies. With dark cherry wood showing through worn putty colored paint.
And though my house is beginning to be mistaken for a florists shop, I couldn't resist the potted deliciousness of this homespun nasturium, 'Black Velvet' . Its so much more than a pretty face.

I wanted to share Lesley's work from Bird Ahoy. I sure was fortunate to win this beautiful necklace of carved stone, which is so light! The stone is carved with a key, and the second stone asks as a fastener. Simple and the kind of piece that goes with everything. The earrings too, light and simple, and a surprise from Lesley, they are going to go with all the grey I wear. Yup, love the greys. Thanks so much, Lesley! Both pieces are beautiful.

http://www.birdahoy.blogspot.com/

http://www.birdahoy.etsy.com/

Spring

The Spring comes in

when no one is looking.

You're lying in bed

with a cold in your head,

Or you may be cooking;

Putting new covers on the chairs,

When, suddenly, taking you unawares,

A thrush in the orchard starts to sing,

and once again, you have missed the spring.

Reginald Arkell

xx and happy planting

julie

juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

Keeper of the Bees

For the past year I've been peering closely at my rosemary plants conducting my own personal bee count. Good news first. Bee count is up. But I'm biting my lip because I've given the lavender and rosemary bushes free reign, and they've taken over the front garden, along with a robust mint. All three are rudely pushing all comers out of thier way. But the bees are happy.

Support your local beekeepers. If you eat local honey, it fends off allergies. Then there is a natural antibacterial bonus too, so slather plenty on your biscuits. Beekeepers do, and that working group suffers less from arthritis than any other worldwide.Bees are drawn to blue flowers. The girls are obviously aware it shows off their yellow stripes to best advantage.
Pots of edible honey have been unearthed from Egyptian tombs. So I guess its safe to finally uncork this dark honey from Ambleside that I've been saving for ten years.


There's fun in the community too. The worker bees preform a circular dance in a particular direction according to the position of the sun. This tells the other workers the direction and distance to the closest nectar source. Bee's like yellow flowers too. Brilliant of them.

Keeping modesty in mind, I do think the bees approve of me. I rescue them when they zig-zag into my studio and I shun pesticides in my garden. On a grander helping scale, enourmous swaths of farmlands in europe have been designated as 'Recovery zones' to help against the collapse disorder, where nectar bearing plants flourish without pesticides. And in 2008 the Beekeepers of England in their protecive suits, and even carrying thier smokers, descended on Parliment and marched to Ten Downing Street to hand over a petition demanding more research for what was called in the 19th century 'Dwindling disease'. And its working. The losses are down 20 percent in the last year. I did a bee dance all my own when I read that news.

This plate, painted with a super that looks just like a clapboard cottage, is the image I painted on my very first piece of pottery. I'm still painting them every spring.

I am not at peace, though. I hanker after one of my own bee houses, vibrating with activity. And one of these wide brimmed hats with the flowing netting. If my neighbors call me the mad beekeeper of Cambria, so be it. In fact, maybe I'll get my first tattoo (strictly henna) to commemorate my hive. A bee? a skep?

nuh-uh. Just the beekeepers motto and the three words that I adore: Nothing Without Labor.

Now and then the honey bee

Laden with her treasure

Darting from the clover blooms

Hums her drowsy measure.

xx

julie

For Mr. Toast!
www.goodteatoo.blogspot.com

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Farm fresh

Lately, I've been giving some serious leeway to my inner farm girl. Planting mounds of bulbs, filling the pantry with dry goods and painting roosts of chickens. Its my grandpa who is responsible. He who always smelled like half and half pipe tobacco and could be found in his woodshop or tending his sprawling garden. If I prodded, he'd tell me stories of life on Lakeview Farm in Munsonville. Tapping maple trees for syrup, then boiling what had dripped into the tins in vast kettles on the cast iron stove. Gathering blueberries, which his mother put to use by making a few pies before breakfast on a New Hampshire morning, before the family set their hands to the milking.

Here are a few unwritten codes to being a farmie.

1. Homemade jam on your toast, yellow flowers in the house, and very strong tea. I let mine steep until the spoon stands right up in the cup.

2. Chickens are treasures and the backbone of the farm. They even have names; Hannah, Billy, Maude. And Goliath for the rooster.

3. No turning your nose down at cracked dishes. "There's life in the old girl yet" is the farmer's refrain.There's the man himself. After working the farm all day, him and his brother would creep down the stairs with their ice skates , join their friends and jump barrels on Granite Lake. Grandpa held the record, thirteen barrels. Just takes momentum, moonlight and New Hampshire grit.

By the way, I don't care if I'm pushing it, I've decked out the house for spring. Can you get any more farmy that this? I guess you could, if there were some live chickens in this shot.

I might not be able to watch as grandpa digs around his potato vines, or listen while he helps with the washing up while Burl Ives croons on the Hi Fi, but every time I plant a bulb, roll out pie dough or even paint a chicken, I sometimes smile to myself. I'm a farmie at heart, just like him.

Happy early spring

xx

julie

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