a summer day

This summer day I got dressed, grabbed my favorite apron and went to the plum tree.
This California native plum is in my mother's backyard and its forty feet tall. I set my basket in the crook of a limb and got to picking.
There are thousands of plums this year. More than I've ever seen in the twenty years I've been picking them.
I filled my basket and picked some for a friend and went to deliver. We ended up visiting for an hour. We talked about cooking, and books and even canning.
Home again with my basket, and some fresh geraniums from mom's garden.
Don't they look just like rosebuds? After the flowers fade I plant them and they just root so well. I've got rosebud geraniums all over the garden.
I decided to make a clafouti. My first one. I mixed it up and put in in the oven.
I did a little housework.
Well, I washed the dishes at least!
Emptied the kiln
The clafouti was done so I tried a piece. I sifted powdered sugar over it just like they do in France.
I thought it would be more like cake, but it was almost like a fruit custard. I guess I liked it, though.
I've still got an awful lot of plums. And the tree is laden still!
So I ordered a new canning book. I've heard good things about this. I'll let you know.
Might be plum jam appearing on my shelves soon.
xxx
hope you are having a wonderful summer
juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

gold dust

I've always wanted to add gold embellishments to my pottery. I think growing up in California exposes you to gold fever. So there is a brush stroke here and there on the porcelain cups above. Can you see it on the tips of the bird's wings?

Cup backs. These are slab built porcelain.

I panned for gold when I was ten. I remember the little particles of gold dust glinting in the sun.

This is my husband's ancestors from Sutter Creek , California. Gold Rush country.

I visited this house and met Gramps standing up in back on the right. He was 97at the time. I was 20. They had chickens coming in and out of the kitchen and an ancient orchard out the back. The floorboards creaked like a chorus of frogs. I loved it there.
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They came out in the 1840's not to strike it rich in mining, but in logging. All those miners needed wood for houses when they struck the mother lode.

The dog's name was Sampson.

An old plate with gold paint next to a beaker.

These are porcelain, so they are light.

My plans for these cups. The instuctions for using the gold are:

Immaculate brush only used for gold. Apply gold to finished piece in its own firing. These pieces were fired three times.Wipe down a glazed piece with rubbing alchohol.

Cleaning brush in the special solution to keep the brush supple. It goes on red, so its easy to see your strokes.

Fire at 018. Which is about 1377 degrees.

A vase shape where the flowers spill out nicely.
my first bud vase!
I'm hoping there is a pink butterfly out there somewhere.
Also did a couple of cups the old school way!

xx

julie

juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

Best Pal

I never met a dog I didn't like. Our first family dog, Jasper, used to yank mom's best percale pillowcases off the clothesline and blast down McConnel Avenue, dragging them in the gutter.
I didn't care, I liked Jasper.

Dogs trust us. If they are hurt we want to make it better. We want them to be happy;

Like my beautiful Emmie

And Kary's toy poodle, Teddy.

What do we care if they are of indeterminate parentage?

I painted some dogs and other things with new art supplies, thanks to Lynne Hoppe.

Lynne has a wonderful and inspiring blog, and talks about interesting ways to put images on different paper surfaces. Plus, she generously lists what supplies she uses.

Oh, and her work is brilliant.

www.lynnehoppe.blogspot.com

Here is a smattering of my new supplies. Pastels from France, Crayon watercolor pencils from Switzerland, and paper from U.S.A.

I have just one more thing to add about dogs.

I think the dogs we loved and have gone on before us are waiting to join us again.

Like Mattie here. Something so full of love and goodness just must be forever.

Hug your dogs for me!

xx

Julie
juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

Summer Pie Party

Donkey told Chicken that he would celebrate the first day of summer with a pie party.
"Am I invited?" Chicken asked.

"You may have the apple peelings." answered Donkey.

Donkey returned to his pink house and scoured his recipie box. This was one of his favorites, from Viv in the pie country of Stafford. http://www.hensteethart.blogspot.com/

In need of more pies, he trotted to Farmer Julie's and found her gathering beefsteak tomatoes.

He asked her to make a cox orange pippin apple pie.

"Am I invited?" asked Farmer Julie.

"Yes", said Donkey, "If you don't comment on table ediquitte."

So Farmer Julie made a pie. She kept the peelings for Chicken.
And she cut out the shape of a donkey with a toothpick and placed it on the top.
Hedgehog, however, made the tastiest pie of all. Strawberry rhubarb with a dash of lemon zest and extra cinnamon and a sprinkling of castor sugar on the top. It was a tiny triumph. She also wore her favorite bonnet.
All arrived at Donkey's on the first afternoon of summer.
They pulled their special cups from the sideboard. They ate pie, drank tea and gossiped.
There were some frightening manners displayed, but Farmer Julie kept right on sipping and smiling. After all, she was very happy to be in Donkey's pink house, with all of his pie-loving friends.

Happy Summer everyone!
xx
julie
juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

Outside, Inside

Can you blame me for going twice to this mustard field in the last week? Its been three days since my last visit and I'm already plotting ways to return today. A bridge spans over the creek, and the swallows have built a metropolis there. There are hundreds and they swoop all around you, emitting soft little peeps as they dive after the insects that drone above the water.

The mustard is so high this year. If I were to clomp around down there, it would be about two feet over my head. All this yellow, all these birds and sweet clean sky make me feel airborne too, just like those swallows. So clomping seems unseemly.

Looking North from the bridge, our house is about two miles from that clump of eucylptus.

A squirrel watched me, hanging from a new fence that keeps the cattle from creek trespassing.

I nearly stepped on this one foot long lizard, I was so intent on looking up, not down. He skittered away just in time.

A brand new winery up the highway. They planted fields of lavender and roses. Olive trees too.

I was hesitant to go inside . In overalls, boots and a sweater with a patch on it I decided to wait til I wore my Sunday best to try their wine tasting.

These are their cabernet franc grapes, just emerging.

Now we are home. The inside part. Thought you might like a gander around, and this is my pantry. If you open the doors its full of dry goods. I only have about two built in cupboards in the kitchen and so this has given me a wonderful excuse to indulge my cupboard love!
The painting above of Moonstone Beach is by Terry DeLapp, a local tonalist painter.

English cupboard in the kitchen. I know this because there are little hooks in the side with donkeys, from Clovelly, near Devon.
heee haaaw

Dining room. The wall is painted a pale robin's egg blue. Old botanicals on the wall.

Dining room again. This is the first antique I bought. I got my drivers' liscense on my 16th birthday, drove to Orange, near our house in Southern California and bought this with my babysitting money. I had borrowed my brother's convertable and brought it home sticking straight up from the back seat. I still can't believe I didn't get pulled over.

Now just so you don't think I live entirely in a Charles Dicken's novel, I do like contemporary things too. Especially craft. This rabbit is by Paulina Temmes. Paulina's things are tender and exquisite. She doesn't have a blog but does have an Etsy store:

http://www.lemmikkiapina.etsy.com/

Pottery by local Potter Paula Teplitz. Dark clay, wax process. I really don't understand how Paula makes this , I just know its beautiful. Paula shows her work at Chamber's Gallery in Cambria.

A Cathy Cullis heart with a poem about a traveller. An anniversary gift from the mister.

The back as wonderful as the front!

In pottery news, new lady and animal plates.

and beakers too.

Back outside!

xx

julie



juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com