Changes will be made!

I have gone over the falls!  Well Paine Falls! 

For those wondering....... here is the run down since the second week of July.  

Finished up the Boston Mills Show the end of June and finally did my long over due taxes.  When I hit "Grand Total",  I tossed my cookies and vowed to make a few changes.  Yup, I logged over 30,000 miles last year peddling pots from sea to shining sea.  What did I learn?  I hate hotels and would rather be in a tent on a freezing night in Minnesota.  Love the people, loved the shows, hate the set up and hate the cost!  

In order to make sense of all my swirling thoughts I took myself off social media and the computer.  Wow!  Instantly I had 4 more hours to every day!  Well that was enlightening.  When you're not looking at pots or reading what other folks are doing you get to doing.  

But first I had to throw myself on the ground for a primo hissy fit, then I walked out to the gardens.  One look around and I realized I had been on the road for two years and not done much in the yard. 

Had not looked at a nursery "Hot" list in a few years either.  The best way to describe the "Hot List"....... it's like fashion week in NYC for those into Vogue and Project Runway. 

Who needs Calvin Klein when you have Cimicifuga racemosa 'Brunette' waving it's deeply cut leaflets at you?  

I was only going to work on the perennial beds in front of the studio but alas it morphed into a total yard makeover.  It was a side out rotate or divide for everything with roots in the ground.  An old garden designer told me one time.  "You might make a good gardener if your plants are in the wheel barrow more than they're in the ground."  I'm thinking I should be stellar by now.  

Then I tore out a huge spirea, bridal veil I had been wanting to set on fire for 25 years.  And the Lespedeza, t. Gibraltar (which is as big as the "rock of")  and a bunch of hydrangea's and peonys and OMG!  there was the neighbor waving from her kitchen!  I didn't even know I had a neighbor!  Now I needed screening and a water feature would be nice to drown out the screaming air conditioner of waving neighbor.  

  Back to the nursery and the quarry to hand pick rocks for .10 a pound.  Love that place!  I always feel very Fred Flintstone-ish when I'm there. 

Ta-Da!  and it was cheap, woven rolls of roof flashing ($15 a roll) and lumber.

(I had an extra pump from another project)

And about the time I was done and loving the yard, guess who showed up for her birthday?!

and she brought her cat!!!!!!  

I am allergic to cats...... very allergic.  So Neil was sequestered to Abby's room and the porch.  

He is a very well behaved cat but has an opinion about everything, chatty tabby syndrome.  Especially being locked in Abby's room all day.  Even though there were toys, air conditioning, food, water and piped in music.  Neil was abandoned in a parking lot in the dead of winter and has people issues, as in don't ever touch me but I would like to be around you. 

Then we had a flood.

and while we bailed at the marina Abby was in her car being washed down a dirt road.  Car number 3 totaled.  Abby and Neil stayed for 5 weeks looking for cars and jobs.  

We had Mother/Daughter bonding time.  

Weaving chairs on the porch.

realizing how really great the new water feature sounded and how really bad the porch looked.......

I decided to fix that!

and this took longer than expected...... surprise..... hardly!   I learned I should not try to put up 4 x 8 sheets of plywood over my head while gripping the air nailer with my knees and standing on a ladder by myself.  

I also learned there is straight and then there is 165 year old straight.  When you're hanging perfectly machined bead board it's gonna be a challenge.  

and women with power tools rock!

and finished porch! 

Side note...... take the cat off the porch during construction.  

It was HOT, setting up a fan on the far end of the porch so as not to die from heat exhaustion.  Neil the cat deviously moved to the sucking end of the fan.  Thereby sending cat fuzzyies and hair balls into the whirling vortex and spewing onto said allergic person.  You remember the one on ladder griping an air nailer between her thighs, and holding 4 x 8 sheets of plywood over her head.  The one who almost sneezed herself into the basement.  Damn you Neil, a dog would never do this!  

Also add $158.00 to porch budget as Neil the cat got sawdust in his eye,  blocking his kitty tear duct. (Pa-leeze cats cry?  A dog for sure but a cat?)  Trip to vet and drops in his kitty eye twice a day to a cat who does not want to be touched..... we are all wearing Hello Kitty eye patches!  

Another Mother/Daughter bonding event was furniture moving! 

My really good friend Linda is moving back to San Francisco.  That is a huge change I don't want to blog about but alas she was needing new homes for loved pieces.  This beautiful piece will live on in our entry.  I still need to give it a good once over before I fill it with "stuff"  but I am so happy to have a piece of Linda and Jerry here.  Her studio cast offs found a way to my studio too...... so sad but so glad she is taking her wheel because she will still be making pots somewhere! 

So then I needed a stiff drink........ and cherries were in season!  Cherries soaked in bourbon with a cinnamon stick and bit of vodka.  Two fingers to a glass filled with ice, top off with sparkling water or champagne' and drink liberally.  Friends leaving still sucks but these boozy cherries are to die for!  

Cherries opened the door to canning season....... game on! 

I am done on the road for a while.  I LOVE gardening!  I have applied to several nurseries seeking part time work but to no avail so I am probably going back into garden maint. and design at the residential level.  

Summers will find me gardening, canning, fishing, outside, off the road and out of the studio.  Winter will find me looking at seed catalogs and back in the studio making pots.  I gave this thing called pottery a good run and really did some great shows but all in all it has sucked my soul dry for now. 

and this bench is waiting for me to sit down and contemplate all these changes. 

when the snow flies........