Ceramics
Carissa and I worked at home on making mugs (and bowls) by slab-building, since we could not work on the wheel at school. We had to use stamping. I started on mugs for the kids, namely a tiger mug for Trusten, a horse mug for Olivia, a penguin mug for William, and a snake mug for Elizabeth.
William stayed alone with us for a couple days, and I showed him how to wedge some clay, and he made his own little dish. Remember, he took a
Birdhouses in Clay class and a
pottery wheel class when he was younger, and he also has made his own clay collections at home (without a hot kiln, though). He wrote something in his made-up language on a
clay tablet after studying ancient Sumerians,
made clay bricks, and made and painted an
ashtray from clay to give to his father.
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| My bowls and candle holders |
Nature
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| Tremella aurantia |
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| Leucanthemum vulgare |
Homemade Root Beer
Wow! We finally made homemade root beer with sassafras root. I've told the kids for years that we will make root beer, and I made it finally come to pass. I got all the needed ingredients, and William insisted on pulling up the biggest sapling. He also chopped the root up, and I went to simmering the concoction.
More Ceramics
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| Two of my coffee bean mugs |
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| White-tailed deer with tree and flowers |
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| Another coffee bean mug and a beach-themed one |
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| Mushrooms, leaves, and brittle star fossil (for myself) and one with bees and the star fossil for flowers |
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| I glazed my coil pot and avatar when the school reopened. |
A Jumping Spider Friend
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| "Hello Carissa!" |
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| "Hello Tara!" |
More Outdoors
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| Sylvester says to Cocoa Butter, "This is MY rat; I killed it!" |
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| Silene virginica (Some call them fire pinks, but I call them red stars.) |
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| Blephilia ciliata (wood mint) |
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| Achillea millefolium (yarrow) |
Trusten's 13th Birthday
It's official that I have two teenagers now. How this happened so quickly, I do not understand! He will go down as having the most money spent on him this year for birthdays. We got him a drum kit. We did our part in stimulating the economy, ha!
He requested chicken and dressing and mashed potatoes, and he asked for strawberry cobbler for dessert. This was a first for strawberry cobbler, and he made it clear that he wanted it just the way I fix peach cobbler, including the cinnamon. He was very pleased; I'm glad.
Oh, and Trusten received this certificate in the mail from his school, and I laminated it for him.
Food!
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| Carissa made homemade honey mustard dressing for our salads. |
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| I really have the perfect fried rice and vegetables with Japanese sauce worked out! |
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| Food for bees and butterflies! |
Trip to Oklahoma
We went camping for two nights in Oklahoma and visited Carissa's family.
Lizard Time!
Elizabeth caught her first lizard. Only Jaden William of my other children has caught a lizard, and he's caught a few in his day, as I've posted over the last eleven and a half years. She got Olivia to hold it, and it was so funny—I wish I'd have captured it on video—to hear Elizabeth tell Olivia something like, "See, you don't have to be frightened" and soothing and instructing Olivia further.
Smoke entered the woods, and it made something beautiful with the sun.
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| Going barefoot! |
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Asclepias purpurascens (purple milkweed) & Speyeria cybele (great spangled fritillaries)
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| Mimosa tenuiflora |
Until next time...
