It's too hot

Waaaay too hot to cook or to eat hot food. But I have the answer:

Gazpacho!
Gazpacho! always needs an exclamation point, don't you think?
Recipe here.

Commercial tile

(this one is a hand-made tile, my usual)

The white on my tile is dependent on the color of the clay itself because I work on the raw clay, after which I apply a clear glaze on top. Actually, Mr. Cranky is the glaze applier, but that is beside the point.

Dal tile, mechanical, ram-pressed

The point is, sometimes a client has commercial field tile that they want to match and I am limited in the shade of white that I can offer. This issue came up recently when a client ordered a few pieces to go with some tile she had already purchased and was dismayed to find they did not match well enough. The client was so sweet and so in love with the little ducklings that I decided to try decorating on top of the mechanical tile she had.

Duckling and bug on Dal tile

It worked like a charm.

Tales, introducing Patches T. Kitten

Named Sunshine Rainbow Stardust by her hippie parents, Patches preferred a less cumbersome name during her school years, for reasons you may understand. Despite her impassioned feminism, she adores bunnies, unicorns, and sparkly things. Like most kittens, she enjoys a good nap and her ability to sleep-in is legendary. Her ideal day is spent in a park lying on a quilt making crafts while listening to Simon & Garfunkel. This activity is interspersed with spontaneous and frequent "cuddle breaks"* with Little. Fiercely intelligent, Patches find great comfort in the Constitution and carries a copy with her at all times. Reading it has a calming affect on her and quells her occasional panic attacks. Her favorite food is curried potato-tofu scramble (no tomatoes!), and she feels that the solution to the problems of the world is more glitter; lots and lots of glitter.

*wherein one will launch herself at the other and both then roll around on the grass, giggling and hugging

Tales, introducing Cobalt

Cobalt T. Narwhal

Cobalt spent his younger years with his nose stuck in a book and as a consequence has the biggest vocabulary (in English) of anyone in North America. Like all narwhals, Cobalt looks like an innocent doofus, yet he carries himself with a strange and unexpected glamour. His musical tastes are catholic, but he particularly favors Drone at present. This is, perhaps, a reflection of his passion for the bagpipe. Cobalt is nothing if not taciturn. His wit is so dry that a light breeze could set it aloft. He is a fiercely competitive game player (insisting on being score-keeper) and a talented computer nerd. Trained in law, he throws words around like: “egregious”, “fiduciary”, and “null and void”. He also says things like: “egads”, “gadzooks”, and “forsooth”, which are funnier.

Ravenna is his girlfriend and Bothell and Clementine are his parents.

Tales, more emerging 3-D's

Lucy and Yeti, in progress. Lucy can't find her glasses right now...
Boise has a fabulous tail but you can't see it here.
Ranger thinking, as usual.
Thackery is getting frisky and he is not even finished yet.
Everything looks blurry to Lucy.

Tales, they all want in

Annabel wants to play. So does Woodrow.

And Thackery won't be left behind either.

Tales, relationships

As it was.

As it is now.

Bear, Little, & Arturo. A good brother has always got your back.

Tales, Bear and Little go 3-D

Bear and Little and Arturo (not pictured) are about to embark on adventures in another dimension.
They are chomping at the bit to get going. Patience children!

Apricot breakfast crisp

Fresh apricots with a bit of sugar, flour and a grating of nutmeg.
Crisp topping: flour, oats, almonds, sugar, and butter (the usual amounts)
Finished for breakfast, just add yogurt if you like (I don't). Recipe here.
Art in the morning. Addictingly tart.

*originally from Smitten Kitchen, my fav food blog.

Healing Heart

Wounded hearts can heal, but it takes a long time.
Though the scar never leaves.

Tales, Yeti with a chainsaw

Mr. Cranky was concerned that there was no sense of scale in the last post about the huge trees that were recently cleared from our land. Here is a picture of Yeti with a chainsaw to give you some sense of how large the trees actually were.

*Yeti is rather small for an abominable snowman, only just clearing six feet instead of the usual nine feet or so.

Been busy

A huge tree has been hanging over our path to the studio for two years. Mr. Cranky has bumped his head on it for the last time.
Another tree has been hung up in the woods west of the guest room for even longer. Dispatched.
Our raspberries are ripe. Hello freezer jam and raspberry syrup and russian creams!
Gratuitous picture of the hens making a break for it. It was a great shot, but they are too fast for me.