Everything seems slow now: My gardens, my business, my work (it's hard to continue creating new things during this slow summer period), but I do try to keep working because autumn always comes! It feels as if we are all just waiting for autumn, my favorite time of the year -- winter is second because I enjoy "holing up." Even our small town slows to a crawl.
Farmers' Market
I'm going to the farmers' market today, and I'm sure I'll see a lot of sluggish people wandering aimlessly about. I have an annual goal, though, to buy enough fresh honey for the entire coming year. I've been buying from the same person for the past ten years. He raises the bees and harvests the honey himself, and it's worth every penny I pay for it! Last year, he wasn't doing well at all, and his daughter was managing his booth for him, so I'm hoping he's here and doing well when I go down today.
I also will be buying various veggies from farmers whose garden practices are far superior to my own. And I'll see what else catches my eye, though I'm not much of a shopper. And we, my granddaughter and I, will also go for a cup of coffee at our most popular local coffee shop. That's always fun.
My Gardens
My veggie gardens have had a rough time of it this year, so they've been slow since their planting in June. Why? While I think the rest of the US has been roasting in record high temperatures, we here in the Pacific Northwest are having a very, very slow start to summer. We, my family and I, live just on the edge of the "East Side" of the Cascade Mountains, so our climate in the summer is generally very dry and very hot. This year is different! We had rather damp, cool days until very recently, and now we've entered a new, uncharacteristic pattern: while the temperatures are still comfortable (very variable, but generally in the 80's during the day and the low 60's-high 50's during the nights -- quite comfortable for me because my house stays naturally cool most all day, no need for an air conditioner.
With the very dry times now, my poor flower gardens, trees, and grass areas are showing signs of stress, even with deep drip-watering nearly every day. So they, too, have slowed down. And to top things off, our region is suffering from drought conditions now, so we're being asked to conserve water, which I do, within reason for now. My grassy areas are beginning to look a bit more like straw -- and I'm even reducing the size of the grass areas, one small shovelful at a time. I'm just moving it to a dry area behind my house so it can compost. In exchange for removing the grass, though, I'm planting more and more flowers. My flower-planting rule of thumb is to throw a lot of seeds on the ground and see which ones are strong enough to survive.
Also, regarding flowers, I'm trying to root a lot of lavender stems to replace a long front garden of irises, which are just not strong enough or long-flowering enough for me. I think they'll go to my daughter's house, so I'm not abandoning them. I've rooted lavender before quite successfully in the past, so I expect it to work out well this time, too. I'll have to keep them indoors, however, until next spring when they should have a strong root system, and then they can go outside. In the meantime, I can prepare the bed where they'll go next spring.
My Ceramics Business
It's slow -- but expected. I wouldn't want to be sitting at home on my computer this time of year (yet here I am this very moment!), so I'm glad people are out and about. They always come back in the autumn, and then I'll be wishing I had made more pieces so I wouldn't run out before the end of the year.
I do have a few custom pieces I'm working on, but they're slow, too, because I get too "tight" when I'm working on custom work. I have to recreate a very difficult clock that I used to make decades ago for someone whose clock was broken. I really don't want to do it, but I'll give it a try. It was difficult years ago; and even though they sold well, I swore I would never do them again. But I do often get requests for them, so I'll once again give it another try. Another customer wants a small sculpture of her dad playing baseball when he was young. It's going to be rather abstract but with lots of movement. If I can keep myself loose, it should be a fun project. Another project is a group of tiny gnomes for my sister. And I have one more, but I can't remember it at the moment. I'll add it later when I think of it. I have a list somewhere at my work table.
I still haven't gotten word for when the "newbie" clay people want to finish their work, which is annoying, I have to say. But that may or may not happen. If it doesn't, it was a waste of my time, clay, and kiln space. We'll see.
My Travel Plans
I've been planning a return trip to France for a while now, and this past spring, I almost made concrete plans -- and then things went south politically in this country, so I became afraid to go. Now, I'm thinking about maybe a shorter December trip. But if I do indeed decide to go, I'll be buying refundable flight tickets just in case. I know they cost a lot more; but if circumstances warrant a cancellation, they're less costly than losing everything.
Okay. My studio is calling me, as are my poor thirsty plants, and I have a busy rest of the day to get through. Hope my honey person is at the market!
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