UPDATE!

None too soon either, huh?

Let me begin by offering many extended apologies to anyone who may have been waiting with bated breath for news from this blog. Eight months is a long time to hold your breath, so: I'm sorry. The simple fact of the matter is that there has been a lot of "life" happening and not so much "pottery." Some of that "life" has included:

• A cross-country move, leaving behind beloved friends, jobs, mountains, and sunshiny Colorado Days to settle somewhere in the middle of the Great Plains.



The Great Plains.  Actually, this is just an open meadow on La Framboise Island on the Missouri River.  That's French for "Raspberry" attached to the English for "île."  Anyway, I thought it was appropriately scenic.

• A new job for Krystal (Please check out Hunkpati Investments for more information about the really neat work she's doing)
• Buying our first home!



Our new home.  It's super cozy!

• New job for me.
• Gardening (no pictures of this one: we were too busy fighting the grasshoppers for our veggies to worry about photography this year).
• Grilling.



Despite whatever it may look like, I do actually know what I'm doing with that thing.

• Lawncare: and then our mower died.  Fortunately, it quit raining just around that time, so the grass didn't grow much after that.  It's been fixed now, for anyone who's concerned about the well-being of our Toro.



Part of our lawn.  Our backyard is pretty much awesome.  When  it isn't being overrun by grasshoppers.

• More grilling.
• More yardwork (the joys of homeownership)



Look at me, all handy-like and building a fence!  I'd call this close enough to constitute yardwork.

• Rock Concerts



Jars of Clay, for example.  Always a good show.  And totally appropriate for this blog.

Retaining walls.  One night it rained and then most of our lawn was laying on top of the sidewalk.  I don't think this wall will let that happen anytime soon. 



I think we met more people while building this wall (letting us know how nice it was to see us improving the neighborhood) than in the entire rest of our time here so far.

• And more grilling (It's what happens when you live half-a-block away from the most fabulous little butcher's shop ever.  Also, we discovered Nathan's All-Beef Franks.  Phenomenal.  I may never eat another Ballpark again.)
• I met a funny-looking chicken.



Chicken Little this is not.

• Quitting my new job (not a short story, and not very interesting).
• Apples: a month later, we're still working our way through that bag.  Total awesomeness.



Isn't my wife all fashionable and lovely?

• I forgot to mention blueberry season, but I enjoyed it immensely while it lasted.

There it is.  You'll note the complete lack of pottery.  It's kind of what happens when you have workd as part of a Guild and don't have your own studio gear and move to a small - charming, mind you, on the river and all, but small nonetheless - town in South Dakota.  While there's nothing official to be said about it just yet, I hope to be doing something about my pottery situation in the near future.  Stay tuned (cue bated breath) for news (possibly) on that front.

In the meantime, I'll be making a better effort to keep updates of some sort rolling on here.  If you've read me at all you know that what begins as a discussion of art or pottery or aesthetics (have I ever started with aesthetics?) often devolves into a post about what music I've been enjoying lately or why I don't wear polo shirts or "Hey look! Here's a doodle I drew today!"  So it really shouldn't be hard for me to find something to write about in my currently ample free time. (You'll note that "Another new job" is not one of the above bullet-points.  I would like to reduce the amount of freetime that I have.) 

So, if you're reading this, thanks for sticking with me, sorry it's been the better part of a year (that better part being spring, summer, and fall), and hopefully you will be hearing from me soon.

P.S. - if you're in the Northern Colorado/Front Range area, please remember to check out the Northern Colorado Potters Guild Holiday Show & Sale next weekend, November 12-14, at the Guild in Fort Collins.  Click on the blue letters right there or the link to your right fo find out more about the Guild and the sale.  I obviously won't be there, but it's always a good time and a great place to pick up some early Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus gifts.

Pots and Berries

I had a quiet time in the studio last night.  Not that the studio was quiet, but just that I was.  Special thanks to Hide for letting me work in the corner while he taught his class!  They're in the midst of a four week mini-class to introduce throwing, and they're really cranking stuff out!  Making me feel like a slacker, now that I'm intentionally slowing myself down just a little bit.

I stayed with predominately dry work, specifically trimming, slipping, and decorating.  As opposed to throwing, which tends to be wet and exponentially messier than the aforementioned activities, no matter how neatly you find you are able to throw.  Here's a quick rundown of my accomplishments:

A little dogdish action.

Mountain jars.  There's two more of these that are still awaiting their mountains.  Do we think I can have these commissions done before Christmas?  I think it's looking promising.

Lids for the jars - or small bowls.  I should be able to get these trimmed tonight.  Definitely not the easiest way to make lids, but I think it's my prefered method.

That was pretty much it.  I got 90 solid "working" minutes in, I think, before clean-up, and then I had to dash off to take Krystal salsa dancing.  Because that's what us cool people do on Tuesday nights in FoCo.

On an unrelated note, you may have noticed that there are two panels of ads on my site (to your right, and at the bottom of the page).  I put them there mostly as an experiment (I've made almost $5 this year!), and they're provided by a Google service called AdSense, which generates the ads based on whatever it is I talk about.  Normally they cycle between pottery suppliers, paint-your-own studios, and Pottery Barn, but today I pulled up my site to find an ad for Driscoll's, who claim, and follow through, to provide "The Finest Berries in the World."  It is officially the highlight of my Wednesday thus far. 

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it before, but I truly love blueberries (note: I did mention it, once, on July 23, 2009, but I'm not sure that explains the ad's presence).  As a child, I think I claimed these tiny fruits as my favorite food, and I rediscovered my passion for them this summer when peak season came and we could pick them up at unreasonably low prices.  I'm pretty sure the best I saw was a 5# box for $8.88 at our local King Soopers, which was almost too good to pass on, but I'm not sure that even I could have cleaned up five pounds before they started to go bad.  We never had less than two pints of blueberries in our fridge, and I savored them by the handful all summer long.

I don't know if Driscoll's are the best berries in the world (Minnesota wild blueberries are a whole different beast in my book, for the record), but they are the most readily available, and always flavorful, and I am more than happy to have had their advertisement grace my blog.  We, as a household, also support their endeavors in the form of raspberries and strawberries as well (Krystal goes through at least a pound of the strawberry goodness every week).  I also appreciate Driscoll's for their reasonably priced organic berries as well, and will happily vouch for the superior quality of organic vs. traditional berries.  They are, in fact, juicier, more flavorful, and less likely to go mushy in your fridge.  Although that last one may be the only objective judgment in the bunch.

In any event, check out the Driscoll's website, because it's loaded with all sorts of fun stuff like recipes (pork belly w/blueberry compote, anyone?), history, farming techniques, and even the ability to track from whence your berries came.  Craziness.

Here ends my ode to the indigo goodness we call blueberries.