Outside, Inside

Can you blame me for going twice to this mustard field in the last week? Its been three days since my last visit and I'm already plotting ways to return today. A bridge spans over the creek, and the swallows have built a metropolis there. There are hundreds and they swoop all around you, emitting soft little peeps as they dive after the insects that drone above the water.

The mustard is so high this year. If I were to clomp around down there, it would be about two feet over my head. All this yellow, all these birds and sweet clean sky make me feel airborne too, just like those swallows. So clomping seems unseemly.

Looking North from the bridge, our house is about two miles from that clump of eucylptus.

A squirrel watched me, hanging from a new fence that keeps the cattle from creek trespassing.

I nearly stepped on this one foot long lizard, I was so intent on looking up, not down. He skittered away just in time.

A brand new winery up the highway. They planted fields of lavender and roses. Olive trees too.

I was hesitant to go inside . In overalls, boots and a sweater with a patch on it I decided to wait til I wore my Sunday best to try their wine tasting.

These are their cabernet franc grapes, just emerging.

Now we are home. The inside part. Thought you might like a gander around, and this is my pantry. If you open the doors its full of dry goods. I only have about two built in cupboards in the kitchen and so this has given me a wonderful excuse to indulge my cupboard love!
The painting above of Moonstone Beach is by Terry DeLapp, a local tonalist painter.

English cupboard in the kitchen. I know this because there are little hooks in the side with donkeys, from Clovelly, near Devon.
heee haaaw

Dining room. The wall is painted a pale robin's egg blue. Old botanicals on the wall.

Dining room again. This is the first antique I bought. I got my drivers' liscense on my 16th birthday, drove to Orange, near our house in Southern California and bought this with my babysitting money. I had borrowed my brother's convertable and brought it home sticking straight up from the back seat. I still can't believe I didn't get pulled over.

Now just so you don't think I live entirely in a Charles Dicken's novel, I do like contemporary things too. Especially craft. This rabbit is by Paulina Temmes. Paulina's things are tender and exquisite. She doesn't have a blog but does have an Etsy store:

http://www.lemmikkiapina.etsy.com/

Pottery by local Potter Paula Teplitz. Dark clay, wax process. I really don't understand how Paula makes this , I just know its beautiful. Paula shows her work at Chamber's Gallery in Cambria.

A Cathy Cullis heart with a poem about a traveller. An anniversary gift from the mister.

The back as wonderful as the front!

In pottery news, new lady and animal plates.

and beakers too.

Back outside!

xx

julie



juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

my green sky

I know flocks of girls who admire bluebirds. There's Carolyn, Barbara, Pat , Nancy, Sandi, Delila Vicki, Colette,Dana, Lori, Nina, Jody, Janet and Heather. And Carol g! and thats just the beginning. They must feel like Thoreau who said 'The bluebird carries the sky on her back'....

Every once in a while I paint a bird girl piece. This pale pink wall in my studio is holding them up for now

While we are in my studio, right outside my window, there's a blooming going on of pink and white petunias

Back in side, here's one of my first girl and birds, a swan.

I've got loads of spoons to list. They're dangling from an old rake while they wait for me to
get busy with the camera.

But instead of being productive, I decided to write down things that are pink.

I forgot mouse ears.

and cotton candy!

A pink breasted pigeon. Isn't she beautiful?

This is my best friend, Kary. she is a little shy, loves red gingham, Teddy, home, and 1962. Calls this hairdo a 'birds-nest'. And her favorite bird is the owl.

http://www.myfarmhousekitchen.blogspot.com/

Emily Dickinson wrote 222 poems about birds, including The Hummingbird.

Here's what Pablo Neruda had to say about humming birds;

The small bird on fire

Which dances out of the pollen

Just a short drive from here the pink sweet peas are washing the hills

Standing in the middle of this pinkness I was swaying with the scent . I wanted to lie down and sleep there. But I carried that scent home with me, in the form of a single sweet pea .

Because I beleive in the Chinese proverb

'If I keep a green bough in my heart,

The singing bird will come.'

wishing you a pink spring

xxx

julie

juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com