New soap and pottery...

 Been busy making soap and pottery.

Today I made a plantain-lavender-oatmeal goat milk soap. With lavender buds on top. I hope it's a good one.

Tuesday I made a rosemary-mint with fresh rosemary and mint from my garden. It smells amazing! And I've had people asking for eucalyptus soap, so I made a lemon-eucalyptus soap. It smells really nice.

Got the handles on the mugs and little pitcher. They are ready to go get fired. I'll take them next week.

These are some things I picked up yesterday from the studio.

I really love these bowls. I made 4 bowls and 4 mugs, all glazed in 2 blue glazes. When I got the yesterday, I was told to not do this again. Because the top glaze ran down and they all were stuck to the shelf in the kiln. Not a good thing. But I think they turned out so pretty.

If I can get them sanded down enough, I might be able to sell them. I shall see.. If not, we will use them.

This is my first vase. I finally got to use a glaze I love but that's non food safe. It's so pretty. I glazed a few yarn bowls with this too.

And my first ever yarn bowl. All glazed and ready to use. I have 4 more ready to fire too. It was fun making these. I hope to make many more.

I'm trying to stay inside as much as possible. In the 90's. And I need to get ready for the 2 farmers markets tomorrow. I got in the Erlanger hospital market! It's from 11-2 inside the hospital. I can only use a small 5' table and will have to condense all my stuff. Gonna be fun! Then the St. Elmo market from 4-7. And it will be in the mid 90's tomorrow too.

Listening to cool cello music makes all this look so pretty!

Birds and garden...

 The babies are back! This is where they roost at night now. Under the open garage door. We can't shut it now. Because the babies are more important, ya know?

Here's Sally, with the biggest mouth full of big ole bugs! Looking for her babes.

Just had to show my breakfast a few days ago. On a plate I made. With eggs from my hens. And the best cheese ever, from Sequatchie Cove Creamery. I LOVE their cheeses.

I just glazed 6 bowls in these same 2 glazes, nutmeg and oatmeal. They will probably not look like the plates though, as it's a different clay. We don't know what kind of clay this is. David had a note on the plates when I went to pick them up last week. It said "not our clay" . Well, I don't know who's clay it is but I bought it there. We never could figure out what kind of clay it was. But I liked the way the glazes looked on it.

And my flower-herb garden is growing like crazy! I just love all the insect activity out there. Except for those darn Japanese beetles. They are everywhere. I have been going out a few times a day with a little bucket of gas and knocking them off into the gas. I have a lot of weeds though, so they are mainly eating those right now. But they will not get it all!

This is Cosmo the cat, in front of cosmos the flowers. She is my garden companion. She follows me all around the garden while I water.

I am loving all the bees and butterflies all over these flowers right now! Always busy out there. Little legs full of pollen. I am so glad I planted all this for them. If it weren't for all the bees and other bugs, I would not water out here. But I do, for them. A few times a day. It takes a few hours too. Our water bill is pretty big. But it's all worth it.

Before and after...

 the alpacas finally got sheared today!!!!! I am SO relieved and I know they are too. It's been so hot here. And I've been afraid to get them wet, thinking the other guy would be here any day and they'd be wet and couldn't be sheared. So now, they can get soaking wet if they want to. And they sure did, right after they were done.

And look at these poor little skinny guys! They are so happy to have all that 6" of fiber off of them! They were not happy at all while it was happening though. Poor guys. But it was ALL worth it.

They got their   feet trimmed. CDT shots. Eyes checked. By the way, they were both bright pink!! So no sings of parasites!

But man, are they little now!

And Sugar is wet. He lays down like this when I spray them down.

And the sheep kept looking at them and sniffing them. It was quite funny! But they are all back together again and doing great. SO glad this is over. And I met a lady who lives in the area who shears alpacas who said she will do mine next year! So, this will not happen again.