Occasionally I get questions in comments that I would like to answer, but I am always unsure of how to go about doing that.
If the person who asked the question has an email listed on their profile, I will go there and send a personal email answer. Sometimes there is no email listed on the profile.
This happened yesterday. One person wanted to know about my pottery collection. I think I have posted about it before but I don't remember, and this person is a new blog follower. How do I answer her?
That gets me to my real question. Some of you who have Blogspot blogs have a "reply" option. How do you get that? When you use it, does the reply get sent as an email or does the person who commented have to look back at the comments later?
And for those of you who do ask questions, do you expect, or look for, an answer?
I guess the easiest way for me to deal with this would be to request that bloggers link an email address in their profile. Then I could answer directly.
Now, about that pottery collection question. Here is the answer. I collect American pottery mostly from the 1940's through the 1960's, and mostly in matte white or gloss white.
About 75 pieces are McCoy. Another 35 are Shawnee. Others are Hager, Bauer, Hull, Caliente or California, with some "unknowns".
This cabinet has a collection of swans and another of ducks and other miscellaneous small pieces. There are a couple of Van Briggle pieces here too.
A few pieces come from family. Most I have purchased over the years from antique shops, antique shows, and on line. I buy what I like that doesn't cost too much.
One shelf is devoted to Puebloan pottery that we collected on a trip to New Mexico. We visited many pueblos and bought pieces from the artists in their homes. It was a wonderful experience.
The taller pot in the back, right corner is a family piece that was picked up in the 1940's by an aunt of Tom's. It is Hopi. We didn't get to the Hopi pueblo, so we bought a little companion piece for it in a gallery in Tucson. We went in October, after the tourist season, and everything was reduced in price 50%.
I have more pieces of pottery scattered around the house. And I do use some of them, especially in the summer for arranging flowers from our garden.
I have had many hours of fun hunting in shops for them. I can remember where I bought many of them, and I do have a written record of most of them - when and where I purchased them, how much I paid, and what the value was as listed in the identification and price guides I have.
It took two days. Monday was boxing day. All of the decorations came down and were packed away. The tree was undercoated, all of the ornaments stored in their tubs, and the tree was dismantled and put back in its storage box. All of the tubs were put back in the attic. Tom and I worked together, of course.
By Monday evening things were looking very bare.
Tuesday morning we cleaned. Then I began to replace the Santa collection with the pottery collection
and all of Tom's pop-up book collection is back on the shelves.
In the kitchen the Christmas garlands are gone and I hung up my collection of antique advertising utensils.
It's a very dismal day, dark, with steady light rain and 40°, a good day to be working inside.
The outdoor lights are still up, but now that the frost on the roof is gone, Tom will just need a break in the rain to get them down and stowed away.
After all of that was done, and since going for a walk was not a very attractive idea, I did ten miles on the stationary bike, while I finished a book on my Kindle.
Now the soup base is done for pozole for tonight's dinner, and tomorrow night's as well. Good comfort food for a dreary January day.
All is good.
We are the Star Wars Generations.
The first StarWars movie was released in 1977. I was 33, and the mother of two young children. Jill was four and Jake was two. We did not go to see it in the theater right away. We waited about a year, I think. Of course it was still playing in the local theater, because that was before everyone had a VCR. Now of course, everyone has a DVD player, but most often gets movies on the Internet. But I digress.
Jake was probably three before we took him to see it. Having had ear troubles from early on, he was sensitive to loud noise, so he watched the movie with his hands over his ears, but he watched it, every scene. We all did. And we loved it.
We didn't go to movies often and I don't recall that we went to the theater for the next two episodes of the original trilogy, which eventually became Episodes IV,V, and VI. That got very confusing, as years later the "Prequel", episodes I, II, and III were released. We eventually rented the tapes for the original three, but never did watch the Prequel.
But the next generation, our kids Jill and Jake, saw them of course. Then when Jill had her own kids, the six Star Wars movies were on her list of required cultural literacy. In fact she owns the DVDs for all six movies.
With the release of Episode VII, we were ready to jump back on the bandwagon. To get ready, over the holidays, we borrowed Jill's DVDs and watched all six episodes. Then we were ready to go to the movies!
Here we are, waiting for the 4:00 showing at the IMAX on New Year's Eve, 3-D glasses ready!
We were early to insure good seats, so of course we passed the time on our phones.
Episode VII is the next generation of Star Wars characters as well as the hook for the next generation of Star Wars fans. As much as most fans like the special effects and the noise and the battle scenes and the explosions, I am a character person. I fell in love with Luke and Leia and Han, and even Chewbacca and R2D2 and C-3P0. It was good to see most of them again. We have all aged, some perhaps better than others, but are still true to who they were.
The next generation of characters seems interesting too, especially the girl Ray, who appears to be the new embodiment of the Force. But I must be careful here, because "spoiling" is a sin and some of you are still planning to go see this movie.
I had to wait a long time through this movie to finally see a character important to me, and the final scene left me teary eyed, and wanting more.
Now I have to wait for another year or two.
Tom and I try to walk at least three miles almost every day, or if we can't get out, ten miles on the stationary bike. With a few misses over the holidays, we have still been doing fairly well.
Now it's the new year. We both have weight to lose, and physical well being to maintain. My favorite way of celebrating the new year is to go for a destination walk.
Since the Green River Trail is not far from us, and is so long that it's easy to do different sections of it for variety, that's where we were on January 1.
We have done this section before, south along the river from River Bend golf course, a 4.25 mile loop.
The Old Fishing Hole was mostly frozen over. The ducks weren't happy, but the gulls just walked on water.
On one side of the river is a farm road. The llamas were happy to have good warm coats.
Pussy willow buds are swelling.
Another common merganser on the river.
The Mountain, Mt Rainier for those who don't know about "The Mountain", looms large over the valley.
With everything still frozen in the shade, mist rises over the river where the sun finally strikes it.
This was an afternoon walk, and the treetops in the distance were already going golden in the sinking sun light as we finished up our first walk of the new year.
Now it's January 2nd already. We just finished a three mile walk this morning. It's still cold and clear. Now I can eat lunch!
I'm not sure when I last did a photo study of What's Blooming on January 1. I used to do it every year, after I read about an Englishman who did this.
We've had a lot of rain, followed by freezing temps, so there's not much abloom, but I found a few things.
This rose bud will never open, but it still holds on to its pretty pink.
OK, these are done blooming, but the rose hips still have a flower form.
I found several colors of scraggly, slug chewed primroses.
The Pieres Japonica buds will take their time opening, but they add winter interest.
These mop head hydrangeas have managed to hang on to some of their color.
Is this Kaffir Lily ( Schizostylis coccinea) too early or too late?
In a pot on the patio, this Heucherella didn't want to be shown up by the gaudy flowering kale.
We just added this winter blooming Mahonia. Hopefully it will grow big and supply winter food for the Anna's Hummingbirds that are year round here.
Winter jasmine always blooms for Christmas. Such a lovely little gem.
Some of the candy tuft, Iberis sempervirens, must have been fooled by warmer weather earlier.
Now it's shivering in the cold.
Viburnum davidii buds show pink through the Christmas light netting.
Oh good, the Sarcococca buds are opening. Soon I'll bring some sprigs inside to perfume the air.
Make no mistake, it's winter here too. We have ice, even if there is no snow.
Buds look like they are ready to pop, but they'll just tease up through March, most likely.
In the mean time, we can enjoy the frost, and the blue sky!
