My summer garden

With all the spring rain we’ve had, summer is starting out exceptionally green and lush. My garden is full and beautiful to look at from my window. Unfortunately, with all the wetness, comes an abundance of bugs.

Deborah's garden

View of my garden from the road

On the left of the picture above is a fountain I made. It was inspired by a trip we made a few years ago to England. I saw a similar statue in the British Museum in London. Here is a the fountain from another angle.

Deborah's fountain

My fountain with hollyhocks in the background

As Far As Anyone Knows, We ARE A Normal Family!

2240B.jpg Thinking About the Holidays Is Making Our Family Stressed.

We make orders for the holiday season at a greater pace than we have in years. Our modern family works s a team and even though it may not be normal we still like to think of ourselves as a typical happy family. Mountaine Meadows has the perfect plaque for giving your hilarious kooky family.

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Welcoming A Daughter In Law

2265P.jpg As you know, our kids are always venturing out into the wilds far beyond Vermont….but this summer we had a ball with our son, Nathaniel, who’d just return home from a year in South Korea teaching. He’ll soon be starting a job in Washington D.C. and we couldn’t he happier that he and our new Daughter in Law Brittan will be on the East Coast close to home.
Suggest A Saying

As you can see, all our gift plaques come to us from the hilarity of our daily lives up at Mountain Meadows Pottery. What sayings come from your hysterical life? Maybe it’s a gift plaque in the making!

Fun and Friends as the days get shorter

I love how the long, warm summer days bring everyone outdoors for barbecues, neighborhood baseball games, ice cream cones, and lots of sports.  This is a time when friends, family, and fun definitely take top priority.  Mark has been playing tennis at least three times a week and manages to throw in a game of golf every once in a while.

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I ride my bike with friends in the evening on the old railroad bed that is across the street from the shop.  We have been riding there for years and it is great to share these summer days with friends.

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The days are just starting to get noticeably shorter, but we are still finding plenty of time to be outside enjoying the Northeast Kingdom.

Summer time in the NEK

Spring has finally turned into summer.  We have had a lot of rain these past few weeks so everything is as green as can be.  My garden is in full bloom, and the black flies are out in full force. Here are some pictures of my garden:
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When it’s too hot for gardening we have been spending a lot of time out on the water canoeing and kayaking.   It is definitely that time of year when there is nothing better than being by the water.

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We are back and Summer is here. How Glorious!

Boy does it feel great to be home. Summer in Vermont is not to be missed. Here are few pictures from our trip. We did see some amazing pottery, met lots of wonderful people, ate tons of very good food, and walked our feet off.

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We camped overnight on the Great Wall of China.

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We visited a small family tea farm, where we got to pick tea leaves and we LOVED the people watching not to mention the amazing porcelain!
Now it is time to relax, enjoy our gardens and the lakes and ponds all over Vermont. Mark and I are kayaking when we can and we got to go to Peaks Island, Maine. This Rachel Field poem so expresses the wonderful islands all along the Maine coast.
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Thinking about the fall

I am sitting by the fire knitting baby pumpkin hats (here is a link to the pattern I used) for a set of twins that were born just a few days ago. What cold be more appropriate for a fall evening? We have had weddings, births and sadly, a death here at Mountain Meadows. Our long time friend and carpenter David, passed away, suddenly, leaving us wondering how one person could have built so many useful things for us. Everywhere we look we see the products of his labors, tools, and ramps, shelving and displays, cherry cabinets, and pine doors.

Then, a few days ago we got word that a pair of little girl twins were finally born after a very long brave and thoughtful struggle by their parents.

Fall in Vermont is a very important time!  It is beautiful and magical as it transforms the landscape and our lives. We prepare for the quiet of winter, dreaming of the long nights by the warm fire with thoughts of new lives just arrived and lives passed on.

Gifts for loved ones, no matter who they are:

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Enjoy your fall wherever you are,

Deborah

Summer AH-AH Summer

Now that summer is finally here, we Vermonters are already thinking about ow quickly it will pass. Gardens are looking fantastic, both vegetable and flower gardens are at their peak now.

But it’s also time to relax and enjoy. It’s time to make a few trips to the beach.

2129P.jpg If you are like me it sometimes feels like I should be doing something a little more productive than sitting on the beach. That’s Wrong! Celebrate summer with an acknowledgment that “Time spent at the beach is never wasted” with a Mountaine Meadows plaque.

Or perhaps it is time spent at the golf course!
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At any rate, as we proceed through these tough economic times we need to take our fun where it finds us. Because as we all know, “It Is What It Is”. But, if that doesn’t make you feel better, why not “Wine a bit”?

Mothers’ Day

I love Mothers’ Day.  Of the 12 people who currently work at Mountaine Meadows, 9 are Mothers and 3 are grandmothers.That tells you a lot about our staff I guess. We have had 5 babies born in the last 3 years and have one due at the end of May!

That’s Alissa on the right, mixing clay, she is 6 months pregnant in this picture!
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One of the things I love the best about Mothers’ Day though is providing people with sentimental gifts for their Moms, from the electricians who work on our kilns, to the little boys who appear at our door, from time to time, looking for clay to play with. they all respond well when I remind them of the approaching holiday.
In this spirit, we are offering a Mothers’  Day special of shipping for just $2.00. You can ship any amount of plaques via United States Postal Service priority shipping, even just one, to a single address and pay just $2.00. Check out our special Mothers’ Day category for ideas.

But here are 2 of my favorites, both for daughters!

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If you are interested in finding out more about the history of Mothers’ Day you can check it out on Wikipedia. It’s nice to know that it wasn’t invented by Hallmark Cards after all, but was meant to be a day intended as a call to unite women against war when it was first celebrated in 1872.

Happy Mothers’ Day from all of us Mothers at Mountaine Meadows Pottery.

Deborah

March comes in Like a Lion and Goes Out Like a Lion

Here in the Northeast Kingdom March can be a cruel month, with its mud, and ice, and wind and promise. But it is March 14th and the sun was shining today, it was in the 30′s, AND wonder of wonders my snow drops had peeked their heads out of the dirt wherever the snow had melted back enough!

I am thinking about gardening in the worst way. The Brandywine tomato seeds my kids got me at  Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monitcello have sprouted. Soon I plant my sweet peas. These are my favorites. I get them from Renee Shepard because she has the best variety and lots of fabulous articles on their culture. We have new gardening plaques this year.

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We had a March Madness event at the pottery last Friday to help us forget about the weather. I called it Yuck Yuck Day. We paired up into buddies and each person had to figure out what made their buddy say “yuck”, as in “that’s disgusting”. My favorite example was the response elicited from Sheila when she was reminded of the time she emptied her dirty laundry basket and out popped a dead mouse.

The second “yuck” category was jokes. Each person had 2 categories of jokes that they needed to research and then tell. My favorite joke was in the category of fruit. “Why was the baby strawberry so sad? Because her Mom and Dad were both in a jam”

We also dressed up, as usual, here’s a picture.

Happy Spring, Deborah and Sheila

Deborah

The best part of the winter in Vermont

We are in the deepest of the winter up here in the north. It is the time of year when the quiet and cold drives one inside to read and contemplate and work on the types of projects you would never want to sit still long enough for in the summer. It is a very productive time if you can give yourself up to it.

At the pottery we are all wearing the mismatched socks from the Vermont Socklady we got at Christmas time. Check out her website for some really fun socks

http://www.socklady.com/index.php solmate socks

We are working on all kinds of winter projects. From making a new batch of our special towel aprons, to figuring out new ways to use the waste heat from our kilns. toewl aprons You can see the heat exchange system in this picture behind the rack of towels and aprons we are drying in the kiln room.

Hopefully this winter, we will develop a method for preheating the wash water for our towels, and glaze buckets and such.

It’s a good time to think about nice hot water.