My strange dream and our dinner from the garden

Hello everyone. We had very strong rain overnight. Mike said it was between two and three in the morning. The rain was hitting the window so hard, we both woke up with the noise. This reminded me of Japanese Typhoons. There were so many nights we woke up because of thunder and heavy rain. It was not just heavy. It was violent.

Here are four of yesterday's rabbits. See? They are much prettier! Initially I intended to make chopstick rests (Japanese soft spot!) from them, but after second thought half of them will be brooches. They are from a plaster mould I made. First, I made a whole rabbit. It was so cute that I wanted to make chopstick rests from it. So I cut the rabbit into two and made the mould from a half. Then I decorated them with oxide and clear glaze, and glaze-fired them. Yesterday I decorated with enamel. So I am following the method Imari have been made for four centuries. Bright colours like red and yellow will not survive glaze-firing temperature, which 1260C, or higher. So first, Imari porcelain is only decorated with cobalt blue based oxide and glaze-fired, then they were decorated with red. Then fired at a lower temperature to fix them. Kutani uses a similar method, but they will fire a same plate six times or more because they use so many different colours.  

My rabbit brooches.

I have had some strange dreams recently. One was that Mike and I were in Afghanistan. Mike bought four bags of something from an old tanned man with a turban. I paid him about £20. Next time I noticed, we were in a station, waiting for a train to Turkey. Then suddenly a pilot appeared from a door, so I realised that we were in an airport. I told Mike that Turkish customs might become suspicious with those bags. He went to another room to throw them away. Out of blue, I saw a glaze bucket in front of me. Muted yellow coloured glaze was in it. I started stirring it frantically. I somehow knew I had to glaze some bisque. Then the dream finished. When I told Mike about this, he laughed and said that I had been doing too much glazing recently. He is right.

Mike is harvesting runner beans

Some of tomatoes

Our vegetables from the garden are coming to an end. Still we can make one or two more meals out of them. Today, Mike cooked pasta with bacon and runner beans in tomato sauce, Tomatoes and beans were from the garden (well, tomatoes were from the greenhouse). We have eaten so many tomatoes this year. They are good raw or cooked.

Making tomato sauce - easy peasy way

Our apples are falling. Mike is going to make an apple cake tomorrow! I can hardly wait!

Our little apple tree