Travels, Treasures and Home Again

Hello All...
Well, back again from a holiday at Lakeside...good to be home.
I have spent some of today catching up with my blogger friends....so thought it was my turn. We do not have easy access to the net at the lake (dial up, which takes forrreeevvveerr and we have to pay long distance charges), so don't spend much time reading or composing my blog.  I will continue my catch up tomorrow.
In the meantime, here is my story of late:  For you geography buffs...when we travel 'straight' west into British Columbia from Stettler, there are some foothills before the Rockies about three hours away, but when one goes south first and then west, there are long sloping hills - huge open grazing lands - large cattle ranches and  long straight roads with

the mountains way in the distance -- absolutely beautiful. If you look closely you can see fields of wind turbines catching those down slope winds raging in from the mountains.  The reason we went south first was to visit my son's in-laws in Creston which is only a few minutes from one of the border crossings, so that is how far south we were..hot, dry orchard country....and many artists creating in the sun :) yeah!..(this is where the Treasures come in)....one morning our son took us on an Artisan search, knowing that his mother would love that ;)...

At the end of a country road in an idyllic woodland setting we found Gunda Stewart- Orde Creek Pottery - where she creates wood fired and salt/soda functional pieces.  http://www.ordecreekpottery.blogspot.com/  (She admits she has not written for a while..I suggested she should ;))...What a wonderful couple of hours we spent there. Gunda built a wood kiln last Fall and told us all about it. ( I had not seen one 'up close and personal' nor my husband or son, so they found that very interesting!).  Thank you for your generous hospitality, Gunda.  I am drinking from my new mug as I write, and the Creston cherries are extra tasty in my new 'pit' bowl!   Tracey mentioned in a recent blog that we need to support our artists.. I did just that with the purchase of a watercolour of sunflowers by Elaine Alfoldy as well.

http://www.alfoldy.com/   That was just two of the four studios we visited en route.  It would take me a month to go the 600 miles if I stopped at all the studios along the way!

This route to Nicola lake takes you across the bottom of B.C. and then up through wine country along Lake Okanagan and of course we followed a couple of logging trucks for a few miles.so it is slow driving sometimes which gave me time to think that these logs would make a cool photograph.. I like the shadows and circles.

.And then there was some time at Lakeside for clay work too, between the water-fun times.  This is a rhubarb leave and the larger tray is holly hock leaves--also made three smaller dishes with leaf imprint, two pinch bowls (one of which ended up chucked into the bushes after I lovingly burnished it for hours and then it cracked on me!)  and my daughter -in-law made a mug and bowl for her porridge :)..-a new experience for her and she did a super job! 

We also took a trip down to Vancouver for the afternoon to visit my daughter.  In the backyard are these stunning hydrangeas. The colour is the photograph is quite true and the flower heads were 8 to 12 inches across!  And then to top off the trip, last evening almost home at ten o'clock, the full moon to greet us.--just as beautiful rising over a slough as shimming silver on the lake 600 miles away.