Kingsport Water Project

A long long time ago, in a province far far away...
Well OK. It was 2007, and we were temporarily in Newfoundland.
We received notice from the county here at home in Nova Scotia, that they were considering installing municipal water along our road and requesting permission to a well water test as the first stage of a process to determine whether the area needed municipal water supplied.
Sure, of course we thought, and notified our tenants that someone would be around to take a water sample.
As a result we got a free water test in February 2008, something you should do every so often anyway, if you have a well. The results of the test for us were OK. We got a report that indicated nothing harmful in our well, but did note that we have higher iron than is considered aesthetically pleasing.
I already knew that because of the rust stains on my tub and shower and toilet.
In June that year, there was a public information meeting about a water project which we couldn't go to because we were in Newfoundland. They did send out the overall results of the area water tests, which I found shocking. Of 80 tested samples, 17 had higher than acceptable levels of something that would affect peoples health. In other words, about 22% of households in my neighbourhood had unsafe drinking water. Mostly it was bromine from the sea water infiltration, but some houses had coliform or selenium too. 13 houses like ours had high iron counts and 15 had high sodium counts.
What followed next was a number of meetings to decided if we wanted to fork out the bucks to pay for a water line installation and how much we would be willing to pay. The first proposal didn't include the whole area, and some residents felt left out. These meetings had a distinct "Gilmore Girls' quality about them.
The next proposal six months later in 2009, doubled the cost per household to about $10,000 and we all balked at that.
The third proposal changed some of the engineering to reduce the cost and the price came out to $6000. Then we were asked to commit to the project or not. To get funding from various forms of government, the project needed 40% of residents committed to paying the $6 grand. We had to commit by a certain date, just before Christmas. We didn't get the 40% because who has time to look at this stuff just before Christmas?
The deadline was extended, and eventually in early 2010, we got the 40%.
Then the proposal went to county council for approval, and to the various levels of government for infrastructure funding, some of it only available this year, as economy booster funds, from the feds. If we didn't start actually doing something this year we wouldn't get that funding and the cost per household would go back up to $10,000.
Then came the long process of the main pipe installation which lasted all spring, summer and into the fall this year. The project was supposed to be completed in September, and in August there was another public meeting to tell us that it would probably be October, but we could pay our money now.
We paid up, and started wondering when we would find time to get the lateral pipe to the house installed this fall. Then came another public meeting to explain to residents how that was supposed to work. Apparently everyone else hadn't done anything either.
Finally, on Dec 1, we had the lateral installed to the house. That looked like this.

And This.And This.
On the up side, Peter got to rent a really big tool and drill through the foundation (3 times until we got it right.)
We still have only well water though. The Village is refusing to take ownership of the project from the county until a few engineering kinks are worked out. To complicate the process, some residents who had committed to paying are summer cottagers who got tired of waiting around and left for the season. Until they pay, the village doesn't want to take on the maintenance because they don't have enough houses connected to make that pay.
On Monday we had a wicked wind storm that knocked out power for 24 hours. With a well, when we lose power we lose water. So close and yet so far.Three years and counting.

December off to a bad start.

The first week of December seems to be cursed.
I was thinking this on Tuesday as I drove home from visiting Parrsboro, the town where I grew up and where my parents still live. I went for a funeral of a friend's grandfather. Listening to the radio in the car, I realized that it was the anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal 21 years ago, where 14 women were deliberately killed and others wounded as they attended classes.
It was also December 6th that the Halifax Explosion occurred in 1917 killing 2000 people, wounding about 9000 more and devastating much of the city.
Last week, before I left for the funeral, I got an email from a friend who had had a very bad day where she ran out of heating oil, had to give away some ruined produce, lost some cash, had a car accident and needed to wallow.
Just last night another friend recounted her first week of December saying Monday she had a flat tire, Tuesday she hit a deer on the road, Wednesday her computer hard drive died and she lost everything, Friday her sink backed up and her vacuum blew up just before dinner guests arrived.
Today I opened my email to find two obituaries.
I'm sure there are good things going on somewhere, but it does appear that the first week of December is a rough time.

Acadia Christmas Craft Expo

Last weekend I attended the Acadia Christmas Craft Expo. I remembered to take a picture of the booth before the hoards arrived. Doing a craft show is a bit like doing theatre. The booth is the set (which in my case was a bunch of found objects, including a plant stand I picked out of big garbage this summer and some wooden boxes that normally hold our firewood) I have future plans for a professional looking shelves that my personal carpenter can design. He also doubles as a system engineer in planning the efficient packing and transportation of pots. I was amused to see that other exhibitors who do this all the time don't seem to have a system other than cramming various sized boxes haphazardly into the back of a minivan.
There is also lighting considerations and prop placement and presentation.

Notice the new sign. I had a graphic artist friend design the logo which I used on business cards too.We got lots of positive comments about it, and I'm pretty sure it helped to fool people into believing I was a real potter. My friend also does website design under the name Wingspan.
This was my first big craft show, it was three days long, and I was pretty nervous about the cost and the duration of the show. In the end, I took in more money than it cost me to be there so I was happy.
I was also worried that I didn't have enough stuff to exhibit. My attempts to make pots were disappointing because things kept cracking as they dried. I fired only one kiln before the show, and it over fired because the kiln sitter didn't shut off and I just kept waiting for it to drop instead of manually doing it myself. I chalk that one up to being overtired. Once I realized what was going on, I had visions of all my pots stuck to the shelves, but the glaze behaved very well despite my idiocy and only two pots suffered damage.This chip plate cracked on the edge of the bottom. I'm not sure that is a firing problem or a construction problem. It looked fine after the bisque fire, but the extra heat work in the over firing glaze kiln may have put too much stress on the bottom.This vase looked fine out of the kiln, but on day two of the fair the glaze started to flake off the shoulder, as if the pot contracted more than the glaze. Luckily, it was the only pot with that particular glaze.My fear about not having enough stuff to sell proved to be true. I sold lots on Friday and Saturday, but by Sunday the table was looking a little thin. We sold mostly butter dishes and mugs and vases the first two days. No bowls. By Sunday, those items were mostly gone and we sold four bowls. I observed the interesting phenomenon that no one wants to buy the last of something. As long as we had lots of a style of mug, we could sell them, but once there was only one of each style left, no one wanted the last one. Always have at least two of something so they can choose which one they want.
The other observation was that only other exhibitors appreciate coil built pots. The general public passes by them without a glance, but other exhibitors understand how much more work they are. I traded the red coil pitcher for some leather work at the end of the show. This is one of the benefits of going to a craft fair, you get to trade your stuff for other stuff which is gratifying because it means other people want your stuff. But also, in a lull, you can get your Christmas shopping done.
In all, it was a good experience.

Laundry List of Fun and Exciting Things

Wow, I have a whole laundry list of fun and exciting things to write about. I've been so busy doing all these fun and exciting things that blogging was impossible. It is a real time commitment to do this regularly and I admire people who do, but I don't know where they find the time. Perhaps it is just me struggling to find the perfect phrase instead of just dashing off whatever comes out that makes it more time consuming that it should be.
Enough naval gazing. On with the list.

Just before my first craft show I attended an awesome workshop put on by the Nova Scotia Potter's Guild. They had Joan Bruneau of Nova Terra Cotta Pottery in Lunenburg do a 1 day workshop on how she alters and decorates her pots. I love the idea of altering thrown pots, but when ever I try it my pots just look lumpy and sad. Now I understand that when she alters her pots, she has a plan before she starts. Go figure. Lots of other potters were there including some potters that I didn't think needed to see any workshop, namely Ray Mackie from Lucky Rabbit Pottery, and Jim Smith from Chester. Yes, I'm name dropping. Going to a workshop like this is like watching the Brier on TV. You can see how it is done, you understand the process and you get really jazzed up to try it; and then you plunge into the depths of dispair when you realize that knowing and doing are different. I just don't have those skills yet.

Speaking of the Brier, October came and that means curling season again. You would think that after 7 months of professional gardening (not to mention the unprofessional hours put in at home); months spent bending and stretching and lifting and shovelling and pushing and carrying and raking, that the little matter of sliding around on ice and doing a bit of sweeping would be no problem. It is not like I spent the summer drinking beer (well yes OK I did that too.) I am a pretty active person. But apparently for all the muscle groups I use in the summer, gardening and swimming and well, drinking beer, I did not use the muscle groups required to slide out of the hack 16 times and sweep 48 rocks in two hours. My work colleagues got some amusement watching me groan about the first week. For some reason, climbing in and out of a truck seem to be the worst, and I only do that about 50 thousand time a day. Life was complete madness on those overlapping weeks when I was starting to curl twice a week, preparing for and going to craft shows and still working. Happily I stopped work and now all is fine.

The parks department finished work last Friday, one day before my second craft fair. I sold the same number of pots as the first show: three, but as Peter wasn't with me to buy things and lunch was catered, I came out $19 ahead. Whoo Hoo! I am, however still learning who buys pottery. I can tell you that women with small children DO NOT buy pottery, because they cannot justify spending money on a beautiful object that will get broken when Walmart sell those object in plastic or metal for less. This is as good a reason for not having children as I have ever heard.

That show was also in the middle of a terrible rain storm that went on for 5 days, flooding south west Nova Scotia and washing out roads and bridges in many communities. It was not a hurricane although the winds on Friday were higher than during those so called hurricanes we had this year. We were untouched, but I was constantly amazed at how full the rivers were last weekend. Our Habitant River, normally a ditch with barely a trickle of water, was 25 feet wide and probably as deep. Even in the spring melt I have never seen it so high.

This was also the weekend my dear parent- in-laws came for a visit. They had been attending a reunion in Fredericton at the University of New Brunswick and popped over here before heading back to British Columbia. At this time of year, we could have easily been under snow or at least experiencing freezing weather, so 5 days of rain is not so bad. Except the wind and rain cancelled all flights into the airport and they were delayed 24 hours before they arrived. Had they known, they could have driven the distance in a mere 6 hours. It was dismal and gloomy for their visit throughout, I don't think they miss this coast at all.

My next hurtle is the 3 day craft fair at the end of this week. Since the parent-in-laws left I am potting full time, in a crazy push to get things through the entire process so I have some fresh new things for the show. Typically perhaps, the full time push has meant that my pots are drying much more quickly as I am leaving them uncovered to hurry them along. Consequently my pots are developing stress cracks in the bottoms. I had to recycle two vases yesterday and one chip and dip plate today. I suspect a large bowl and a small casserole will be next. At this rate I may have nothing at all to fire which will certainly free up some time. It's frustrating because stress cracks are not usually a problem for me, but I've been going through a phase and some of my bowls came out of the last glaze kiln with cracks too. I have had to bag up the remaining pots to prevent them drying too fast and therefore I have nothing to do, so today, instead of pottery I mowed up the leaves on the driveway and watched a movie. It was like a forced day off. The forced slow down may mean nothing gets finished before the weekend.

Goods and Bads of the Craft Fair Circuit

The last few weeks I've been stressing about my first official craft show which was today. I've been pushing stuff through the kiln, hoping I had enough to actually make a display. Pulling my hair out when the glaze results were disappointing and getting really frustrated when many of my large bowls developed cracks.
No matter how unprepared I was though, the show came anyway, and today we went. That is not the royal We, Peter went too.

It was a small show in a local school that was a fund raiser for the football team. There were a number of crafters there, two gymnasiums full. (is that meant to be gymnasia? yes I think so but the spell checker doesn't agree) I was the only potter, which was good and bad. Good because anyone who was desperate for pottery had to come to me, and good because there was no real potter's pottery that people could look at and then realize that mine is pretty rudimentary. Bad because apparently not that many people were desperate for pottery today. Bad because I was hoping to snoop other booths before the show to decide out what sort of prices would be reasonable. There was nothing comparable, except a glass slumping artist who used recycled liquor bottles to make trays and I didn't see her until after lunch. Bad because much of the craft was someone's Granny who has nothing else to do and so sells extremely elaborate and time consuming items for less than what it would take to buy the materials. Bad also because what with buying Blackberry Jam, Chicken Bones* and coffees and lunches at the school cafeteria I think we took in $2 less than we spent.

This purple butter dish was much admired and handled, but no one bought it.

More Bads than Goods.
It was a very slow day, everyone said so. And this was a Good. We got to chat to a lot of the regulars that do the craft fair circuit, and they are all very friendly and welcoming and supportive of each other and us. If we hadn't talked to anyone, I think I would have come home completely demoralized and just packed it all in right then and there. But it was apparent that no one was selling much at all. Even the stuff that was cheaper than dirt wasn't moving.

This new Spiderweb bowl was much admired and handled, but no one bought it.

On second thought, as pottery is comprised mainly of dirt I think I will retire that expression, because my dirt wasn't that cheap. After agonizing over pricing, I don't think that I would have sold any more pots if my prices were lower, but I do know I would have been much less satisfied to sell more pots at lower prices. At the end of the day, I think the people who come out to support a Football Club fundraiser in a rural high school are simply not the people who want a One-of-a Kind, handcrafted butter dish. I realized this when one woman asked if I had a margarine holder instead, something she could slot a Becel tub directly into. My first thought was, "Why would anyone want to eat Becel?"

I have heard other potters say that everyone wants blue, and it is true,
many people admired this mug with the blue rim, but no one bought it.

The next fair is in two weeks. Hopefully it will be better. I am no longer stressed about having enough stuff for a display, at this rate I could do 10 more Fairs without stepping into the studio. But I will keep at it instead, because pottery must be like gardening; you only do it if deep down you are an optimist.

*Chicken Bones are a candy, often seen around Christmas, that are long pink hard candies with chocolate stripes up the centre.

Happy Thanksgiving

We went to the folks for turkey day this weekend. Managed to steal extra turkey to bring home for a leftovers meal tonight. Yum.
The weatherman is calling for frost tonight so I harvested the last of the tomatoes and the cukes in the garden this afternoon. The cukes were numerous, huge and probably a bit tough. I am getting a little tired of Greek salad for lunch so I put them out at the end of the driveway with a sign that said Free. Hopefully someone making pickles will rescue them. I just don't have the time or the inclination. The tomatoes were washed and sorted into three piles. The ripe and ready had the bad bits cut off and went directly into the freezer. The green ones went into a box and got covered with newspaper. The in-betweens got put on top of the box and will be eaten or frozen as they ripen. By the time I'm through those, the green ones should be ripe too.
I dried a bunch of herbs a few weeks ago, but not many. I tried to get back out tonight before it go dark to grab some more to dry but it didn't happen. So I went out with the flashlight and grabbed the basil at least. While this sounds funny, the farmer growing cow corn in the field next door is out there in his harvester as we speak. So if I'm not in good company, I'm in professional company. The rest of the herbs are perennial, but it is such a shame to waste basil, especially when it dries so well. Now the house smells so much like fresh cut basil that it is giving me a headache.
No pictures with this post because the battery in the camera is dead. Maybe tomorrow.

Canning in Canning

How can it be October already?
Not so much blogging going on right now because autumn is one of those insanely busy times. Who knew?
After Earl blew through, our summer evaporated into fall overnight, and my activities were based around figuring out what to do with all the food in the garden and at the farmers markets. I attempted to make crab apple jelly, from some free crab apples I picked off a tree at work. It didn't gel. I have never done jelly before because it is so much bother to drip it through a cheese cloth and who has a cheese cloth anyway? I used an old pillowcase. After I bottled it up and realized it wasn't going to set, I read the directions more closely and figured it must be because I did everything wrong. Boiled it too slowly, made a double (actually triple) batch, didn't stir much, used too large bottles. Now I have bottles of crab apple syrup in the pantry. Will it gel if I try again and add commercial pectin?
On to the next adventure: Salsa.
This is something I do every year because I like salsa but I hate the stuff you buy in the grocery store. To me it tastes like they add liquid smoke to it. For years I would run out in April and have to make due or swear off Mexican food until August. Now I have it down to a science, and I know if I can make a bottle for every month we will probably be ok. As usual, I attempted to grow everything I needed in the garden this year, and as usual, I didn't succeed. The garlic was great, the onions are still too small, the tomatoes suffered from the cooler weather and many split on the vine, I got two hot peppers off my hot pepper plants (all four of them) and they weren't hot, the green peppers I gave up on after the squirrels ate my seedlings in May. So once again I bought everything at a local farmers market (except the cilantro, which farmers in Nova Scotia apparently don't grow because I went to 4 farm markets looking for it and ended up at the Stuperstore for some grown in Mexico, no doubt.
Study Boy re-emerged the last few months, and he travelled to Newfoundland to present his research proposal for approval in September. He got approval, with some added suggestions from the peanut gallery which he is madly working into it so it can go to ethics approval and he can start some research. He's also teaching this term, so suddenly life chores like groceries get a little more difficult.
While he was away, I had some house guests. A very good school friend of mine (like I'm talking Elementary school here) and her family came for a short visit because they had a wedding to attend. It was unfortunately cold and wet that weekend, so we just hung out and it was really nice to have them here. They are all great friends and it is nice to see how much they love each other. The girls tried their hands at making pots one afternoon.
Kaleigh's is the taller slightly wonky one, she is 11. Kennedy who is 15, made the short fat one. She pointed out it was just like one of the family. They are both excellent attempts for first bowls, and my other local potter friend have all been impressed. I promised to have them glazed for Thanksgiving weekend when I went home to Parrsboro. They picked the colours and they are in the kiln now as I type. I hope they like the results.
Fall is also the time to stack winter wood, and ours was delivered and stacked one weekend. It felt so good to have that chore all done. We only ordered two cords, because we have most of two cords left from our last order and we think that will be all we burn this year. At this rate we will always be burning two year old wood.
Then the weather changed again last week and all of a sudden it was summer again. Yay from me, but everyone seems grumpy about this. It was even warm at night, I think we were getting the tropical winds blowing up from the south. The rain storms that caused flooding in the States seemed to be pushing their air up here. I convinced the pool boy to get the heater running again, and by Thursday our pool water was up to 22 degrees again. On Friday Oct 1 the water was 24 degrees. Yesterday started out warm, but we had a rain storm and that cleared the air and the temps started dropping, we went for a swim anyway. The water was still 24 with the help of the furnace, it was actually warmer than the air temperature so it felt really nice. This picture was our second attempt, the first had Peter trying to race the camera timer down the ladder, so for this one he did a barrel roll over the side and popped up wet into view just as the camera went click. Today it was cooler, and as the over night temps were only 6 degrees, we knew it was our last hurrah. You can see the arctic smoke on the water this morning and the trees changing colour lit up by the morning sun. After the swim we drained the pool and hopefully this week of cool sun will dry it enough to roll up and put in the barn for winter.
I still hope for days warm and dry enough to ride the new bike to work. I've decided to name him Bahn, Otto Bahn.
Fall is also the time of craft fair madness, and I signed up for three this year. The first is Oct 23 so I've been trying to get some new pieces finished for that. I don't expect sales to be stellar, but I'm going to each of these fairs hoping to learn what best sells and what prices people will pay. I've been making bowls and mugs and butter dishes, and have come to the conclusion that mugs are terribly finicky and my best bet is probably larger bowls and casseroles and pitchers. I'm getting ever so business like and have ordered shopping bags and asked an artist friend to design me a logo. I won't have any fancy display, but it will build as I go along I think.

Earl Just a Big Blowhard

Last Thursday I finished the butter dishes I started the week before. I threw the knobs on Sunday, and promptly knocked them all over so they all had a flat side. Instead of trying to fix them, or throwing new ones, the sweetie suggested I accentuate the flat side. So this group all have knobs with at least one side shaved flat. I liked the idea so much I thought I might try it on other bits of other pots in the future.
I'm also in a chattering phase. I like that I can add some interesting detail to the pot without making it too fussy or ruining it in the glazing stage by trying to be clever. Chattering is something I can reproduce so my pots are actually starting to look like I have a 'style.' I think in the next week I should have enough for a kiln load. Gotta keep pushing along.

Hurricane Earl was forecast to make landfall in Nova Scotia on Saturday morning, and then blow up the Bay of Fundy, directly over us, and on into Moncton in New Brunswick. As is often the case, when a hurricane hits Nova Scotia, it veered east, and ran up the south shore instead, making landfall in Lunenburg county and doing most of it's damage in Halifax instead of in the Annapolis Valley before winds quickly dropped to tropical storm strength. Halifax did lose power for 24 hours because it is a very old city with lots of mature trees overhanging power lines. I don't mean to belittle this storm or the damage it caused, but while it was happening I was listening to a TV news reporter in Halifax tell me how strong the winds were, and in the background of the shot, I was watching a guy go by on a unicycle. Nuff said.
We went to Parrsboro on Friday night, and my dad has a weather station which clocks the wind speed. (Because that's the kind of guy he is.) I think the fastest gusts of wind were around 60km/h.
We battened down everything we could before we left on Friday and hoped it would all be OK. We had just one casualty, the dead American elm at the north west corner of the lot had blown down. This is all that is left standing. It has been dead since we moved in 7 years ago. It isn't ours, it was just on the neighbour's side of the line, and it has been towering over our roof like the Sword of Damocles the whole time.
Our neighbour hasn't wanted to take it down, which would require an arborist and be very costly I suppose, but every year it got a little smaller as the top branches would break off and land in our yard. The sweetie secretly hoped it would fall on the house so the neighbour would have to pay for repairs, but I am not that silly. The wind on Saturday was from the south east, so happily it blew away from the house and didn't even land on our property for clean up.
We went to Moncton on Sunday and came back to the valley through the Cobequid Pass, a very high road through the centre of northern Nova Scotia. I was driving the truck and I thought the wind gusts felt about the same as the day before, so Earl turned out to be a pretty dull event.

Sunday was not a dull event though. We went to Moncton specifically to buy this. A shiny red 850 R series BMW. Typical of us, instead of waiting until we sell our current motorcycles to buy a new one, we now have three. I haven't decided on a name yet, it has to be something German obviously, and I have a tendency to think of bikes as a 'he' so that should narrow it down. I'll take suggestions.
We spent the afternoon riding it around the local school yard to get a feel for the brakes and clutch and throttle. The sweetie has always wanted a BMW bike, and I'll admit that I've wanted one since I realized they sound more like a sewing machine than a machine gun. Sadly, it is supposed to rain all week, so I can't take it to work and show off.

Chapter and Prose

Lots to talk about, so longish post. Here goes with titles so those of you skiving at work can skim.

Pottery

Last weekend my friend Natalie came over for a pottery session. Natalie is a pinch potter that I met in Newfoundland at the Craft Council Studio. She is spending the next year going back to school to get an M.Ed, and so she is going to get her clay fix with me. The bonus to having her here is that she motivates me to do things too. So while she continued working on a pinch pot that she started the week before, I actually made some butter dishes and got the studio a little more organized. Here is a lovely little pinch pot she made in a mere 6 or 8 hours. And I thought coiling was slow.


Studio Upgrade

My tiny studio is feeling a little small lately. The first week Nat came, we potted outside on the patio until it got dark, but this week it got dark just that little earlier. With Natalie being here, and my friend Susann occasionally too, and Colleen across the street waiting to fire some things I was getting short on shelf space. So carpenter man built me some cubby holes into a space that will eventually be a window when the studio is eventually a sun porch. If the spaces seem small understand that each shelf is removable to make a taller space as needed, and each shelf is just the right size to double as a bat on my wheel. Clever.

Bye Bye Binky

We have decided that we are not motorcycle tinkerers. Both our motorcycles are 30 years old and need constant tinkering to run well (or at all) I like riding a bike, not repairing one, and between gardening and swimming and PhD ing they just doesn't get the tinkering time they really need. Therefore we have listed both our motorcycles on KIJIJI to sell this fall with the plan that we will buy one newer more reliable and less problematic (hopefully) motorcycle to share between us. It is sad to see Binky go, he was a good first bike, I think a person becomes attached to these things like their first car or teddy bear. Peter is not so find of the Cherry Red Virago, but it has always been a problem child.

R-U-N-N-O-F-T

While I am left alone to reply to motorcycle inquiries, Study Boy has flown to Ottawa for a Canadian Association of University Teachers Conference until Friday. In my head I pictured getting lots of stuff done while he was away, but tonight is my first day without him and I am realizing just how much stuff he does that I now have to do by myself. Like walking the dog, feeding the dog, shocking the pool, making dinner and watering the greenhouse. So much for getting other stuff done, it is now 23 minutes past my bedtime and I still have to put gas in my bike for tomorrow and water the greenhouse.

Speaking of Water

The long wait is nearly over, last week we signed up to get the new municipal water service coming through our community. We still haven't booked a contractor to dig the hole and lay the pipe to the house, but we are at least started. We have until December to hook up, but hopefully we can get to it sooner than that. Knowing that we dug a trench last February though, I'm not holding my breath or anything. The county has organized a loan to people wishing to sign up because the cost of installing the line and service is $6000 for each homeowner, but this means you will get an $850 bill every year for the next 10 years. We have great water but we are at the mercy of power outages so we decided to do it now rather than later when the cost would be even more after December. I met one man who said his water was good too, but all his neighbours' wells had gone bad from seawater infiltration and he figured that his will eventually go too. Two years ago they tested all wells and found that 25% were unacceptable because of seawater or farm contamination. Water security is a big issue, so I think we are being prudent in spending this kind of cash.

Robbery in the Park

Sad news. Yesterday while I was working in Waterfront Park I was robbed. Truly. I left the park to get a rake from my truck, I was gone only three minutes but when I came back my tool belt was gone. Admittedly, I left it on the grass, because it didn't occur to me that anyone would want to take it. My tool belt has very sentimental value to me, my Sweetie made it for me in 1995 for my birthday in Vancouver when I was still a sound technician. Over the years it was adapted to be a gardener's tool belt. Off came the flashlight and pliers holders and on went the pruners and digging knife. Most of the tools were issued at work, but the belt and the original gak bag were mine. So was the Gerber multi tool, another Sweetie birthday present, from about 1998 I think. I looked everywhere for it, including the garbage cans and the mud flat bottom of the harbour but it is gone. The Mounties don't expect it to turn up, but I spent a half hour today with a nice constable who took my formal statement for the file.

Perilously Close to the End

Long time no post I know. I haven't been doing much except enjoying the weather and hoping it won't end. Last week I realized the days were getting shorter, so I decided that it was time to have a summer party and invite round all the people I have been meaning to invite round all summer but hadn't. I called it the Perilously Close to the End of Summer Barbecue and Pool Party Party. It served two purposes: the first was the obvious social purpose, the second was a cunning plan to get the house and yard clean for the annual Mother In Law visit this weekend. It worked a treat. The pool boy cut the lawn and tidied the yard which left me several hours on Saturday to clean the house without his disapproving eye rolling, and the house stayed mostly clean for when his mum arrived this morning. The party was successful in that we ate lots, drank lots, had many bodies in the pool and ate leftovers for three days.
In fact some of the guests didn't leave until Wednesday, so it made for what seemed like a very long weekend even though I went back to work as usual on Monday, a little bleary eyed. I couldn't quite believe it yesterday when it turned out to be Friday already. In between, we all went to see Valley Summer Theatre's Woman in Black on Tuesday night. As we were all theatre or former theatre professionals I won't give you a review because I suspect we are all a bit harsh in our criticism for various reasons. I never like the sound for anything, the costumer thought the clothes didn't indicate the time period and the actor thought the accents were all over the map. We didn't pay for the tickets so I think it was definitely worth the price.
On Thursday evening a potter friend came to pot which was lovely because it got me out of my lazy lapse and made me organize the studio and get moving on making some things. October is the beginning of Christmas craft fair madness and I must get moving on making some items for that. Not this weekend though because as already mentioned, Betty is here for a visit. Today, we visited Kingsport and ate ice cream. Being the bad correspondent I am, I didn't take photos of any of this, so you will just have to use your imagination.

Home for the Holiday

Last weekend we went to Parrsboro to visit the folks. This is a picture of Cape Split from the other side of the bay. It was my mother's birthday; she still continues to amaze by being two years younger than her youngest daughter. I'm not saying that the province declared a holiday on Monday in her honour, but it is called Natal Day so you figure it out.
The weekend ending July and beginning August created sobering thoughts. It is now or never for all those tasks that we said we would do this summer. Even though summer officially ends on the Autumnal equinox, everyone really knows it ends on Labour Day. EEEK! Only 4 more weeks.
Even the weather has changed to remind us that it will not always be warm. And this morning at 6am it was actually still dark because the rain clouds were blocking out my sun.
Shorter days, cooler temperatures, time to start cramming.
The must do's are wood, water, clay and tar. That is to say: order wood for winter, install water to the house, make pots for fall sales and shingle the roof of the garage.
The wanna do's are visit friends and see some theatre before it is all gone.
The would be good to do's are finish clapboarding the house and finally plant the vineyard.
Why am I still writing?

Playing with Clay Again

After a 6 week hiatus, (really has it been that long?) I went back into the studio this week spurred on partly by some frustrations at work. Pottery as therapy. I threw a couple pitchers, or maybe they are jugs, on Thursday. One was OK the other not great both in shape and proportion. Frankly after several weeks of not doing anything, I expected to get nothing at all so 50% is not so bad. With the fugly one I experimented with pulling a handle with the clay already attached. I have never done this before, but as I am never happy with the shape and attachments of my handles I figured it couldn't hurt to try something new, especially on a piece that was already doomed. I am not any more happy with the result as with my usual method. I can never seem to get the shape symmetrical on both sides, or straight on the piece or the attachments as artless as other potters seem to be.
On Saturday we went to Halifax to see the summer craft show of the Nova Scotia Designer Craft Council. It is a smaller show than the Christmas one, but it was still fun to see. It was a recon mission to scope how others sent up their booths and to steal ideas for making things. Everyone has a different way to deal with displaying their wares, my favourite was using drum stands as tiny tables for a jewelry display. Too small for pots, but I did see some modular shelves that were infinitely adaptable to different sized wares depending on what kind of show.
It was also good because I came back jazzed up to make some new things. I began almost right away with some slump molding. I tried this once in Newfoundland, and it was good but the piece cracked before it finished drying so I didn't try it again. It is good to get away from the cult of round and just make fun things for the joy of it. I'm trying a looser approach, at least this week.

My Morning Routine

This morning, as usual, after my 30 minute sleep in and my first cup of coffee, I wandered out to the berry patch to gather some fresh gooseberries for my yogurt and muslix breakfast.

Then after dawdling around some more, I finally realized (as usual) that I had about 10 minutes before I needed to go to work and proceeded to rush around (as usual) getting dressed, making lunch, finding keys and shoes and sun screen and remembering that I should water the greenhouse and turn on the drip line in the berry patch.

Yup. That's pretty much my morning routine.

Except this morning was anything but routine. When I finally went to hook up the drip line (now 5 minutes late leaving for work, as usual) I noticed there was something wrong with the pool. It was only an inch deep.

It had collapsed sometime between 9'0clock last night and 7:35 this morning. The weird thing is, I can't tell you if it was like that at 6:30 when I went to pick gooseberries or if it happened this morning in that 65 minutes. At any rate I had just enough time to tell the pool boy the news before I had to rush off to work, unhappy in the knowledge that for the first time in weeks, I would not be swimming tonight after a long hot stinky day in the sun.
We suspected this might happen but we were hoping it wouldn't. Once we set up the pool and had it filled we realized what we thought was a level piece of ground was only sort of level. It was in fact about 4 inches out which translated over an 18 foot diameter, 4 feet deep is quite a bit of water pushing on one side of the pool just waiting for an excuse to tip. Of course, once the pool is full of 20,000 litres of water there isn't much you can do about that. Now that the pool is no longer full of 20,000 L of water we decided that this was an opportunity to fix the underlying problem.
Pool Boy went to work and ordered a load of top soil to level out the pad. We were hoping it would be delivered today but it hasn't arrived. He did prepare for it by using small stakes you see in the picture to find out what level is. Hopefully, we can get the topsoil tomorrow and begin refilling the pool by tomorrow night.
Unfortunately, we invited friends for a Brunch/Pool party on Sunday morning. I don't think there will be much chance of it being filled by then.

Pools and Pots

If there has ever been a good summer to get a pool, this is it. Hot, Hot, Hot. Which I'm not complaining about because I love it when it is hot, especially if I know I can just cool off in a pool at 4 o'clock quitting time. Which I do, every day. The pool boy and I both notice that we wake up stiff like we have been exercising a lot, and it took us while to figure out that an hour of paddling and splashing is actually a lot more exercise that we would normally get. The pool boy now wants to gear the pool up to be an indoor heated winter pool by erecting a heated poly tunnel around it and putting a wood stove in it. I put my foot down at that one, but as I was standing in the pool at the time I worry that he didn't notice. He did eventually get a timer for the solar heater operation so I lost that battle too.
Recently it has also been muggy, which I'm not so fond of. We had massive rain on the weekend but it didn't help with the humidity and everything was soggy including the washing I tried to dry by hanging up in the house on a retractable clothes line strung diagonally from the living room to the kitchen. It took all day Sunday to dry, 12 hours from 10am to 10pm. And the stuff closest to the kitchen smelled faintly of bacon and eggs after Sunday morning brunch.
Between pool and gardening and getting the bike on the road (yikes! in July, that is just pathetic yes?) I haven't had anything really interesting to blog about.
Sunday, during the monsoon, I fired a glaze kiln for my friend and neighbour Colleen who is also an aspiring potter. I used the medium sized kiln, which had a problem with the top coils the last time I used it. They didn't heat up. It took hours to get up to temperature, but I figured that as Colleen didn't have a full kiln load, I could just put ware below the top shelf and everything would be fine. But disaster! This time the top two elements didn't come on, and all but the very bottom shelf were under fired. Not really a huge disaster, but I did spend all day Sunday watching it and now I have to re-fire the majority of what was inside. I guess I also have to solve the problem of why the elements are not coming on. I am hoping it is a flaky switch and not bad elements. When I bought the kiln I was told it had recently been refurbished so I figured the elements would be OK. Just another thing to put on the ever growing list.

How to Heat a Pool

Not content with merely having a pool, almost as soon as it was obvious that it was going to fill up with water, the pool boy set about inventing a solar heater for it. He has wanted to play with passive solar for a while, but I won't let him do crazy things like this inside the house with the hot water heater. I know, I know, I'm such a kill joy.
His theory has always been, that a black hose filled with water will heat up in the sun, and if you could use a circulator pump to take cool water out of the pool and put the warm hose water into the pool, it would help heat up the pool. His first version was 200 feet of 1/2 inch poly pipe coiled onto a piece of plywood pointing at the sun. When the circulator pump was turned on, it added warm water to the pool for about 90 seconds and then the water coming out of the hose was pool temperature again. The pump pumped too fast. So about every 1/2 hour, you could add a few gallons of warm water for a few seconds. Promising but not perfect.
Then he remembered that we had lots of copper and aluminum finned base board radiators kicking around from when we renovated the house and replaced the baseboard with in-floor radiant. So he soldered them all together, spray painted them black and mounted them on another piece of plywood. The extra pipe added more water to the heating loop which adds extra heat. The aluminum fins collect more solar and transfer it to the copper pipe, and the copper pipe heats up more than the poly pipe. A lot more. The water coming out of the return hose is too hot to hold your hand under, and the water is warm for a lot longer, about ten minutes in fact. The cool water from the pool continues to steal heat from the hot copper pipe until it is the same temperature as the water, so it is not just the extra volume of pipe that adds heated water, but several minutes of heat transfer after the initial water has gone through the loop.
The next design stage saw the two pieces of plywood attached together and mounted on a pivoting bolt so the solar collector can be swivelled to always face the sun. It all works really well on sunny days. We have had the pool water up to 26 degrees Celsius on sunny warm days. On overcast days though the temperature is only 22 degrees Celsius, which is what is would probably be without a solar heater. On breezy days the aluminum fins actually act as a cooling device, and the wind will steal heat away from the pipe as the water goes through.
He has talked about enclosing the whole system under a clear sheet of plastic or glass to protect it from wind. I don't dare suggest that the pump operation could be put on a timer or that the swivel bolt be hooked up to a motorized cart. Perhaps that will be next year's pool adventure.
I'm told that some people use their pools to swim in.

How to Steal A Pool

Long before dumpster diving was fashionable, and consignment stores were chic, foraging was a way of life in Nova Scotia. We are an economically depressed people, and for generations we have traditionally relied on re-cycling and used items, DIY projects, and the barter system to get stuff which otherwise would be beyond our reach.
When big garbage day rolls around, you can pick up some pretty cool stuff, and it's not like stealing because those people were just going to throw it out anyway. In fact people deliberately put out stuff early to give other people a chance to pick through it. This spring we put out a broken gas whipper snipper and it didn't last a day before someone came along and decided they could use it or fix it or whatever and took it away. As long as it is obvious that the item is no longer wanted by the previous owner, it is fair game. This is how we came to steal a pool.
It was just sitting there.
No one was using it.
Honest.
Last Monday we decided to go get it. It is one of those easy set up** above ground vinyl ones from Cambodian Tire. It was mostly empty as it had been sitting there on the ground in the neighbour's yard since last summer. It sat there all winter too, empty and forlorn. The neighbour's moved out last February and no one lives in the house. The house, in real estate terms is a century old fixer upper with character (read filthy condemned dump.) The lot is now being used as a place to store materials for the water main construction coming through to Kingsport. Dump trucks and loaders trundle by endlessly. You can understand why we removed the pool from the overgrown back yard. It was a rescue mission.
It had about 4 inches of water in it from the rain storms the previous week so we knew it held water. With much effort, and without waiting to don some more appropriate clothing, we hauled on the sides grunting and slipping on the algae until it emptied, getting soaked and extremely dirty in the process. It's pretty big, so I squished home to get the pickup while the other one searched for the rest of the bits in the long grass. It was at this point that it occurred to me that this was the sort of story my parents used to tell about their pre-children days.
We hauled it into the truck, along with the plastic ground sheet beneath it. The ground sheet looked and smelled like it used to cover a pile of manure, so now we were really dirty. Once at home, we hosed down the plastic sheet (and ourselves) and set about seeing if the the slimy bits would come off the pool. They did.
I must tell you that I have never really wanted a pool. Last year when our friends Andrew and Christine got a pool the other one asked me if I wanted one, and my rely was "No, I want friends with a pool, the same way I want friends with a cottage by the ocean and friends with a sail boat, and friends with and apartment in Manhattan and a town house in London. That way you get the benefits without the hassles."
One Tuesday we set it in place and started filling it up to clean it. That was when I remembered what I thought about pools and hassles.
On Wednesday we filled it.
On Thursday we were still filling it and starting to wonder about the water volume in our well.
It was looking good so we decided to buy a filter pump at The Tire. That's when the math stopped making sense. A new pool just like ours cost $299 and includes a pump, and a ladder. After paying for a new pump and ladder (which we couldn't find in the neighbour's yard) and buying the necessary filters and chemicals, we ended up forking out about $200. So much for the free pool.
On Friday we were still cautiously filling it and we started to filter the water and scrub the pool. The pool boy invented a DIY pool vacuum from a Central VAC unit he scavenged from Big Garbage last fall. Here he is demonstrating the invention.
On Saturday we filtered and scrubbed.
On Sunday we filtered and scrubbed.
On Monday we filtered and scrubbed.
Today the water is clear and the pool is clean, and it was 15 degrees and rain so we had no inclination to go for a dip.

We didn't want Willow to feel left out, so we set her up a pool too.

** Easy, yeah right.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

So last Tuesday while I was running around putting out fires (literally) I was meant to be planting a garden. Last year I had the great idea that it would be fun to plant a carpet bed at the Welcome to Wolfville signs. It turned out that my immediate boss liked the idea, and even had a design of the iconic Cape Blomidon already to use for a project from a few years back. So last fall we went on a workshop about making carpet bedding that I blogged about and we figured out what plants to use and how many we needed and we enquired at out local nursery if they could grow them.
This spring, when we were getting ready to buy some plants for the town signs I wondered why we weren't doing the carpet bedding design. My boss said that his boss had nixed the idea as too expensive for the maintenance so we just did the usual thing and bought a lot of annual flowers to make the signs look nice. Then last week our nursery called and asked when we were planning to pick up the plants we ordered. Oops. Apparently they considered our inquiry about whether they could grow them as an order. As we had already planted the signs, and part of the plant material was to be supplied by colleagues at the Halifax Public Gardens, we couldn't actually use them for their original intended purpose, but we did have to use them.
On Wednesday we found a spot in town and had a go at a spur of the moment design. I drew upon my years of watching my mother draw out lines to make patterns on the borders of her quilts. I think when it fills in, you will be able to see the double helix better, but I took a photo now because it may get vandalized before it fills in. There are some gaps that, had we planned this, would be planted, but as we really didn't want them anyway, we didn't want to spend any more money on this snafu. Plus they were a special order (sort of) from the nursery, so there were no more to be had in any case. If you look at it from the long side, it looks like 5 cats eyes staring back at you.

Only YOU Can Prevent Fires

Life is what happens when you aren't blogging. OK. Quicky post on how I became a volunteer firefighter.
Ummm, no not really. But I know some volunteer firefighters, does that count?
Last Tuesday it was hot and dry here and windy too. Even though the week before it was torrential rain, the mulch at the new town centre garden was completely dry. This spring the irrigation drip line was heaved up and visible so we put a lot more bark mulch on top trying to hide it, but this means that when it is hot and dry, even though the soil beneath is wet from the irrigation, the mulch stays dry. The town centre square is right next to a bus stop, where people smoke cigarettes until the last possible moment before they board the bus. Are you getting the picture yet? Last Tuesday we got called twice about the garden being on fire. The first time we just used a small bucket of water to put out the smoldering bits and had a laugh with the commissionaire who managed the parking at the centre.
The second time we came equipped with an actual fire hose and hooked up to the fire hydrant and hosed it down for an hour. Do I have a great job or what? How many people other than firefighters can say that they regularly open a fire hydrant for work? Anyhoo, I always think an episode like this is just another piece of street theatre. I treat such public displays like I'm on stage, because you know people are watching. People on the street at open air cafes, at the bus stop, getting in and out of their cars in the parking lot are the audience. I make a production everything from getting out the hose and finding the pipe wrench to carefully avoiding spraying people waiting for the bus and rolling the hose up and putting it all away. Just my little performance to educate the public on the hazards of smoking and not properly butting out their cancer sticks. Do you think they get it? Nope, we had another fire Wednesday night, which the actual Volunteer Fire Brigade had to answer. There were flames. Smokey the Gardener says, "Only You can Prevent Garden Fires."

Pictures for my Adoring Fans

Might I just point out that if I'm too busy to blog, I'm probably too busy to take pictures of what I am doing and post them on the internet?
None the less, here are the requested photos of Garden Stakes and KFROGS mugs. The garden stakes are 1" wide and about 12" long and I didn't sell a single one on Sunday, go figure. I guess the crowd that runs charity marathons doesn't garden.
This is a photo of the KFROGS mugs before the glaze kiln. The shape is inspired by a Hannah McAndrew mug that I recently acquired (Although her's are much nicer.) They are about 4" tall and 3" wide at the top. This is after the glaze, which was disappointing. Some were clearer that others but none remained as crisp as they look in the first picture. Still, we sold 8 and I donated 4 to their Chinese Auction as well as half the proceeds of those sold so KFROGS got at least an extra $60 for my efforts.
I did also sell 5 bowls and a coil pitcher, which somewhere I might have pictures of, but you will have to wait for those because life still appears to be as busy as ever. Stay tuned, because next time I'll tell you about how I became a volunteer firefighter, an accidental garden designer and I will also tell you why stealing a 15 foot swimming pool out of your neighbour's backyard is probably not a good idea.

Madly Dogpaddling to Stay Afloat

No, I'm not dead. Just busy, busy, busy.
Almost there. My first craft show outing as part of the KFROGS Day for Global Change is this Sunday June 13th from 9-6 at the Look Off. I threw mugs specific to this fundraising event. They were bisque fired today while I went to work; thanks to my personal kiln technician AKA The Sweetie. They will be glazed tomorrow and fired Friday (we hope.)
I don't have as much stuff as I would like to take. Much of what I hoped would be great from the last glaze kiln turned out crappy instead. The main two ideas for this show, the plant stakes and the mugs seem OK.
The weather forecast waffles between Sun and Rain for Sunday. I'm not made of sugar (or that other substance that starts with an Ess) and rain won't hurt my pots, but I did buy a beach umbrella today which I figure will be useful for both possibilities.
Meanwhile, the garden is growing without me, but all the seedlings in my greenhouse which should have been planted weeks ago, are being eaten by squirrels. I have no basil or tomatoes left. They even ate the marigolds and cannas if you can believe it. The fruit trees are doing well, except the peach that always gets peach leaf curl, but I managed to spray it with seaweed extract between rain storms this week so we will see how that works. We have a plan to plant grape vines and kiwis this year, but that will wait for a few weeks yet, because after this craft fair is over I'm going to get my motorcycle out of storage and go for a ride.

Still Too Much to Do

Still desperately trying to get it all done for the June 13 craft fair. It's not going to happen, but I can dream and give it a little extra push.
This long weekend is very sunny and hot, perfect for taking the dog to the beach or something, but I'm firing a glaze kiln instead. The first of the plant stakes are in it, I did a few just to see if it really will work the way I think. They came out of the bisque kiln mostly straight and flat, so I think it will be OK.
I bought a new kiln a couple weekends ago off Kijiji. Yes, that makes 4 if you are counting. It is the same size and make as my large kiln, but in much better shape and it has a working kiln sitter and came with shelves. It was the shelves that interested me. I needed more for the large kiln, and to buy them new would have cost more than what I paid for the used kiln. I thought at first I would sell the other one, if I can, but since it is the same size I could try adding a section from the old one into the new one as a dummy to make a taller kiln. Do I need a taller kiln? Not really, but maybe in the future I will.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to kilns.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

If a candle had three ends I'd be burning all three. Hmmmm, I guess a candle with three ends would look like a tricorn hat. At any rate, these days my blog posting has been a bit thin because in addition to working days now in the Parks Department, I still have my own garden to tend and I'm still taking a glaze course in Halifax one a night a week after work.
On top of this I decided to sign up for my first ever craft show which happens June 13. It is the KFROG Day for Global Change fundraiser, a local charity that raises money for youth initiatives world wide. I figure it is only a one day event, so I can probably generate enough stuff to sell by then. I also hope that it will be low key enough that I won't look too stupid next to the other craft tables.
In preparation for this I am making plant markers at night after I come home from work and do my chores in the greenhouse and around the garden. I figure plant markers are quick, easy, something that might have a mass appeal (let's hope) and I can sell them for pocket change which everyone should have if they go to a craft fundraiser. I'm focusing on herb plants for now, but we'll see how many I get done, I may try some common perennials too. Herb plants have the advantage that many of their names don't have repeating letters, which makes it easier to use my letter stamps altogether instead of trying to line them up individually. Hence I have made markers for sage, thyme and basil but not yet oregano because it has two O's. I may also cheat and just make blanks that people write on in pencil.
If June 13 sounds like loads of time, it isn't really. I'm getting maybe 15 made a night, and I still have to soften the edges once they are dry, fire and glaze them. Firing only happens on weekends so they pretty much have to be finished on the weekend before. I figure I need at least 100 of various herbs, and then there is breakage, warping and glaze disasters to account for. If my bathroom tiles are anything to go by, I will need to do at least 130 to end up with 100.

Wolfville Arbor Day

Almost the end of April, and that means deadlines are looming. One for taxes, which are mostly finished. The other one needs to update his banking info with Rev Can before we can e file and get the whopping $26 return. The other deadline is snow tires need to be swapped before the end of the month because we have studded ones on the truck. I went to see my friendly neighbourhood garage mechanic today after work and gave him a hug to ensure that he would be able to do that for me tomorrow.
Time does speed by when you are forced to spend all day at work. I am into week two now, and I am still holding up OK. Today was Wolfville Arbor Day. A local businessman donated 85 trees to the town to be planted on public and private land. We organised 8 volunteers from the local Katimavik group, 6 second year Horticulture Students from Kingstec and some town gardener volunteers (who we affectionately call the Gorilla Gardeners) to do the work this morning. I think we got about 50 planted, with still another 35 to go into a local park space later on. This is definitely a fun part of the job, we get to talk to homeowners in town that are thrilled to be getting a new tree for free, and we get to have a celebratory barbecue to say thank you to our volunteers after the hard work is done.

Homework

School work is coming to an end. The students are finished their part of the deal and now I have marking to do. I brought it home with me yesterday. It's homework.

I started taking a class last week at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design. I'm not fond of glazing so I enrolled in a glaze class hoping to pick up some tips or at least become more comfortable with the process. My last glaze kiln was a complete disaster. Of 9 pieces, only 1 is semi passable, and the rest exhibit every problem there is. The most disappointing was a bowl that would have been beautiful except two bits of ceramic stuff cracked off my pyrometer in the kiln and fell into the bowl while it was firing. Bugger.
The glaze class is mostly focused on making and testing glazes, but I figure it can't hurt to force myself to glaze more. It's all practice. I have to make at least 36 test tiles for next class which I did yesterday. It's homework.
I was called back to work at the Town of Wolfville parks dept. starting Monday. That's a week earlier than I thought and now I'm scrambling to find my work clothes and water proof my boots. There were some other things I was hoping to get accomplished before I went back, like rototilling the vegetable garden and getting a new back tire on my motorcycle, but these will have to be relegated to weekends now. They're homework.