February Blahs

It happened a little late, but I think I have the February Blahs. It didn't happen when we had lots of snow and cold weather, it happened when we got the February thaw. All the snow melted and the muck got me down. I take full responsibility for the rain storm and melting snow. We bought snowshoes two weeks ago which pretty much guaranteed no snow for the rest for the year. We did get 10 days in before the big melt. Now they hang sadly by the door in hopes that the winter will come back.
When you have a dog, spring muck is not your friend, and Willow has learned the routine of paw cleaning for treats every time she comes in. Between the rain and trench we dug in the drive she can't help but be a dingy retriever.
Attempting to banish the February blahs today, I gave up on trying to decorate pottery which has defeated me for a week now, and I began spring garden clean up instead. I pruned the fruit trees and tried to start a fire of the dead wood that didn't get burned last fall. The fire didn't light, which is just as well because the pruning didn't take that long and I came in much earlier than expected.

We Have Good Friends

Today is Wednesday, which means it is weekly cancel the power upgrade day. (Oh, and Ash Wednesday as it turns out.) The first three times our electrician couldn't book off his regular job to come on a week day. Last week it was cancelled because the inspector couldn't come. Today Nova Scotia power cancelled because we got snow last night and they are busy reconnecting power to customers in Windsor.
But in anticipation that it might really happen this time (ha) we dug a trench last weekend to bury the new service from the house to the garage. Most people would not attempt to dig a 40 foot trench by hand. Most people would not attempt to do it in winter either, but I think we all agree that we are not like most people.
We must be OK people though, because we managed to coerce 5 friends to help us dig. We began Saturday morning at 8:30, and paused long enough to give the boys an egg and bacon burrito for breakfast.
Then we paused long enough to rent a demolition hammer once we realized that picks were not going to make it through the foot of frozen ground on top. Then more pausing as they excavated a 500 lb rock from the trench. I kept thinking this was an excellent history and archaeology experience and we should have organized students to come help. History because this must be what it was like to dig trenches for World War 1. Archaeology because excavating that rock without large machinery must be what it was like to build the pyramids. Fulcrums and levers.
We also found a layer of thick ash about two feet down all the way along. I wondered if this was a brush clearing fire when the land was originally cleared for farming or from when the Acadians were deported in 1755. We also found a layer of burned glass and what looked like cinemoid in one spot about a foot down. Did the New England Planters have cinemoid?
They dug all morning while I made fish chowder to feed them lunch. After lunch I joined them and we accomplished 3/4 of the required length by beer o'clock. Now I know what the phrase "Colder than a well diggers ass" means.
Sunday morning Peter and I finished off the digging and buried the conduit.

Lessons learned:
1. Dig trenches in summer.
2. Hire a back hoe.

Thank you to Andrew, Peter, Peter, Tony and George.

Happy Birthday Peter

It is a beautiful sunny day, and it is my sweeties birthday. Which we both forgot until we were up a few hours and he looked at the date on the computer.
So, as tradition dictates, I am making an Angel Food cake. I don't much like Angel Food cake, and I used to think it was because it came out of a box, so one year I tried making it from scratch just to see if it was better. It was exactly the same, so now I just make it out of the box. It takes 5 minutes, and that is only because I always have to wash the dust out of the bundt pan and the mixer bowl.
You know how the directions say immediately invert the pan on the neck of a bottle to cool? My bundt pan has too narrow a neck to do this, there is no bottle narrow enough to fit. Every year I forget this until I take the cake out of the oven, and then I have to hunt around for various objects in my kitchen that might work. This year it was the knob on the butter dish that worked.

Peter got three tonnes of sand for his birthday. Not terribly romantic, but it will help to bury the power cable that runs to the garage when we get the power upgrade. Which, yet again was postponed until next Wednesday. That makes the fifth time it has been postponed by our electrician, if anyone is counting. If anyone ever wonders why it takes us so long to renovate the house, this would be one example of a delay that is not our fault.
The delay has not been all bad. The temperature has warmed up to freezing, which will make digging easier. Sometimes we are very lucky.

Like last weekend for example, we went and got a new snow blower. Notice I didn't say buy. We stole it out of my father's shed as he can't use it anymore so he decided this year to get the local plow operator to clear his drive instead. Our last snow blower died during the last snowstorm, and we were lucky enough to get the new one the day before the next snowfall. Lucky. Thanks Dad.

Some days are like that.

Went back to coiling a pot this past weekend. Mostly because I was struggling to centre on the wheel. Some days are like that.
I like to coil on the days when I don't want to be messy, or don't have time to clean up the mess, or when I don't have any ideas about what I want to make. Coiling is slow enough, that by the time the pot starts to take shape, I know what I'm making. Which is a bass ackwards way of going about it, but some days are like that.
This shape emerged from the coil. It reminded me of a traditional Greek pot shape, except the handles which remind me of that singing demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.




Some days are like that.
But the pot shape got me interested in finding real ancient Greek pot shapes that I could try to make. One of the classes I took a few years ago had us make composite shapes based on traditional Greek designs. Remembering this put me onto a new idea of what I could make as a series. Which lead me on a merry Internet search for several hours. Some days are like that.
The usual way to go about these things is to think about the shape first, draw it and then execute. But last weekend I executed, then researched and drew, and now I'm ready to begin, if you see what I mean. Some days are like that.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will try to throw some bits that go together to make a Greek-like looking thing. I can do it tomorrow because our electrician called to say the new power upgrade scheduled for tomorrow is postponed, again. Some days are like that.