New Year's House Reno

Today we were scheduled to get the power upgrade from 100 to 200 amp service. But yesterday we got a message from our electrician's wife saying it had been postponed for two weeks. Professor Boy went to work at the University as usual this morning, and I was beginning to think about what I should be doing in the studio. I looked out the front window and there were two cars in the drive of our front neighbour, which for a Wednesday is not unusual as the land lord of that rental house usually comes by on Wednesdays to make a nuisance of himself. I continued to putter around when the dog started to bark. So I looked out the window again and there was a NS Power boom truck in the drive and a man climbing up a ladder outside my living room window. "Oh," I thought, "I'll go put some clothes on then."


Once I was dressed I wandered out to find out how this mix up happened. The foreman said he had a work order to do this, and I explained that my electrician wouldn't be coming. He called the electrician while I called Professor Boy. We all decided they would do what they could, and then come back in two weeks to finish off the job of switching the power to the new service. So, in -7 degree weather, three linesmen changed out the old power cable for a newer, bigger one, while two safety flagmen sat in their cars sipping coffee. I guess it is standard procedure to have flagmen with this sort of call, but as our drive is 100 feet long, they weren't needed to direct traffic until the very end of a two hour job when the linesmen were restringing the cable and connecting it to the main line along the road. Please forgive my gender biased language. If there had been any women on the crew I might have used linesperson or flagperson, but all these guys were guys. My power was off for about an hour and a half, but I didn't miss it, it was sunny today I didn't need lights and I have a battery powered radio for just such emergencies. I divided my time between making sprigs for some bowls and taking pictures of the Men Working. When the power was reconnected, I trimmed the bowls on the wheel, which is electric, and put the sprigs on. Sprigs are decorative medalions or other shapes that get added to pots, I like the style and thought it would be an easy way to tart up some bowls, but they are harder to make than they look, and I suck at this.
While the power was off I found myself thinking two things. First I wondered how all the potters whose blogs I follow are doing with the cold weather. Many are in England and Scotland and others are in the southern U.S., and they are not used to the winter weather and snow that has been happening in those places lately. Some blogs have posted about freezing their clay and breaking their pug mill, others simply haven't been able to get to their studios at all. I am rather lucky that we are prepared for cold ice and snow and my biggest problem with this weather is that the wood stove dries my pots faster that I can get back to trim them. My other thoughts were what it must have been like to work in a pottery before electricity was used. Not all the that long ago really, I have an old kick wheel in the barn, and many potters fire clay with wood and gas.