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.