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.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
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.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
Monday, October 11, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, September 6, 2010
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.
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