In training (I'm such a jock, not!)

Started riding my bicycle for the charity ride I do for brain cancer research in June. This is my second day out. I rode in March when we had the hot summer 24 degree freak weather week, but that was just a quick ride to the store in the village, a mere 2km. My ride today was from Habitant to Medford and back. Google maps tells me it was 8.2 km. That's less than 1/5 of my goal as the charity ride is 50km (not 25 like I thought )
Amazingly I didn't feel that bad afterwards. Possibly I will be singing a different tune tomorrow. I think the yoga and physio I have been doing are really helping but by the end of the ride I was wishing I had dug out my cycle shorts.
While I was cycling I was keeping an eye out for our dog pool. We bought a child's wading pool for Willow last year, and it was in the shed of the winter, but we pulled it out to put the snowblower and generator away for summer and left it out without water in it. It blew away in one of those windy days we had. Our winds blow west to east, so I expect it fetched up on a hedge row between some farm fields between here and Kingsport. No luck, but perhaps I will go ask at the vineyard if they have seen it.
Thaks to everyone who has donated to my ride, if you haven't already you can do so by clicking here http://pmhf3.akaraisin.com/teamed2012 and click on Sponsor a Participant to find me and donate.
No picture of my route today. I didn't think to take a camera, but here is a photo of some tulips I planted by the greenhouse last fall.

Spring is Here

I know that Spring really has happened this time, unlike all those false times in the last 2 months or so because the branches I pruned a few weeks ago have finally started to bloom. I put these peaches and pears in the studio, which stays quite cool at night because the wood stove is only on while I am in there. The electric heaters are set to 6 degrees to keep the clay from freezing and so these didn't force as quickly as the ones in the house. But now even though I went to my parents house for Easter and I haven't had to use the wood stove for several days it is now warm enough to force these into bloom.
Just watched on the new tonight that the peaches and apricots in Ontario flowered ages ago in the early spring and they are worried about frost still. It hasn't been that warm here. The daphne bloomed a few weeks ago but the forsythia is still bare.
Curling season is over and I start back to work next week. This is another sign of real spring. To compensate for no curling I am starting yoga tonight in Kingsport. This is really just an excuse to avoid cycling for a while longer. (I need to limber up first...) I have already been on my bike though, I cycled to the store for something in March when we had three days of summer weather. I need to do more of this so I don't die on my charity ride in June.
I'm cycling for Team Ed again this year. Check out my donor page to support the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation in support of brain cancer research. Go to http://pmhf3.akaraisin.com/teamed2012
and click on Sponsor a Participant to find me and donate.
Now, I'm off to yoga. Oooooommmmmmm

New Studio Space!

I moved into the new studio last week, or maybe it was the week before. Anyway, it took longer than expected. There was a lot of stuff to go out to the garage from that little sun porch. Days of carting stuff across the driveway. And then I had to figure out where it all went and how it all worked in the new space. I'm still doing that, and I find that no matter what, I'm still getting up to get something on the other side of the room.
I bought a counter top at the Restore which will be the sink and glaze area on the far wall. Eventually, but for now I'm using a bucket of water from the kitchen as always. The plan is also to have ware shelves across the north wall, but for now, there is still construction material for house reno stored on the wall, and it will be there a while I think. For now I'm still using the small ware shelves that we had in the other studio.
I'm in a decorating phase right now which you may notice from the pots of paint littering the table top. I signed up for a tile making and decorating course at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design with Suzi Cameron. I was attracted to the decoration aspect of the course in the description because I know nothing about painting (and it shows) so my pots always end up looking like a 4 year old painted them, but not in a good way like naive art or folk art, or Jackson Pollack but just in a bad way like a completely talentless hack had a go.
So I've been practicing on greenware with underglazes under Suzi's very expert direction, and in some ways I'm actually getting the hang of it, but it still looks pretty amateurish. Plus now I want to go out and spend money on better brushes because her brushes actually do what I want (sort of) and mine I bought in a package of 10 at the dollar store 4 years ago. Nuff said.

Also, we moved all the orphan pottery equipment that we have collected over the years into the studio. You may notice a large treadle wheel and a belt driven bench style wheel and a stand up cabinet style wheel in the photos. These came with various kilns we acquired on kijiji. The bench wheel was my first wheel which I used until the sweetie (and inlaws) bought me the new one a couple years ago at Christmas. All the wheels work, although the electric ones are slow and a bit jittery. The treadle wheel also came with a motor but the wiring was apart, so we just took it off and the treadle bit works amazingly well. I had a go this week for the first time. I've never done it before, and I was surprised at how much energy it took. It was like riding a stationary bike and my heart rate increased by the time I was finished centring.  An art workout!

The cabinet wheel has only one speed, and I think we will turn it into a sharpening wheel because it isn't very fast and I don't think I could manage to throw a pot on it, although I thought for a while I could use it as a dedicated trimming wheel.
Oh, and the studio has a facebook page! The world must be coming to an end if I'm on facebook. Except I don't understand what I'm doing, and I can't seem to make anything work. My page doesn't have a search window or a fans or events button, so I can't do anything but post to myself and post photos on my wall. I'd like to invite you to see it but I can't. Just search facebook pages for Sun Porch Pottery and Like me (or don't) and maybe it will start working, or something.
Cheers
Jane

Happy New Year 2012 - Remember to Have Fun

Yes, I know. It's been ages.
Why?
Something's gotta give.
Can't do everything.
In June, the sweetie said to me one day...."All we ever do is yard work or work on the house. I want to have fun"
Now, I was surprised at this because I love the yard work, (some of us would call that gardening.)
And I love my house, as unfinished as it is and crazy as that may seem. But I understood what he meant. We used to go hiking, camping, drinking, adventuring, exploring, whatever, and we don't do that anymore because:
1. We spend any extra money we have on the house stuff.
2. We have too many projects on the go. It can be overwelming.

It was getting him down. He's already a little stressed because of this phD project. He wanted some leisure time.
So for the past 6 months or so we have been working at having fun.
I abandoned the garden and the blog (two things which suck up a lot of time) to do other things. Fun things for both of us.
Boy, was it expensive.
In July we bought a new truck. It's blue, and still doesn't have a name. That wasn't so much fun as necessary. Casper was 11 years old and starting to really fall apart. We sold him to friends who didn't have a truck at all, and sometimes we still visit.
In August we drove the new truck to Montreal and bought a new bike. The green one to match my red one. Now we are twins.The plan of spending time riding together was foiled by the crappy summer weather we had and also that the green bike (which still doesn't have a name) was in the shop being fixed for a month. We bought it used, and it had some unknown problems which are now fixed and we are eagerly waiting for spring. Vroom.

In August we also bought kayaks. We were having so much fun with those that we forgot to take pictures. We put the kayaks on the truck and went to various lake and beaches all over, getting wet and exhausted and pretending we are 20ish rather than 40ish.

In September we built a new garden for a friend (yup, that's yard work but I managed to squeeze it in anyway). We used the new truck for that too, you can just see it in the distant background. September we decided I needed a new larger pottery studio and began renovating the upstairs of the garage. Including putting on a new roof. Thanks to our friends Peter and Gabrielle for helping with that. This is the new studio space under construction. It looks better now. The electricity is in, the lighting and the insulation and vapour barrier are in. There is a wood stove for the heater, along with a couple electric baseboards to keep it from freezing at night. We still need to put down the vinyl floor and plumb a sink before I move in. Oh, and a couple windows would be nice. It will be rudimentary, without drywall and will still be a storage space for much of our renovation and summer activities, but it is a much larger space that the sun porch I am currently in.
In October we renovated a craft fair booth we bought from a friend and went to a craft fair in November. Exhausting but fun.Over Christmas we collapsed from all the fun.

In the Boxing Day sales we bought me a new computer to replace the 8 year old antique I had been using. (for using - read swearing at and getting frustrated when it would hang up or crash)
The new one is much faster and easier to surf with, so perhaps blogging won't be such a time consuming task and I will do it a bit more in 2012.
Happy New Year to all, and remember to have fun.

The upside of crappy weather

What follows two days of rain? Monday.

It has been a bit of the summer that never was so far, although it is still early days yet I keep telling myself. The last two weeks have been getting better, except for the weekends which have been rainy and cold.
The upside: I can ride my motorcycle to work during the week and relax in the pool after a long sticky day.
I'm not getting a sunburn at work.
The cool nights are wonderful for sleeping.
Have I convinced you yet? I have almost convinced myself.
This week has been sunny and warming up and the forecast for Canada Day weekend is for more of that. Ironically the garden needs water. I'm hoping for rain.
The downside: Weekend chores in the garden get left undone and laundry goes in the dryer. The second coat of paint on a garden chair is still waiting, and plants that should have been planted a month ago are not. Like these.These are the results of the sweet potato experiment I wrote about last winter here. These are only a few, I had great success with getting the sweet potatoes to overwinter in storage and then got them to grow slips which then root in water for planting. I also tried just planting the sweet potatoes, and that was slower because there wasn't much heat in the greenhouse in spring, but once they started, they really got going.
The other half I took to work and they were not as successful but are starting to come on now.

Other things to do when it rains:
I did complete a sewing project that has been sitting there since April.Friends gave us this teak chair sans cushion in February, and I finally finished the cushions. I had hoped to also cover the cushions of another teak chair we inherited but I ran out of fabric and now can't find it anymore. Bummer.

I started some pottery that a friend has commissioned me to make. And I finally glaze fired a kiln of stuff that has been sitting around since I went back to work. Most of it came out OK. Maybe pictures later.

Team Ed Ride

The 50 km bike ride I did for charity was last weekend on Sunday. I would have blogged about it earlier but I had to wait until my fingers stopped hurting. This is us before the start, "While we are all still smiling" I think was the quote.
It wasn't so bad really. I had a couple things going in my favour.
Everyone else was ill, with colds or asthma or whatever and that meant that I could keep up with all the regular cyclists most of the time. Yay for viruses!
Also, I have a great bike. I will admit to stressing about my bike before the ride. My bike is so old that when Peter went to buy new tires for it, the guy in the shop told him that Cannondale hadn't made a bike with 24" rims for 20 years. My bike is an antique. And I went looking for a new bike last year and realized that there are a lot of new and improved features to modern bikes, like shock absorbers and more gears and big rims that make mine look like a Model T Ford. Happily, my group were not the up to date, hard core set I was expecting, and I am so grateful for that.
I will admit to being a little intimidated when I learned they were part of a cycling club that did this ride every Thursday evening.
We were 6 in our group and that is a good number. We cycled mostly together, or in twos chatting as the scenery went by. It gave us all a chance to learn more about each other, and I will say that those other five people were an interesting and diverse bunch. This was such a good experience.
I want to add that the best part of getting my bike on the road again is how you feel so much more connected to the scenery. I could smell the lilacs (and the chicken barns) and hear the birds and feel the road surface. When I was practising before hand, I would cycle past people and they would wave, or say hello, or nod. Other cyclist would call out too. I have driven the route we took many times, but doing it on a bicycle made it a completely different experience.

As we passed the end of our driveway, Peter and our friend Lynn were cheering us on with the Dog as Official Team Ed Dog (note the sign around her neck.) I had forgotten to mention the Cheering section to anyone else, so most of the group were wondering who those people were and how they knew we were coming.
On the way back, we stopped in for a photo op and chance to pee.
We had variable weather. It was cool in the morning, and looked very dark and foreboding as we were on our way to the start point at Clock Park in Wolfville. By the time we were at Star's Point it was clear and sunny, we all stripped off our extra clothes in Kingsport and except for the stiff wind sideways on the Port Williams dyke coming back the ride we had excellent riding weather.
The last leg of the ride across the Port Williams dyke up to Greenwich Corner and then the home stretch from Greenwich to Wolfville was the most grueling part of the ride. Besides wind and hills, I could feel my energy waning, and there were a few fleeting thoughts of just stopping and sticking out my thumb to a passing car. Beer kept me going but in my darkest thoughts, I remembered that the Port Pub was closer than Paddy's. I was trailing behind, if I stopped would anyone notice? When we rolled in to Wolfville at 12:10 we all headed for the pub, for the reward of a fry up breakfast and beer.
Between Toronto and Nova Scotia we raised around $5700 for the Princess Margaret Research Foundation. Thanks for all your support.

Rainy May, It May Rain

Happy Victoria Day weekend. Three weeks have flown by. Most of the days this month were rainy. It got everyone down and the morning radio hosts were complaining that mushrooms were growing in their hair. Work was frustrating as we completed as much inside work as we could and then after two weeks we finally had to brave the wet and do some outside things anyway.
Peter has been very busy doing everything but the PhD research this month. He had an interesting day of sewer maintenance on May 3.He constructed a wood shed. It looks remarkable like a green house I know, but plastic is cheaper than almost anything else and the solar gain will dry out the wood.All three motorcycles run. This is ironic because usually we are so busy in spring that the motorcycles get pushed back and we aren't riding them until June or July. This year they are ready to go, as soon as the sun comes out. If it ever comes out.

We were unsuccessful in selling the older bikes last fall, but we relisted them on the KIJIJI site and he sold Binky last Friday. Bye Bye Binky, I will miss you. Still looking for a buyer for the Virago though.

He also sold a friend's lawn mower for her this weekend.

The weather finally cleared a little last week and we set up the pool Thursday night after our first day of sun in two weeks. Because there has been so much rain and because we no longer use the well as our main source of water, we just turned the pump on and started filling the pool on Thursday evening. We figured there is as much water in the well as there ever would be so we didn't need to worry about running it dry. Saturday Peter shocked it with chlorine and the water went orange. We weren't sure if it was brown algae or rust. After some internet research it is apparently rust. Since we have only been using the well for making tea and for the greenhouse water (and not much there because of the rain) and maybe because there is so much ground water right now that leaching is occuring, there is a lot of iron built up and when he added the chlorine shock it reacted to the iron. My research says the most effective thing is to filter it with cotton socks and batting. So we did that today and it is amazing how well it works. The water is only red tea colour now.
He also set up the solar heater and made some modifications. The temperature of the heater water Sunday afternoon when the sun finally came out was 35 degrees C while the air temperature was only 15. Wow.

Saturday I went to a fundraiser Plant Sale with my neighbour and laid out a space to make a new garden bed for all the sun plants I am unable to resist. The veg garden is growing well, and now that we squirrel proofed the greenhouse the seedlings are coming along OK too.
My bicycling is getting better. Sunday I biked to Kingsport and back from here. Kingsport is 2 kms and the first bit is all up hill and against the wind. I had to rest at the beach for 10 minutes before I could turn around. When I got home I had to rest on the couch for 20 minutes before I could move. That was only 4 kms but it nearly killed me.
This morning I went the other direction to Canning for bread, and it was mostly downhill on the way so I did an extra loop around the village before I headed back. The ride up hill wasn't as bad as I thought and I was surprised that I didn't need to rest when I got home. I may be able to go out again this afternoon for a second run. I need all the training I can get I think.