Still Too Much to Do

Still desperately trying to get it all done for the June 13 craft fair. It's not going to happen, but I can dream and give it a little extra push.
This long weekend is very sunny and hot, perfect for taking the dog to the beach or something, but I'm firing a glaze kiln instead. The first of the plant stakes are in it, I did a few just to see if it really will work the way I think. They came out of the bisque kiln mostly straight and flat, so I think it will be OK.
I bought a new kiln a couple weekends ago off Kijiji. Yes, that makes 4 if you are counting. It is the same size and make as my large kiln, but in much better shape and it has a working kiln sitter and came with shelves. It was the shelves that interested me. I needed more for the large kiln, and to buy them new would have cost more than what I paid for the used kiln. I thought at first I would sell the other one, if I can, but since it is the same size I could try adding a section from the old one into the new one as a dummy to make a taller kiln. Do I need a taller kiln? Not really, but maybe in the future I will.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to kilns.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

If a candle had three ends I'd be burning all three. Hmmmm, I guess a candle with three ends would look like a tricorn hat. At any rate, these days my blog posting has been a bit thin because in addition to working days now in the Parks Department, I still have my own garden to tend and I'm still taking a glaze course in Halifax one a night a week after work.
On top of this I decided to sign up for my first ever craft show which happens June 13. It is the KFROG Day for Global Change fundraiser, a local charity that raises money for youth initiatives world wide. I figure it is only a one day event, so I can probably generate enough stuff to sell by then. I also hope that it will be low key enough that I won't look too stupid next to the other craft tables.
In preparation for this I am making plant markers at night after I come home from work and do my chores in the greenhouse and around the garden. I figure plant markers are quick, easy, something that might have a mass appeal (let's hope) and I can sell them for pocket change which everyone should have if they go to a craft fundraiser. I'm focusing on herb plants for now, but we'll see how many I get done, I may try some common perennials too. Herb plants have the advantage that many of their names don't have repeating letters, which makes it easier to use my letter stamps altogether instead of trying to line them up individually. Hence I have made markers for sage, thyme and basil but not yet oregano because it has two O's. I may also cheat and just make blanks that people write on in pencil.
If June 13 sounds like loads of time, it isn't really. I'm getting maybe 15 made a night, and I still have to soften the edges once they are dry, fire and glaze them. Firing only happens on weekends so they pretty much have to be finished on the weekend before. I figure I need at least 100 of various herbs, and then there is breakage, warping and glaze disasters to account for. If my bathroom tiles are anything to go by, I will need to do at least 130 to end up with 100.

Wolfville Arbor Day

Almost the end of April, and that means deadlines are looming. One for taxes, which are mostly finished. The other one needs to update his banking info with Rev Can before we can e file and get the whopping $26 return. The other deadline is snow tires need to be swapped before the end of the month because we have studded ones on the truck. I went to see my friendly neighbourhood garage mechanic today after work and gave him a hug to ensure that he would be able to do that for me tomorrow.
Time does speed by when you are forced to spend all day at work. I am into week two now, and I am still holding up OK. Today was Wolfville Arbor Day. A local businessman donated 85 trees to the town to be planted on public and private land. We organised 8 volunteers from the local Katimavik group, 6 second year Horticulture Students from Kingstec and some town gardener volunteers (who we affectionately call the Gorilla Gardeners) to do the work this morning. I think we got about 50 planted, with still another 35 to go into a local park space later on. This is definitely a fun part of the job, we get to talk to homeowners in town that are thrilled to be getting a new tree for free, and we get to have a celebratory barbecue to say thank you to our volunteers after the hard work is done.

Homework

School work is coming to an end. The students are finished their part of the deal and now I have marking to do. I brought it home with me yesterday. It's homework.

I started taking a class last week at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design. I'm not fond of glazing so I enrolled in a glaze class hoping to pick up some tips or at least become more comfortable with the process. My last glaze kiln was a complete disaster. Of 9 pieces, only 1 is semi passable, and the rest exhibit every problem there is. The most disappointing was a bowl that would have been beautiful except two bits of ceramic stuff cracked off my pyrometer in the kiln and fell into the bowl while it was firing. Bugger.
The glaze class is mostly focused on making and testing glazes, but I figure it can't hurt to force myself to glaze more. It's all practice. I have to make at least 36 test tiles for next class which I did yesterday. It's homework.
I was called back to work at the Town of Wolfville parks dept. starting Monday. That's a week earlier than I thought and now I'm scrambling to find my work clothes and water proof my boots. There were some other things I was hoping to get accomplished before I went back, like rototilling the vegetable garden and getting a new back tire on my motorcycle, but these will have to be relegated to weekends now. They're homework.

Best Laid Plans

I planned to glaze fire another kiln today, and worked hard to get it all ready this morning. Packing a kiln can be tricky, and even more so because the pots I had left to fire were wide and so didn't fit well between the shelf support posts. But after an hour of futzing around, I got it all in, and tried to turn it on. It didn't want to turn on. I wondered if somehow I had tripped a breaker in the panel so I went to check, and that is when I realized that we only had one 50 amp breaker, and it was connected to the other kiln that I used on Friday.
I knew I couldn't use both kilns at once, but I thought it was because there was insufficient power to do this. I was unaware that it was because we can't wire both up at the same time. Ooops. My electrical specialist (aka the Sweetie) is in marking Hell right now trying to get his papers back to his students by last class tomorrow. I considered using the other kiln, but at this point I think I'll just garden instead.

Lots and Lots of Pots

We fired up the large kiln for the first time last week on Friday. I figured I had enough pots lying around waiting to be glazed that I could fill it. It was a bit scary. We we got it out of storage to have a good look, and the electrical wiring seemed a bit dodgy to me. Old, and the insulation looked cracked in places. The other one spent a few days sourcing proper sized wire and a socket to make it alright to use. The plug that came on it was undersized. Some of the kiln brick is a bit crumbly where it had been previously patched and the two lower prongs on the kiln sitter were broken off. Before we put a lot of time and effort to fix it up, I decided we should see if the elements were OK first. They all seemed to work in a test when I candled the kiln for a few hours to drive the damp out, so I loaded it up and had a go. In fact, I had more than enough pots to fill it because as you can see, I have a shortage of proper sized shelves, and so I still have some for another go which I will try to get into the mid sized kiln tomorrow.

All went well. (Read: Nothing blew up or caught fire.) The top part of the kiln was a little hotter than the bottom, and I turned the top elements off and waited an extra 20 minutes for the cone on the bottom shelf to drop before I turned the other switches off completely. With the top element off, the kiln seemed to stay at 2160 F nicely (according to the analog pyrometer) without moving up or down.

On Sunday, I tried to photograph my new pots, but I was unhappy with the results and so spent two days researching how to photograph ceramics. Here are two of the not too terrible photography attempts.
There is just so much to know isn't there? So now I'm off to make a light box, find a gradated (graduated?) background and figure out the white balance on my camera...

Psanky

I learned a new word this weekend, and also a new skill. Did you know that those Ukrainian (and other Easter eggs) were called Psanky? Me neither but now I do. Sounds more naughty when you put it that way doesn't it?
And I learned how to do it, which I always wanted to try. I got the chance this weekend when friend mentioned last week that her family do it as a tradition each Easter, even though they are not Ukrainian or even that religious.
I went at 10 am and 4 and a half hours later this is what I had. I was at least smart enough to decorate the front and back side with different colours so it looks like I made two. This is a craft that takes a long time.