-2 F in the Woods

"Baby, it's cold outside!"

That song was written for today. It's 8 in the morning and it's colder now than when I got up at 5:45! Winter is upon us! I will stop feeling like a slacker for not getting the sugar maples tapped last weekend.

I taught the Ceramics students how to glaze last night. I glazed the two little vases and bowl I made with some of the new glazes in the studio, but I don't like these glazes much - too much bentonite in them - they get all gluey and puddley. I should suspend judgment until I see how they look after firing - they could work beautifully.

We are planning on doing a real pit firing - dig a hole in the ground, start a fire to make a bed of coals, throw on sawdust, put on the pots, metal oxides for color, more sawdust, manure and newspaper for heat, lots more wood, let it burn down, cover it up to let it cool slowly and then retrieve lovely pots from ashes pit firing. This will happen the week after Fourth of July.

But, I need to focus on teaching the other classes I have right now. And go give the thirsty ponies some liquid water - I expect their tank is an icecube.

Snow time like the present...

Well, what a week.

My sweet old horse Candy died of the strange horse digestive problem known as twisted gut. This leaves Cesar an orphan and Sheba, now in charge, is taking care of him but seems anxious and worried. So sad.

Then, the "record breaking winter storm" hit the next night. This storm, here at Maple Knoll, gave us about 8 inches of fairly heavy non-drifting snow and one night where the low was 2 degrees. We've had much worse, although I think further east and south they are still having big problems. Adorable hubby spent most of Wednesday plowing the driveway - the Kubota tractor is one of the best investments we've made since moving here!

Now the sun is shining, and I need to catch up with all the things on my list that I have been distracted from by these unusual events. Catch up on my classes, mainly. Spend more time with my ponies. Get focused on my consulting business - need to start bringing in some more money. Make some pottery and sell it. That's what I really want to do, I suppose.

So, I spent a lot of time yesterday designing the template for a little slab teapot. I will cut the template pieces out of cardboard after I get my classes caught up and make this teapot and some matching cups Saturday morning.

I also designed and drew up a materials list for the chicken coop we are going to build this spring. Although I should be focusing more on more immediate project, maple sugaring time is almost upon us.

Ah, so many things, so little time. More later.

So long gone, so much has happened...

I see the last post I made has a picture of the tractor we did not buy. LOL. Since then we have bought a tractor, orange, rather than blue, built a bunch of fence, bought another horse, another lovely flaxen maned chestnut Haflinger mare named Candy, who proceeded to produce a baby boy, Ceasar, who is now living up to his name and trying to rule the roost around here. :-). Pictures and more to follow....

August in the Woods...

Wow, I can't believe it is so long since I have been here. The summer has been really busy. We went to Wyoming for 10 days in May. In June I taught some week long art classes to kids, which I hadn't done before, so this required some preparations ahead of time and evaluation afterwards. Then there was an intense summer retreat two weeks ago. Now I feel like I need to get very organized and catch up on all the things there are to do around the place. It is a little overwhelming, actually. On my way back from turning the ponies (who are bored and need to be worked) out this morning I checked the vineyard for grapes.

The previous owner planted a few grapes in a poor location, lower on a little slope, with lots of trees around so the air is pretty still and the vines only get sun for 7 or 8 hours. The vines were overgrown, with lots of oak saplings coming up in the row, and weeds, and part of the supports were broken so the vines hung on the ground. In February, I pruned back the vines unmercifully, and have whacked back the little saplings and weeds a couple times since the growing season started. Now, it looks like my efforts have paid off to some extent. In previous years, the little grapes all got some sort of fungus - they started to form up, and then turned brown and looked like little raisins without ever make grapes. Today I see the vines now have many clusters of nice fat grapes, and many of the clusters show no sign of disease! They are hard and green and the size of small marbles - hopefully they will be able to ripen so we can eat them. I don't know what sort of grapes they are. But it is exciting to see. Now I will do some in house chores - folding laundry, and then go out and weed the garden some. I love summer.

Cherry Blossoms and Sore Throats

I just couldn't make myself go to the Buddhist services yesterday morning, and it is probably just as well, my throat was sore yesterday, and this morning it is very sore and I have nasty laryngitis - I squeak instead of my normal voice. Very odd - I usually pick bugs up from my students, but I didn't notice anyone in class with these symptoms. There were lots of absences but I chalked that up to end of the semester spring fever. Oh, well, it is 63 degrees outside right now, and the cherry trees are blooming, and the peach tree's big pink buds are going to unfurl any second now, and the apple trees have smaller buds just starting...spring is well on it's way. Today, grocery shopping, finish writing the Social Psychology test for tomorrow, paint the beehive parts that need painting, and work on the garden. The vet is coming this afternoon to give the ponies their vaccinations against West Nile and rabies, and then the farrier later to give them a manicure. Then, more work on the garden. Going to plant lots of vegetables and herbs this year. The last two years, my gardening efforts got stalled by too much stuff going on at the end of the semester. This semester, much fewer demands on my time. So, weird that I am sick. Left over conditioning from all those years being a student where the end of each semester had to be a crisis. But, no more.