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greenstormThis morning I woke up and it was -31C outside, -26C at work. This is really only the third cold spike this winter; it comes after a big day of snow on Sunday and forecast snow this week. I'd taken off work sick for the last couple hours yesterday afternoon, taken several naps, and fed and watered everyone extra. I woke up, filled water in the new downstairs laundry tub, fed and watered everyone again, started up my reliable truck, and drove in to work.
On Sunday I gave a quick workshop to the gardening club on cheap vanduzee-style kratky hydroponics. Folks got to take home lettuce, micro tomato, matchbox pepper, arugula, and tatsoi plants in collars of pool noodle skewered by bbq skewers that held them over jars and a little packet of nutrients. Driving in the highway wasn't ploughed yet, it had about 5" of snow on it. I was impressed, some folks came from the next town over and drove in on that! People were driving reasonably, important when you don't know where the highway is so you need to drive in the middle of it and navigate getting around each other when you meet a car coming the other way. Lots of good chat and met some neighbours, including the one with the oak trees (!) lining her driveway.
After that I went down to the clay studio and spent two hours loading the kiln with glaze tests. I'd had a migraine the week preceeding and making glazes is quiet, can be done from paper rather than a screen, and allows lots of slow and restarting. So I put in several of my own glaze tests, plus some of the big bucket's worth that had been newly mixed at the studio, plus one quick floating blue test for the studio out of alberta slip.
My own tests were chun celadon with minspar; val's turquoise with 3134; oldforge floating base with 10% iron, 3% copper carb, and 1% copper carb; and an ash glaze called "new hagi" from my birch ash. There was also a copper wash in there to pick out carving and see how it goes through those glazes. I also tried a bunch of studio glaze layering including seaweed and bailey's red 2 under the cedar hill white ravenscrag, blue opal and oldforge floating rutile overlap, and some spectacularly splattered tall forms that had used up the remains of bits of glazes people had decanted. Plus other people had bought some glazes and were playing with overlapping. The big kiln was full -- two of my bowls wouldn't fit -- and it will be very very exciting to open. Everyone is excited to see it. It'll be cool today but I don't think anyone with a key will be around, so tomorrow after work will be the opening.
I've been reasonably sick for the last week, basically since the scent issue the Tuesday two weeks ago. I didn't end up going to bed for three days like I probably should have, and ended up carrying symptoms into a true migraine. Funny enough I didn't realize they were migraine symptoms. I seldom get really disabling pain and my normal tell is southwest-patterned chevrons in my right visual field and holes in my left. This time I didn't get those tells, but when I went into the massage therapist she asked a bunch of questions: "pressure on your eyes? photosensitive? short of breath? nauseous? brain fog--" at which point I stopped her and said, "how do you know all this? I don't have all those symptoms now but those are the cluster I get with scent exposure normally" and she said "oh, they're just migraine symptoms". Anyhow, I'm reconsidering my scent reactions now. And I did eventually get a headache because I pushed it, even wearing sunglasses etc.
I had a great visit with Tucker, and a pretty good one with Josh despite being sick and somewhat rushed -- it was a couple days shorter than I expected, which is becoming expected with him. My animals are good and my grain bins are full, my house animals are good and snuggly, I woke up at 3am and stoked the fire and the house stayed nice and warm. My pepper seeds are up, and a couple of my hydroponics tomatoes are forming buds.
As I'm writing I see holes in my visual field that are subtle enough I only really see them when reading. Hm. Never had this linger for two weeks before.
I like it here. I like it here. I like it here. It's my home.
On Sunday I gave a quick workshop to the gardening club on cheap vanduzee-style kratky hydroponics. Folks got to take home lettuce, micro tomato, matchbox pepper, arugula, and tatsoi plants in collars of pool noodle skewered by bbq skewers that held them over jars and a little packet of nutrients. Driving in the highway wasn't ploughed yet, it had about 5" of snow on it. I was impressed, some folks came from the next town over and drove in on that! People were driving reasonably, important when you don't know where the highway is so you need to drive in the middle of it and navigate getting around each other when you meet a car coming the other way. Lots of good chat and met some neighbours, including the one with the oak trees (!) lining her driveway.
After that I went down to the clay studio and spent two hours loading the kiln with glaze tests. I'd had a migraine the week preceeding and making glazes is quiet, can be done from paper rather than a screen, and allows lots of slow and restarting. So I put in several of my own glaze tests, plus some of the big bucket's worth that had been newly mixed at the studio, plus one quick floating blue test for the studio out of alberta slip.
My own tests were chun celadon with minspar; val's turquoise with 3134; oldforge floating base with 10% iron, 3% copper carb, and 1% copper carb; and an ash glaze called "new hagi" from my birch ash. There was also a copper wash in there to pick out carving and see how it goes through those glazes. I also tried a bunch of studio glaze layering including seaweed and bailey's red 2 under the cedar hill white ravenscrag, blue opal and oldforge floating rutile overlap, and some spectacularly splattered tall forms that had used up the remains of bits of glazes people had decanted. Plus other people had bought some glazes and were playing with overlapping. The big kiln was full -- two of my bowls wouldn't fit -- and it will be very very exciting to open. Everyone is excited to see it. It'll be cool today but I don't think anyone with a key will be around, so tomorrow after work will be the opening.
I've been reasonably sick for the last week, basically since the scent issue the Tuesday two weeks ago. I didn't end up going to bed for three days like I probably should have, and ended up carrying symptoms into a true migraine. Funny enough I didn't realize they were migraine symptoms. I seldom get really disabling pain and my normal tell is southwest-patterned chevrons in my right visual field and holes in my left. This time I didn't get those tells, but when I went into the massage therapist she asked a bunch of questions: "pressure on your eyes? photosensitive? short of breath? nauseous? brain fog--" at which point I stopped her and said, "how do you know all this? I don't have all those symptoms now but those are the cluster I get with scent exposure normally" and she said "oh, they're just migraine symptoms". Anyhow, I'm reconsidering my scent reactions now. And I did eventually get a headache because I pushed it, even wearing sunglasses etc.
I had a great visit with Tucker, and a pretty good one with Josh despite being sick and somewhat rushed -- it was a couple days shorter than I expected, which is becoming expected with him. My animals are good and my grain bins are full, my house animals are good and snuggly, I woke up at 3am and stoked the fire and the house stayed nice and warm. My pepper seeds are up, and a couple of my hydroponics tomatoes are forming buds.
As I'm writing I see holes in my visual field that are subtle enough I only really see them when reading. Hm. Never had this linger for two weeks before.
I like it here. I like it here. I like it here. It's my home.
