The Week is Blowing By.... Literally!

We had quite a day of weather yesterday. Extremely high winds, heavy rain, thunder, and throw in a tornado watch, to add to the excitement. Of course we had important plans for the day. Earlier in the week, Jeff had dug a trench and laid our gas line for the kiln. The propane company was scheduled to come and set our tank yesterday. We also had a very tall, and very dead pine tree situated close to where the tank was going. It was also a little too close for comfort to the kiln shed. Jeff made the decision to cut it down yesterday morning, before the propane tank arrived and before the wind took it down. He was able to drop the tree just as the wind picked up. He limbed the trunk and we started hauling the limbs to our burn pile behind the house. The sky opened up just before we finished. Drenched to the skin, with thunder overhead, we decided to call it a day.

We woke to sunshine, but continued high winds. I made quick work of moving the remaining limbs, while Jeff took the chain saw to the trunk. Local potter Chad Brown will come in a few days for the big chunks. He will split them and used them to fire his wood kiln.

Jeff has been making progress on the kiln. My job has consisted mostly of sorting through brick and stacking them in the shed.

Jeff determined that we won't need to order any new arch brick, he has been cutting some of the brick we have on hand into the correct dimensions.

and I almost forgot to mention... the propane company had to cancel on us because they had too many weather related emergency calls. Our new date is March 15th, which is way too late for our schedule. They promised they would try hard to get here sooner. They know we are a business and a delay affects us tremendously. We will sit tight and be patient.

Everything works out in the end.

A Little Excitement to Kick off 2015

 Did you ever wonder what would happen when the propane company tops your tank off to nearly 100%?

 There's a darn good reason they are only supposed to fill it to 80%

Jeff and I were discussing something in the house when all of a sudden we both said, "I smell gas!". It was going to reach 55 degrees today in Seagrove, NC, so we let the wood stove burn down and turned on the Rinnai gas heater instead. We quickly went out to see if the vent was clogged. It wasn't, so we hurried out the back door to the kiln shed to find our 500 gal. tank, in the backyard, spewing propane from it's overflow valve. My first thought was call 911, because I was scare sh#$2tless that it would blow... Jeff (being more reasonable) called the propane company. We had propane delivered on the 31st and they thought it was over-filled. They said don't call 911 and they would send someone out to blow it off.

 It took about an hour for the service guys to arrive. The valve started to freeze from the gas releasing, which eventually slowed the spew. I liken this valve to the pressure release valve on my pressure cooker. I imagine it's basically the same thing... on a much bigger scale.

It took what seemed like forever to bring the level down to the normal fill of 80%. The gas smell was horrendous. They aren't sure exactly how many gallons they had to blow off, but they will credit our account for 50 gallons, which translates to about $79 at $1.59 gallon. The comical thing about this event (and you always have to find something funny in a scary situation) is that the service guy said, "Why don't you turn on the kiln and fire some pots with this fuel we have to get rid of?"

If he only knew.