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.

The tree limb project

Last winter when I was visiting Danielle in Connecticut, we visited a gallery in the Yale shopping district that used painted tree limbs throughout the gallery. Theirs were painted light blue, but immediately I thought limbs painted white would look cool hanging from the rafters of our pottery gallery. The rafters are dark and we have white lights strung on them to create some interest and tree limbs would lighten it up even more. 

Last week I finally got around to executing my plan. Jeff did some pruning and saved the limbs for me. They had little berries and pods on them, and I was really happy with how they turned out. On the down side, I bought the cheapest spray paint out there and my fingers were killing me after emptying 6 cans of paint onto those limbs. Of course when I was done, my facebook friends let me know that there is an attachment to put on top of the cans to make it more comfortable. I am definitely going to get one of those gadgets.

Jeff helped me get them into the rafters and trim whatever was looking too crazy. It was hard to photograph, but I think you get the idea...

I didn't waste a thing. I used the clippings to do some funky stick arrangements in vases...

I need to paint a couple more limbs to fill in some bare spots in the rafters, but I think I will wait until my fingers feel better!

hey... what's that up in that tree?

... Jeff Brown of course!
about two weeks ago we had a thunderstorm with strong winds. it snapped a BIG limb on the sycamore tree that is between the studio and our home. it didn't snap it off entirely, it was still attached, somewhat, to the main trunk of the tree. we were on the fence as to wether or not Jeff could cut it down or if we should call the professionals. last night Jeff decided he could handle it.

you can't tell from the pictures, but a very large limb was resting on the farmers porch on the log cabin we live in. thankfully it didn't do any damage to the porch. i was nervous as hell with Jeff up in that tree but he managed to cut the limb and drop it using his reciprocating saw and a winch.

i was relieved when the limb and Jeff were down safely!

on another note... we hosted a raku workshop today that was lots of fun... a totally different experience than we are used to... but that's a blog post for another day when i am not so wiped out from all the fun.