Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Playing Hooky?

I have, unintentionally, taken a short hiatus. Time just slipped passively by while I was focused on other things:

along with keeping up my monthly column, I have been working on two sci-fi short stories; I’m compiling notes and writing out lengthy overviews for a novel and a memoir (which is very much a long-term project); and I finally finished the essay I was writing about trying to take care of dad and mom during the summer of ‘09 and submitted it to The Sun Magazine;

we found a new series of glazes we’re very excited about and are experimenting with; we’ve had a few orders from Joyce and Delia in our old patterns;

and we’ve worked a few days for Ursula.

We’ve also been finalizing plans for fencing the creekside meadow so we can raise a small flock of sheep and goats later this summer or next spring; we’ll have to tear out the old chicken coop to move the fenceline.

Ben is working on expanding and closing in the lean-to beside the chicken coops where we used to house our rabbits to create a garden shed.

And Ben has been planting seeds and transplanting the seedlings for our garden crops. The sun room/greenhouse is still too cold at night, though, so we have to bring the little seedlings in every night after the sun goes down.

But the most exciting part is that Ben has been mapping out an early Autumn camping vacation in Canada. We just got our tax refunds (since we’re working for Ursula during the summers we’re actually getting money back from the government instead of always paying it out at tax time) so we’ll save that for our vacation. This will be the second actual vacation we’ve taken since we moved to Montana in ‘92, so we’re pretty psyched.

 

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Seed-starters with seedlings ready to transplant

 

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Transplants out in the greenhouse

 

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Initial glaze experiments

 

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Stacks of glaze samples in handy containers

 

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Freshly painted ware waiting to be glaze fired

 

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Plates from the set of dishes we’re finally making for ourselves

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