Sunday, May 4, 2014

Springtime in the Rockies

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We branded calves at Val’s ranch Thursday and Friday.

The weather has been unpredictable, as usual during spring.

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One day it’s hot and the sun sears our skin, the next day it snows and rains and we have to wear a coat.

But our new glazes are turning out really great.

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At least we’re happy with them.

And I’m struggling with our schedule to get our new clay body fine-tuned. Right now my recipe has a shrink rate of ten percent, but it should have twelve to fourteen percent. I’m checking the absorption rate – the amount of water it absorbs, which is a percentage of it’s total weight – and may have to add a tiny bit more flux if the absorption is more than five percent . . .

But our schedule is tight. We’re working on putting up the greenhouse Ursula gave us. Things aren’t quite going as smoothly as we had counted on – that old chicken/egg ratio thing again – so it’s taking extra time and energy.

We’re still bottle-feeding the kid goats three times a day when we’re home all day, twice when we’re not here for lunch hour. They are eating more grass, thankfully.

I’m still trying to write as much as I can, but we’ll soon start working for Ursula again and we’re trying to get everything done yesterday, so I don’t have enough time for anything right now.

F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N

Surely there must be a country song about that.