We branded calves at Val’s ranch Thursday and Friday.
The weather has been unpredictable, as usual during spring.
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.
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.
