Photos from Kiln firing

Here are the photos from todays fun. All that smoke comes from sidestoking. Fried mosquitos on the firebox lid. Sky at 4 am. Side shot of kiln with crummy fibre on top that will be experiencing its last use. The red truck is a 1977 Ford crewcab three quarter ton four wheel drive, my husband's pet. It is our wood truck. Shop in the background, siding is on, windows in, ready for the Electrician!!!!

Mosquito Death Trap

Just got in from the latest kiln firing. I started at 9 pm last night, fired for three hours, stuffed the kiln with big logs and went inside for a four hour nap. At 4 am it was nice and warm with lots of coals, ready for small slab pieces.
It seemed to fire faster than the last times, probably because it is above freezing this time! Now I have to wait a couple of days for it to cool down. Oh yeah, an airplane came by to see what was going on. One of the photos shows what happens when you sidestoke. The 'smokeless' kiln puffs big time. The fire hazard is low (from all the water in that snow) and we had a couple of showers during the day.
Because it was so humid the mosquitos were daunting.....only high point was watching them kill themselves on the firebox lid. Instant frying.

Beautiful Begonias

I Can't believe that it was just a few days ago that we had snow. Today was 20 C. We had to run the soaker hoses on the dogs at work, this cools them down when they come back from a run. Of course we also get all wet and muddy when they jump on us. What the heck, it comes off with water!

I had pulled the begonias out of the greenhouse the same day we had the snow. It turned cold in the night and the rest is history. They were covered with old sheets and row covers. Not one fried leaf, luckily. I guess enough heat comes off the house windows to keep them from freezing. I really had no choice about bringing them outside, it was too hot inside, then too cold outside. Poor plants.

For now it wants to be summer. Who knows for how long. The saskatoons are finally in full flower too. Hope we get some heat so we'll have berries. I am off to eat some dinner (with tomatoes from the greenhouse) then start the fire in my kiln. Been waiting for this for a while. I have some new clay bodies in there and a couple of fun experiments. Let the fun begin.....

Over the White Pass to Skagway

About every two or three weeks I make a trip to Skagway, Alaska. It takes about two hours to get there. While it is a 'business' trip, it is really a pleasure. My favorite scenery in the world is the White Pass. Always good for a little drama. If you like driving in snow and fog in the summer, it's the place to be! Sometimes the sun even shines and the weather is warm, not often but it does happen.

The bottom picture is from a trip at the end of April. The ones on top it it are from today. Not much diffrence in the weather! Less snow on the ground and the lakes in the pass are starting to melt. Lower down there is open water and some flowers were blooming. I saw two brown phase black bears on the way home. The big guy was about 5 km from Tutshi (too-shy) Lake. I spotted him walking up the road. When I stopped he got off the road into the ditch and started eating as he moved toward me. When he was right next to me he looked in the window and went back to eating! The second guy was half his size and beside Tutshi Lake on a pullout. I pulled in right next to that one and he never even looked up. Seems like there are lots of bears with that colouration in that area. A couple of years ago on the same stretch of road I saw a pair of yearling bears, one black and one dark brown, playing in the middle of the road. They were chasing each other, biting and wrestling around. A tour bus was stopped in the other lane, they paid no attention to anyone. Finally they got off the road and got a drink in the creek by the ditch.

The very top pictures are Tutshi Lake in the afternoon after it stopped snowing. All those mountains are full of Dall sheep. I also saw a marmot cross the road at the top of the pass. While I have heard them often while picking blueberries up there I have never seen one on the road. One thing I REALLY saw lots of were tourists. Tis the season....

Snow in June

Woke up this morning to a big surprise-2 inches of heavy, fat snow. It started raining at 4:30 am so I went out and took the sheets off all my baby plants that were overnighting outside. I fell back asleep and when I woke again couldn't hear any rain-I thought it was our normal 'rain freckles' where we get 5 minutes rain. Not quite.....ran out in my yard shoes and a bathrobe and put all 20 flats back into the greenhouse. The snow melted off of them and there wasn't any damage. All the cabbage family, celery transplants and the seed stuff that has started were also okay. The night before I had put dirt over all the potatoes that had their heads up, so they were fine. Of course yesterday I took all the begonias out to the deck, geraniums out of the house for their summer holiday. Oh we love Global Warming in the Yukon. Looks like this will be our 3rd cold summer in a row. Always a challenge to garden up here!

Another Day at the Dog Farm

I can't believe that it has been an entire month since I last posted to this blog. A very busy one. I started my part time summer job on May 7th. It is just as much fun as last year. This year we have two young women working with us. Maren is 24 and works in the winter as a mushing guide and Bree is 27 and usually a wildland fire fighter. She is taking the summer off to travel to the Yukon and do something diffrent. She definately picked something really diffrent! These two gals are really hard workers, smart and fun to hang out with. The four of us make a good team and seem to be able to deal with all the usual daily disasters.

This is a great place to spend the summer. Lots of fresh air (sometimes too fresh!), beautiful scenery, sunshine, rain, dogs, dogs and more dogs. Also tourists from all over the world. Everyday you get to meet really interesting people. Plus the added benefit of lots of exercise. I work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11-3. Still have my afternoon pottery classes 3-5. Sometimes I get there on time, mostly about 10 minutes late. Carcross is only 2 km away.

In the photos you can see the puppy and 'friendly' yard. There is always a litter of pups running around and 6 people-friendly dogs. The tourists can buy dog cookies and feed them. It is pretty funny to watch them trying to make a sled dog on its day off sit. Or to shake a paw. All these guys know is to run and gobble down as many cookies as they can!

Some dogs live at CCTP all summer. Everyday Michelle brings 20-30 more from home. Maren brings her dogs every other day. All the dogs alternate working and rest days. Not that they want to. Some of them are totally crazy. We usually have 50-60 at work. The noise level when we hook up the cart is deafening. And sometimes things are really nuts. That is usually the time when some dogs figure it will be fun to fight. Then we all have to jump in and stop it. Usually happens when there are a couple of hundred people watching. Another day at the dog zoo!