Last Week

 Did a craft fair on the weekend. Wasn't bad as far as sales. Saw lots of people I hadn't seen in years. Fun social event, some networking and a day out.

 Playing around with low fire clay and glazes. Lots of colour!! The customers like it more than I do.

 More of my student Violet's tiles using traditional designs. These are for sale $25 each mounted in a hangable beautiful alderwood frame.

 Helped two kids make these volcano bases today. I'll fire them then they can turn them into their science fair projects.

 This is why I am not getting any 'work' done. Spending all day out there planting/transplanting. Have to get up a couple times to put wood in the fire during the night but no biggie. Worth all the lost sleep. I'll have a couple of thousand plants in here before long.

First flowers on the hanging basket tomatoes. Usually about 6 weeks from the first flowers to the first red fruit. With all the sun we get you can see the plants growing from one day to the next.

Snow Kiln

Snow, snow and more snow. In fact it is still snowing as I write. The past few days I have been spending about an hour each day pulling snow off roofs. Then shoveling it away. Another few inches and it will be waist deep on me. This is about twice what we usually get in a Winter. This is supposed to be the rain-shadow of the Coast Range. Now my poor kiln is also covered in the stuff. Only good part is that the water content is pretty low. Plus the fact that it would be -46 C like it is a bit to the North of us and beyond this storm track.
I was asked about the measurements of this kiln. Inside the chamber is 64 inches by 28 wide and 24 ish high. 9 courses high on the inside. Because it is made of used (very used) hardbrick there is mortar between the courses and that adds to the height. It is 9 inches thick. The Bourry Box has hobs. On top I use kiln shelves, a layer of soft brick then several layers of fiber blanket. The plans for this kiln were in Laid Back Wood-firing by Steve Harrison. I would recommend both the book and the kiln to anyone wanting to build a simple yet easy to fire kiln.Steve is very accessible and helpful. I have seen pots he fired for 16 hours in one of these kilns that are ringers for 4 day anagama fired work. Tons of ash and great flashing. I fire both 'naked' and glazed work and it works well for both.
It was so cold after my last firing that I neglected the usual clean up, thought it could wait until the Spring. As my studio is closed up until March it won't be until at least May before we fire again.
In the planning process for building two new kilns. One will be a gas conversion of an ancient Duncan electric and the other a 14.5 cu. ft.Flat Top. One will be updraft and the other crossdraft fired with propane. Too many days with the fire hazard up in the high and extreme range for wood firing so this will give me some options. Also will be able to do more frequent testing.
Meanwhile it is back to tend the wood stove and watch the snow come down.

-40 Today, Time for Summer Memories

 A bit fuzzy, but the cranberries were huge this year. Best crop I have seen in over 40 years of picking them.

 More than 40 lbs. in this photo. Altogether we picked over 130 lbs. of different kinds of berries. All now frozen, canned or dried.these are Lingonberries, also know as low bush Cranberries, our favorite.

 On the Takhini River, east of Whitehorse and a little South, near Kusawa Lake. Camped, fished and picked berries. Quiet and beautiful.

 Some of my 'Stargazer" Oriental lilies. The blooms are huge, fragrant and just plain beautiful!

 We have gone soft in our old age. Pretty much had it with sleeping in a tent on the ground. Got our "Hawk" 4 Wheel Camper in June. Spent lots of time in it. Very minimal but all that we need.Much higher level of comfort than we're used to. We lived in it for over three weeks in the Fall on our trip to Alberta and B.C. Loved every minute! You do need to be organized in such a small place, but really, a furnace? Wonderful!!

Last but best. New change rooms and deck at Liard Hot Springs. Went down there a couple of times for multiple days. Never gets old!!!!

Silk Dyeing Workshop

 Cow with a new baby we saw a week or so ago.

 Some of my new latest work. Still having fun....

 Pottery shop transformed into a dyeing workshop.

 Too many colours to choose from!

 One of the three Lindas and her excellent work for the day.

More happy participants and their best efforts.

  Really nice day working with my old and new friends doing a silk scarf dyeing workshop. Sorry I didn't get photos of everyone's work. It was an all day effort. I was dead beat when I got home. The worst part is always packing up my shop here and transporting it to the school. Then packing it back up again to take back home. We will probably be doing another session sometime later in the Summer using natural dyes. Seems like I am going back to my roots......Been a few years but the knowledge and experience is always there. Will try to modernize it using the microwaves. I would never use it for food. As a tool for dyeing fibre/fabric-can't be beat!!!

Back to Silk Painting

Top photo is my already painted scarves curing. They have to cure for at least 24 hours before they are steamed. Also some other ones that are outlined waiting for the dye. All those pails below them are my glazes. I am in my Winter quarters now. Or I should say, crammed into my Winter quarters. All the pottery stuff and the silk stuff and the wool/dog fur stuff. A wood stove and an old cook stove that I use as a work table. All I can say is that it is a heck of a lot better than having to try and work in the house!! I have to haul water in but at least it goes out on its own. I have electricity....a very long extension cord. So there are lights and I can run one tool at a time. Luckily I throw my pots on a kick wheel. It is warm though.
Couldn't resist the temptation to do some tropical fish. Outside it is -12 and SNOWING. Tomorrow is pricing and packing pots for Sunday's sale in Tagish. I usually get really good support from my friends and neighbors. This time I have the cream of the crop for them!!

Signs of Spring

Tagish post office is still closed so we have to go to Carcross to pick up parcels. It is a 66 km. round trip. I had hooks for an order, scarves for dyeing and another package of furs waiting for me. Of course the PO isn't open the same days as my pottery classes so have to make an extra trip. GRR..
Today was +6, calm and bright Spring sunshine. We walked over to where the river exits the lake and saw about 30 swans in the open water. The wild Trumpeter swans are the first waterfowl to arrive back in the North. These guys nest from this area all the way into interior Alaska. Next month there will be thousands of them passing through along with Whistling (Tundra) swans, geese and lots of ducks. These are big, beautiful birds and always a pleasure to see.

Pike Flies

Time to stop with the baby clothes and get back to work. Made some pots yesterday and started flies today. Going to be sending this sample board of pike flies so thought I'd share it.

Silk Scarf Dyeing

I have spent the past 6 weeks knitting baby clothes. 8 babies coming this Spring! Seems everyone wants a 'dragon' baby. Took a break today to dye some wool to finish a blanket, thought I'd experiment with some scarves I bought. Fun with the shop microwave! Very happy with them.

Warmed up

As usual the weather has taken a dramatic change. But this time toward the warm side of things. It was -17 this morning and almost to 0 C right now. Wind shifted from the North to the South and brought in all that 'warm' air from the Pacific. Our wood pile is still in pretty good shape. Each of the rows are over 2 cords and we have 3 and a half rows left. Every day that it stays warm is more wood saved.
Spent the day baking bread. We don't eat very much of it so this will last for quite a while. The lazy time of year is almost over. Pretty soon it will be full on work so all the stuff I can get into the freezer is time to fill all my orders. And garden starting is just around the corner, only a couple of weeks away!!

Call This a Cold Snap??

A friend of mine sent me this from North Pole, Alaska this evening. It was the 10 am reading. Celsius or Fahrenheit, who cares? Hope it warms up for them soon. It makes our -30 seem like a heat wave.

Hat Factory

Looks like chaos, but it isn't really.....Right in the midst of filling an order for 60 dog fur hats. They are all in natural colours which makes it a bit of a bore for me. Almost 40 are in this big pile. This is how I keep myself occupied when it is too cold to make pottery. Of course this winter happens to be one that I could have keep my studio open and warm! Very warm weather for us so far. It is supposed to change next week though. Last week was -51 in Tanana, Alaska. That cold was supposed to come down here but we lucked out. Another Pacific storm was big enough to displace the cold. While waiting for Spring I'll just keep slogging away on these hats.

Texas Hats!

This photo was sent by one of my loyal customers in Texas, USA! These are some of the dog combing hats that I make. Thanks you Harriet, for the business and for the photo. I hope they get enough cold weather and snow to enjoy their hats.

Red Sky in the Morning

A couple of mornings ago we had a fantastic sunrise. At this time of the year the sun is very low on the horizon and takes forever to come up. Then it goes down about as long. Only a few hours of actually sunshine. Of course we live in the mountains so they block the sun too! Never mind, once January is behind us the days will start to lengthen dramatically and the true glory of living up here will once more shine out.

Christmas craft sales are finally over. I did four of them over three weekends. They were very successful. I would like to thank all my wonderful customers. I hope you enjoy owning your new pottery as much as I did making it.

Today was the last day of school for three weeks. Last evening the last after school pottery of the year. Back here at the ranch I am carding dog fur and wool and trying to get all my orders finished. Can't get into making pots again until the weather warms up in the Spring. Takes too much wood to keep the shop going and getting up in the night to go out there and put wood in the fire is a non starter for this kid!!

I hope everyone has a nice and safe holiday and all the best for 2012!

Coming to the End.....

It has been quite a while since I have updated this blog. Been a very busy Summer, with weddings, a couple of wood kiln firings back to back, teaching, watering the garden everyday, chickens, and the list goes on and on. Finally started to rain, just at the tail end of gardening season.

We saw a huge number of bears this year. Every time we went to town or Skagway we saw at least one. Usually more than one. They haven't been in the yard thanks to Cassie the dog. Also it has been the year of the mouse. An amazing number of the little devils have met their maker thanks to our traps and the trusty mutt. Voles, deer mice ugh!! One night we caught EIGHT in our root cellar.

My next task is to fill up the wood kiln for another firing (or two) before Winter arrives. Yep, the fun never ends around here!!

Bears!

I saw this pair of black bears on the way to school and the way back. A couple of miles down the road there was another very small black bear sitting on it's rear watching the road. These guys were munching down the dandelions that are coming up on the verge of the road. they were paying zero attention to me.