A Gentle Giant Comes to Help the Lonely Potter

The main topics of conversation around here for the last few weeks have been forest fires and smoke. Everything has been revolving around whether the fires that surround us are growing or moving, whether to be worried about evacuating, and how to cope with the terrible smoke that has brought outside activity to a stop. Yesterday, then, was like the first day of spring after a terrible winter. There had been enough rain in the night to wash the smoke out of the air, and there was enough of a breeze to keep the smoke away. The lonely potter and I decided to spend as much of the day outside as we could, since there was no way of knowing how long this reprieve would last. We had no idea that we were on an island sticking out of an ocean of smoke, and that out of that ocean would come someone who needed to do some physical work due to a bad case of smoke induced cabin fever. At last, the silver lining to the smoke clouds!

He arrived in a beat up pick-up truck with peeling paint and newly repaired muffler. When he got out, he towered above the cab of the truck. A tall, muscle bound man with long blond hair. Sparky grovelled shamelessly at his feet. In a thick German accent he explained that the smoke at his place was still really bad and his wife had invited her girlfriends to spend the day, so he had to get out of there. Did we need help splitting wood? 

I should explain that this gentle giant was not a total stranger. The farrier we have had ever since we moved here is a woman. A very tough woman, who has not had an easy life. A couple of years ago she decided that she didn't like it here and was going home to Manitoba. She disappeared in the fall that year, and we thought she was gone. We tried to find another farrier all that winter, with no luck. Then, in the spring, she called and asked if our horses needed a hoof trim. Surprised, we said sure, and she arrived, along with her new husband! This was our first meeting with the gentle giant. It was followed by several more meetings, as our farrier has been dealing with crippling pain in her back and hips, and  her husband is slowly taking over more and more of her work. Fortunately he appears to be an excellent physical specimen who revels in hard work.

In response to the gentle giant's question about wood splitting, the lonely potter supplied the chainsaw, axe and maul, and left the gentle giant to his rhythmic work. Thunk! Set the block of wood on the chopping block. Whack! One blow with the maul. Chunk! Chunk! Two cleanly split pieces of wood tossed onto the wood pile. Hour after hour this went on, while the lonely potter hurried to stack the wood as the gentle giant split it, and I tried to carry on with potting herbs for winter instead of staring at the jaw dropping amount of work that was being done across the fence. Even the discovery of a hornet nest and the resulting sting only slowed him down a for a few minutes. In gratitude, I picked raspberries, apples and rhubarb and made some pies for him to take home (and maybe for us too).

When the last piece of wood had been split, the lonely potter convinced the gentle giant to stay for supper, which, fortuitously had already been planned. So, not only did this wonderful man take a day out of his life to help the lonely potter with a chore that would have been almost impossible to do alone, he then spent a couple of hours raving about the lonely potter's cooking and looking at photo albums of the ranch. What a prince. Sparky would not leave him alone, trying all kinds of antics to get his attention, which the gentle giant obligingly laughed at while rough housing with Sparky to his heart's content. Both dog and master had a very good day.

The Lonely Potter Prepares to Fight Fire

Three weeks of living in the reek of forest fire smoke does not create complacency. It does create a desire, a need even, to DO SOMETHING! This urge kicked into high gear today when we learned that new areas nearby are being evacuated, and there is a danger of high winds and lightening this evening, which makes it impossible to guess where the next fire will take hold.

So, the lonely potter left the cool, unsmokey studio for the hot, smokey outdoors. First he hosed down, by hand, with a garden hose,  every inch of ground and all the trees within a twenty foot radius of the house.  Then he lugged hose, sprinklers, and whatever he could manufacture to attach the sprinklers onto the roof, and let the sprinklers run until the roof and deck were dripping wet. Meanwhile, helicopters flew by every few minutes, the sun went down in flames, and the ducks on the pond just kept on swimming.

The Lonely Potter and the Lonely Rooster

We have seen a lot of things on our daily dog walk in the woods. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer, moose,cows, a bear, a lynx, ATVs, other dog walkers, people doing bad things, people doing good things, and lots of interesting flora and fauna. One thing we never expected to see was a chicken. Or a rooster. A rooster that caught our attention by crowing loud and long, in the forest, in the middle of the day.

Why are they there? How did they get there? How do they manage to survive? If we catch them and bring them home, where will we put them?

We have visited the rooster and his hen four times now. The last two times the lonely potter took some grain, and sent me back to the car with the dogs so he could have some alone time with the feathered folks. The rooster is still too cautious or dignified to allow the lonely potter to get close, even with the grain offering. The second time the chicken, however, greeted the lonely potter and his grain by running up and happily clucking, as though she had been waiting . Have no doubt that the lonely potter will persist until either the rooster too is his friend or is no longer in the forest.

If the rooster comes to live with us, will he continue to crow at all hours?

The dogs and I await the lonely potter after his chicken visit

Egyptian Plagues and Exodus

When the ground appears to be moving, and I can't walk across the yard without massacring several tiny toads, two things occur to me. First, I wonder how long I can stay in the house before I absolutely have to go out, then I think about the plagues sent to Egypt to convince Pharaoh to release the Children of Israel.

According to Wikipedia, there were ten plagues. So far this year it feels like we have had about half of them.

The first, making the Nile river turn red with blood, we can skip. The resultant fish kill, however, is similar to a little incident that happened in Kelowna last week. End of the world predictors love that kind of thing.

The second,  hoards of frogs, well that's how this story started. So far we have only had to shoo a few out of the garage and the shop, and they seem to be moving towards some destination across highway 20, much to the consternation of people travelling down the highway when they come upon a 100 yard stretch of road covered with black gravel, that moves. Let's hope this plague is almost over for this year.

Lice, the third plague, we have avoided so far this year. And that is no mean feat, given how much time we spend with our animals, and how much time they spend outside.

Flies that cause harm to animals and people, the fourth plague, we have in droves. Tiny flies that torment the horses, horse flies that take chunks out of places like the middle of the back, mosquitoes that wait till dark to attack people and animals alike,  and deer flies that light and bite, leaving an itchy spot that drives you mad.  Yes, we have plague number four.

The fifth, livestock deaths, may not have happened in plague proportions, but the loss of two out of four horses in inexplicable circumstances, feels like a plague.

The sixth is boils, and you  can't appreciate how wonderful it is to not have boils unless you have had them. I have, but that was many years ago, and I really hope I will never have them again.

Hail (mixed with fire, just to make a point) is number seven. We have had some hail, but not enough to do damage. We are surrounded by fires, but  so far the hail/fire mix has missed us.

The locusts, number eight, will likely miss us too, although the flying grasshoppers have become really big and numerous during the drought. When one hits you in the face, you feel it. If they eat my garden I will be mad.

Number nine was three days of darkness. Does a week of smokey twilight count? If Yahweh had thought of that one he might not have needed number ten, the death of all first born children.

The Israelites had their Exodus - will the lonely potter have his? The Internet makes it possible to take a look at the other side of the fence,or several other fences, and when the grass on your side of the fence is looking dead and brown, it sure can be attractive over there. Thoughts of moving somewhere with a more pleasant climate, fewer biting flies, and more access to the finer things of life have been growing for the past while. Will these thoughts bear results? Stranger things have happened.

Where the toads came from? The pond at the bottom of our yard.

The Lonley Potter Has a Visitor and Finds Inspiration

 I hope that none of my readers have been under the apprehension that the goal of the lonely potter is to produce pottery for the market place. If so, please put this concept aside and learn to accept, as I have, that the lonely potter will never produce marketable quantities of  work that he deems good enough to sell. The point of this pottery journey is...the journey.

While he does seem to enjoy the completion of an interesting piece, the only times I have seen obvious signs of pleasure during this journey have been when the lonely potter was teaching or demonstrating different facets of his craft to an appreciative audience.  So it was with great pleasure that I returned from a week in Alberta with, not one, but two fans of the lonely potter's work. In fact, on a previous visit, John had learned how to throw a pot on the wheel and had produced two recognizable pots. As soon as the lonely potter heard that John would be stopping by again, he began preparing for a day of raku, so John's pots could be fired one day and ready to travel the next. Nancy, who arrived with John, has been a willing recipient of the lonely potters' product in the past, and he was counting on her to take a few more away on this visit. To top all this, the lonely potter had been saving a ten year old bottle of  Tokaj wine to share with someone who might appreciate it. So, a day of raku and wine was planned.

In preparation for the visit, the lonely potter had done another experimental sawdust firing, using newly discovered techniques involving copper wire and moss soaked in salt.  The results, of course, were dismissed as not what he wanted. If, however, one did not know what he wanted, I think they are very interesting, so, here they are:

I had made the trip to Alberta and back with John and Nancy. We had had very good luck avoiding traffic accidents, tornadoes and flash floods, but it became clear that we were not going to dodge the smoke from the forest fires raging through the interior of B.C. . We watched the smoke getting darker and closer as we came closer to our destination. We watched big airplanes and small helicopters flying into the smoke, and wondered how close the fires were to the lonely potter. 

Close enough, it turns out, that the air was more smoke than  air and the sky had an eerie orange glow, while the sun was a light orange dot in the sky.  Combined with 30+ temperatures, and vegetation either crispy or wilting, John and Nancy were having flashbacks to their trip to Australia during bush fire season. The good thing was that the smoke from the pottery firing would be totally obscured by the smoke in the air already, so we were unlikely to be bothered by neighbors worried about what we were burning.

It was a good day, despite the smoke, although a few hours after Nancy had washed, vacuumed and polished Susanna's car, it was sprinkled with ash...

After a day in the smoke, showers and baths were enjoyed by all. Then a good meal and a good night's sleep.