October 17, 2014: Day 17

It's hard to believe that October is more than half over. Lately it has felt more like June. I am not complaining about that; I'd be perfectly happy if it felt this way in January although I know that would be catastrophic for our planet - and by extension, us.

But the warm weather has served to make a difficult task just a little bit easier. I have reprocessed all of the clay that I could, leaving only one 5-gallon bucket of liquid clay that has to be protected from freezing. I now have about 2,300 pounds of clay to store. That will give me a huge boost when production starts again. I will not need to buy clay for at least a year.

Everything I intend to sell at some point is packed and ready to go. All of the bisque likewise. And today I did something that proved as cathartic as it was sad. I took a hammer and smashed every second and irregular piece on the shelves with a small number of exceptions. "Why?!" you may ask. Well it's pretty simple.

I keep the seconds and irregular items to sell for half price. They made for my largest single sales day this year, although I do believe the 30% sale on top quality items did it's share as well. But a large number of the seconds have been sitting on those shelves for five years not getting sold. When something sits on your shelf for that long, it's not making you any money. It's costing you money. Why would I want to pack all of that stuff up and lug it around when it has a proven track record of not selling?

Nope. Smash. So now I have 8 boxes of shards to take to the demo pile as soon as possible. I'd say one pickup truck load of trash and I'll be pretty much done. That feels good.

I plan to take Sunday off and spend as much of it lounging about in bed as I can. Then I will rise, go to breakfast (I eat breakfast out on Sunday morning) and then go back to bed when I get home. It will be bliss for one day.

Monday the remainder of stuff at the pottery will be redistributed. The glaze buckets will come home so I can use their contents over the winter. I'm still looking for someone with a kiln, but truth be told, I haven't really started searching yet. Too much else to do right now. First things first.

I'll report on the events of tomorrow when all is said and done.

Day 17 down, 8 to go.

October 16, 2014: Day 16

Sometimes getting out of bed is not the best of ideas. But I guess you have to do it no matter what.

Today was not the best of days. I know bumps are a major factor in any road, particularly in those roads that lead to unknown destinations. While no road is altogether smooth even at the best of times, Today's could have come a whole lot closer without losing its entertainment value, I'm sure.
 
Earlier this week I made a commitment to rent a truck. The big moving day is Saturday. Not only did I make the arrangement, but I poured over inventory and equipment coming up with the best way to load the thing given the itinerary I have planned. Yup, it was all there. Until it wasn't.

Today I came to the understanding that every candidate I had in mind for a helper wasn't going to be available. One after another told me that they couldn't help. An offer broadcast widely on Facebook - along with an offer to pay well - also yielded nothing.

Then I got a call from U Haul telling me that I would have to drive 36 miles to pick up the truck I had reserved only 15 miles away from Blue Hill. They charge you for each and every mile you drive those things, so I didn't see the economic sense in driving about 72 miles in an empty truck if I didn't have to. Reservation cancelled.

Now I really had nothing to work with. And I have a suspicion that everyone around me knew things weren't going well. I don't do a great job of keeping that sort of thing a secret, I must confess.

Fortunately for all of us, both ambulances were busy all day, so I had the whole office to myself to stew in.

In the end, I drove to the Penske place and found it quite easy to reserve a truck that would be available at that site,, one hour earlier than U Haul, and rather less expensive. Should have tried them out first.

Later in the afternoon, I got a text telling me that I had a solid prospect for assistance. Details to be discussed tomorrow.

So that's a relief. But I'll be even more relieved when Sunday dawns and I can sleep in for the first time since early July. I need some extra sleep time. Really, I do.

October 14, 2014: Day 14

Yup. I missed posting yesterday. By the time I was finished with everything it was about 10:00 p.m. and I was finally too exhausted to do anything but go to bed. I figured one day without a post won't hurt. And nothing much happened anyway outside of the normal packing. There wasn't a lot of that anyway since I was working a 12 hour truck shift.

Today was a little different. I got a lot accomplished, but if you have ever packed to move, you will understand how it goes. I am up to 43 boxes full of stock. I looked out on the empty sales room and saw...more pottery. Yup. There was a bunch of little stuff.

No matter how much you stuff into boxes, there always seem to be odds and ends hanging around looking like they're waiting for a streetcar. A small box should take care of it, but by that moment it was time to leave for the evening.

The plastic totes in the picture are packed with stock intended for craft fairs. The rest of it will go to the storage unit. I have reserved a rental truck for this weekend and, with any luck at all, the vast majority of Lowell Hill Pottery will be out of the building for good. No doubt there will be lots of little stuff tagging along after that, but small stuff I don't sweat.

Day 14 down, 11 to go.

October 12, 2014: Day 12

I probably made more progress today than any day so far. At long last all stock that is headed for the storage unit is boxed and ready to go. It's all inventoried, organized and recorded as well. There were 33 boxes in all, most of them full to the brim. I will post a picture of them tomorrow. I forgot my camera today.

Tomorrow I will start packing up the stock intended for fair sales and other such events. I'm planning on doing some craft fairs (the sort you have to pass a jury to get into, that is), and generally circulating anywhere I have an opportunity. So there is still a fair amount of stock left to pack. Most of it will load up pretty quickly, though.

After that, the bisque will need to be boxed up. That won't take very long because 1. there isn't a whole lot and, 2. I don't have to pack it quite as carefully as the finished work.

Yesterday I managed to process a couple hundred pounds of clay. I have one more barrel to get through and that is the only part of this little adventure that has me concerned. I may be packing unprocessed clay into smaller buckets and storing it if I can't get all of it done, but that's not a big deal. I just don't want to toss out or leave behind any clay I can make use of. The stuff costs way too much for that kind of waste.

Next weekend I'm planning on doing the truck rental thing. Then it will be moving day in earnest. I expect I'll have the thing for a couple of days and if I'm lucky, I can get a couple people to help me with the heavy stuff.

After that, it will be clean-up time. All of the seconds and irregulars that I have had in the showroom will be smashed and hauled to the dump. They're not top quality, they take up a lot of space that I don't have in the storage unit, and I have no desire to haul them around. I'm sure a new collection of toss offs will eventually emerge.

I'm recalibrating my countdown because I will be leaving for South Carolina to visit with my dad on October 28. I need to be done before that. I have an appointment with a client on the 25th during which they will pick up their new dinnerware set. I would like to think that when I turn the key in the door after that appointment, it will be the last time I set foot in the place. Sad, but we must all evolve. So...

Day 12 down, 13 to go.

October 11, 2014: Day 11

This will be a short entry. Pack, pack, pack. Pug, pug, pug, box, box, box. Lug, lug, lug.

Tomorrow it's off to the storage unit. Next week, I will rent a truck and finish this. In the meantime, it's after midnight again.

Bedtime.

Day 11 down, 20 to go.

October 10, 2014: Day 10

Big efforts sometimes result in small gifts.

I left the full-time job early today so that I could really make some serious progress in the packing up department - not to mention the clay processing department.

It may not seem like I accomplished much if I tell you that I packed up five boxes of pottery, but when those five boxes contain over 240 pieces that needed to be individually wrapped and carefully arranged to avoid damage, well, that may put things into perspective. One of the boxes took two hours to pack. It was like putting a puzzle together - of the jigsaw variety. But I figure more time spent at this end will make for less time when I need to retrieve something later on. Right now, all of the jam jars are packed, along with all of the creamers, sugar bowls and demitasse sets. The shelves in the showroom are starting to look a tad empty.

I am planning to sell at a few craft fairs in the near future if I can get into them. For that reason some of the pottery, rather than being packed up with the rest, is being kept aside to be packed into totes.
What dinnerware I have will get packed up next and I'll top it all off with the more bulky ovenware, teapots and other such items.

On top of all this, I reprocessed several boxes of clay. At long last, I have hit upon a relatively efficient way of getting that job done and it's working pretty well. I think I can get the rest of the clay processed within the week doing it this way.

And that is where the gift comes in. Many weeks ago, I lost a finger ring that I particularly treasure. it's nothing terribly special, but I like it. It has the Lord's Prayer inscribed on it, but it's written in Tengwar script, making it look like Sauron's ring of power. Those of you who know me well will sense the many levels of irony in that, which is why I bought the ring in the first place. But it disappeared some time ago, possibly abandoning me in hopes of finding a passing Hobbit. When no such luck befell it, it chose this evening to return to me. When I'm doing clay work that is characteristically messy and sloppy (like reprocessing clay), I wear a cover-all to keep as much mud off of my clothing as possible. Apparently the last time I wore it, I took the ring off and put it in the pocket. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Tonight I discovered what I had in my pocketses! The One Ring now resides on my finger where it rightly belongs.

I would say that I am now off to read the Silmarillion, but I've attempted that one three times now without success. I think sleep is the far better idea. Tomorrow is another busy day. My goal is to get the rest of the stock packed up and then start on the bisque ware. Oof!

Day 10 down, 21 to go.

October 9, 2014: Day 9

Fate is capable of many things. Good timing is not among them, apparently.

Today was devoted entirely to packing pottery for transport. Of course, I didn't get started on that until after my day job, but I worked at it until about 7:00 this evening. I got all of the mugs done and then moved on to small teapots, petal cups and small sugar bowls. In all, I packed seven boxes that, added to the ones already packed, brings the total so far to fourteen boxes. I bought fifty of them so I think I'm in good shape. Of course, the larger, bulkier items have yet to weigh in. Bean pots don't like to share space so it will be interesting.

Here's a fun detail about this picture. The big red box in the background is the old Rowantrees kiln. It was designed and built in 1976 and was used for 32 years. It had a 100 cubic foot capacity (compared to the 6.6 cubic feet in my kiln). They named it Theodore and the total cost of construction was $13,000. Today you can't touch a kiln of that magnitude for less than $50,000. The yellow target on the front was painted by me. The kiln was originally yellow in color, but one day Sheila Varnum decided she wanted something a bit more striking. Besides, none of us really liked yellow and let's face it, this thing took up a large amount of space. Once we finished painting it, I added the kiln's name across the top (not pictured) and the target. See, the glazer and I had this little suction cup dart gun...

So, the timing thing. Well, family issues have arisen that will require my attention soon. I'll need to travel some distance to do my part in helping out my dad who will be undergoing heart surgery soon. The surgery has already been postponed twice, so my siblings and I are rearranging schedules to try and get things figured out. It's difficult when nobody knows exactly what is happening and when, and all we can do is wait and react when we find out.

So my deadline for being out of the pottery building has moved from the end of this month to As Soon As Possible. Like in less than two weeks. And one would be most preferable.

I see some long days and late nights in my immediate future.

Day 9 down, not sure how many left to go, but let's still say 22.