Snow Blown

We had a hell of a day today. We got another 4" of snow overnight, not too bad. We started by manually shoveling our walk. The walk in front of the house and the first 20 feet of the driveway went quickly, not too bad for a couple of overweight middle aged people. Rowan seems to have strained her back a little but an ice pack did wonders. 

This afternoon after the soreness set in, I thought the smart thing to do would be to get fresh gas and see if I could get the snowblower running. It was serviced 2 years ago so things were more or less ready to go since it hasn't been run since the servicing. It hasn't been used to clear snow since 2007 when it lived in Erie with Rowan. It was reluctant to turn over but it started to chug along nicely when I noticed the pull start didn't retract. Yep. Busted. Then it stalled and I tried to start it again with the foot of cord that would retract. It worked! I rolled it outside and the engine became steadier. I texted Rowan to come out and give me instruction (I'm a snow blow virgin) and she showed me how it should work. That's when we discovered it was stuck in reverse. Nothing we could do would make it go forward. So now we need service for 2 completely unexpected issues but the damn thing runs beautifully and starts with 1/8 of a pull!

Once all the snowblower adventures were complete we moved on to studio concerns. We had a bisc kiln to unload and had brought biscware to finish, which meant emptying boxes and setting up shelves and tables. And the slab roller :) because it was looking so sad and neglected.

Tomorrow we'll get the pots waxed and glazed and firing. I plan on throwing more pieces and then on Thursday our first clay delivery will arrive!

Getting settled

So, here we are in Tionesta,PA. This was our backyard this afternoon. It's really exciting to finally be here. It's beautiful, but currently quite cold!

The toughest part of moving is that we have to continue to make pottery, move all our stuff and set all the stuff up in a new space and there's only two of us to do most of it.

The studio is here and I've started making work and sorting out exactly how to set up the studio..not the big stuff.. like kilns, but the little stuff like my throwing station. I had it all set up so work flowed, tools were at hand. I need to find that flow again. Part of the difficulty is we still have things stored in the garage-turned-studio that shouldn't be there..like our clothes dryer, which will go to the basement as soon as there is an outlet to plug it into :) and the gas grill, which will go somewhere...I don't know where...maybe up the stairs to the back porch. The plumbing still isn't hooked up and the heating situation isn't working out as planned. Its been so crazy cold! We're going to have to fire kilns continuously through the winter or put in a thermostat controlled heater of some sort. Brrrrr.

But speaking of kilns, we're firing our first one in the new studio tonight! It's loaded with all this stuff. Most of which is destined for Old Forge Brewing Co in Danville PA. They serve everything off of pottery there. It's really a fun place to eat!

We also got our www.hughespottery. etsy.com shop all moved up and running. Stock is shelved in the new office, boxes are ready and the USPS will pick up on our porch. Local folks can use the coupon code LOCALPICKUP1 to remove shipping fees and pick the pieces up on our porch. 
We're really excited to be getting started in this community and hope to become acquainted with everyone as we get settled in!