Sandy Miller Pottery & Garden: Chaos in motion.......

The calm.......

I am old, I have been around the sun more time than some and have moss growing on my north side and I don't care. I am old enough to know there are cycles; up and down, droughts and floods, hurricanes and stillness. Usually the plunges aren't chaotic enough to make you sick but rather just a little woozy. This month I'm a little green and it's not the moss on my backside!

We had a wickedly delicious week, two weeks ago. We had summited Mt Everest with no oxygen tanks. It went like this: Daughter #2 calls from Colorado; the child with a fresh masters degree. Who, upon graduating from Western University in Gunnison, Colorado💫to cheers from parents & big sister; packed up lock, stock and barrel, one hot August day, loaded down with a dog & cat, all worldly possessions in her 2009 Ford Taurus with the bumper duct taped to the frame and front seat that reminds me of a Barcalounger from my Moms basement, crossed the Rocky Mountains and drove to Fort Collins in search of a fabulous job. The dog, cat and daughter had stars in their eyes and joy in their hearts. Found a cute apartment next to CSU campus and started applying for jobs, hundreds of jobs (not kidding), no jobs were offered and it has been has been a year of rejection. She found a job tending bar and the Sundance Saloon, boots not included. Since my kids were wee tots I said repeatedly and loudly: IF GOD SENDS THE PEBBLE PAY ATTENTION BECAUSE THE BRICK IS COMING! After so many rejections it was more than a pebble. From August to February anxious parents waited for an email, a text, fireworks, the BRICK....... anything and then it came.

I AM EMPLOYED, I HAVE A JOB! Be still my heart! I called Butch and pulled him out of a very important meeting to tell him; You can retire now, she has a JOB! Where? University of Oregon in Eugene....... she's gonna be a Duck, a mighty Duck! Woo Hoo! We all celebrated, it's a family thing!

Rinse and repeat: One dog, one cat, all worldly possessions and a 2009 Ford Taurus heading west to Eugene, Oregon and Mighty Duck country.

Beyond Oregon, it's Japan and the Ford will never make it! We are cracking open the Buffalo Trace tonight! Cheers! Butch sent his letter of retirement last weekend. I am scared.

Could life get any better? Why YES it can! I occasionally poke around auctions and estate sales. I consider myself a saver of old pots, many forgotten with layers of dust and crud. Over the years I have found some amazing pots but never the holy grail. The day after the JOB announcement I started bidding on a vase that looked a lot like a Hideaki Miyamura pot; The Man of 10,000 glazes. I have loved his pots since I first laid eyes on them in the early 2000's. In the past few years Pucker Gallery out of Boston picked him up and his prices skyrocketed into the thousands. The starting bid was $22.00. I bid $24.00. The last day of the auction I was on pins and needles expecting this thing to skyrocket and it did ..... all the way to $40.00! I bought a Hideaki Miyamura pot for $40.00. I didn't sleep for two nights. Saturday morning, we drove down to an estate and there it was and it was real and I loaded it in the car and drove away. Nobody knew this was his pot, even though it is signed.

As fast as we had ascended we were now descending. Butch's car with 300,000 miles finally bit the dust. He drives like a coast to coast truck driver for his job. His job eats cars. So on a cold morning he started hunting after we all refused to get in and drive to the airport to pick up daughter #1 from Alaska.

If I saw this man walk in my showroom I would put the closed the sign in the window and run. Many years ago we were in the same situation except we had one car, two kids and a beyond tight budget. He was working across the street from a used car lot. He was working in construction and wore flannel shirts and work boots and by noon he looked & smelled like a construction worker. He had his eye on an Audi, a spiffy used Audi with a sun roof. He walked over every day for a month and sat in the car on his lunch hour. Some days he ate his lunch in the car. Finally, after weeks of this, the salesman came out and said: Sir, I will sell this car to you at my cost, if you never walk on to my car lot again. He drove home that night and we all went to the beach with sun roof open. And so it has gone for the 40 years I have known him. He drove home a used Nissan Rouge with 13K miles and more bells and whistles than I can figure out but I do love those heated seats! He got a great deal but it's cash out lay we were not expecting and just ick. I guess the sub-woofer in the trunk makes things more palatable. I'll keep my sub-woofer in the backyard.

As the week went on, the nightly load of laundry went in. The first signs things were going awry. Open the washer door and the plastic fins had their last trip on spin dry, one too many times. Pulled out my jeans and the guts of the washer came with it. But the motor was still good and it still washed so carry on. I said a novena over it, lite a candle and carried on. It seemed to help. Saturday night, we threw the wet clothes in the dryer and went to bed. Ten minutes, just about the time it takes get comfortable and get the sheets warm enough to fall asleep, the dryer made gasping groans. So loud we jumped out of bed, tripped over two panicked dogs and ran down stairs before something really horrible happened. We draped laundry around the house and said we'd deal with it in the morning. This fine set was purchased 24 years ago and it had never stopped. Not through my pottery rags (my clothes after a day in the studio), several dogs, 2 kids, gardening clothes, kitchen disasters and sailing adventures. This set was a work horse for 24 years! We went to Lowe's Presidential Sale and forked over $2200.00 for a damn washer and dryer. Made in America Maytag set. We were asked if I wanted the steam dry add on. I laughed; NO! I'll be down at the river beating my clothes on rock until March 23rd when they promised to deliver it. They wanted $40 to take the old set away. Will they load it in my van for free? Why yes they will little lady. Great I will take it to the recycling center center myself!

Thank you old friend.........

At this point I felt like we were hemorrhaging money! Yes, we plan for these things but when they happen it's a gut punch and I take it very personally. Butch never gets upset about this stuff, I do! I feel like I need to spring into action and do something to fill the bank account again. I had a month of testing glazes and had just about figured out what to take forward and what to leave behind because it was time to put the pedal to the metal and spin clay to gold!

I do enjoy testing! Again, it starts out so orderly. I spent hours on chemistry tables; food safe, not food safe. After three days of glaze calculations my brain hurt and it was go time!

How I start:

half way through and chaos wins.....

and you're left with this........

Out of 48 tests I have 4 worth working on. I still have a couple more I want to test but they might need to wait while I make pots.

I did make one discovery. I needed to pickup up porcelain in Cinncinati and stoneware in New York.

Across the Ohio River lies Kentucky, home to some of the best bourbon in the world and I cannot get it in Ohio! It was a 500 pound porcelain and 1 bottle of bourbon pick up. When I drive to Avon, NY I pick up my favorite white stoneware and Butch just realized it's in the Finger Lakes region and wine country so we stopped at 4 wineries and picked up wine. I don't drink so make the perfect designated driver :)

Of course when he discovered all these clay places were close to his favorite places my trips now take twice as long and we need to take the dogs too.

And realizing we might never eat again...... this happened.

Again, I start out completely in control and then chaos happens. I am over come with seed-a-phobia.

It's not too early to start brassicas and onions should be started in January along with leeks. The weather is wild too. This is unheard of!

It makes me think I should get cold loving plants started and ready to set out. Everything I started doesn't mind a bit of snow and frost. Plants that bolt in hot weather should be started now. They are not on heating mats and as soon as they germinate I will move this batch to the porch. I can use my fish fertilizer on the porch and not so much in the back room. You only make that mistake once. For three days we walked around the house commenting on the winter kill from Lake Erie smells really bad this year. I finally fessed up and said; it's me, I'm using fish and kelp fertilizer. I expect the raccoons to be breaking down the door any night now.