Saturday on The Cobb

We took a paddle out on the Cobb on Saturday; a gorgeous sunny day in the 80s with a nice breeze.  Found this little guy right where we put the kayaks in.  He wasn't very timid; stayed right there until the kayak practically bumped him.

We have a bumper crop of water lillies on the stream this year.  As well as a large number of damsel flies - also not very timid.

It was a beautiful day to sit on the shady deck afterwards and enjoy the warm breeze.

Camp renovations

Rick and I just finished painting the main room at camp and laying peel n stick tiles on the floor in the main room and the old porch area.  The sheetrock had been put up about 6 years ago.  A guy named David and my friend Tom had put it up and taped it and done some mudding but was badly in need of some finesse work.  My brother Bill had been staying out there the last three weeks and redid the mud and Jared went out and sanded.  So Monday I painted one wall and on Tuesday Rick and I finished painting and on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday Rick finished the flooring.  

I had originally planned to get a darker color tile but when I got to the home store they didn't have what I was looking for so grabbed a "stone look" light color.  I wish I'd stuck to my original plan.  I don't like the white look for camp, plus it shows the dirt big time.  But it's staying and I'll get used to it.  We're kind of wondering whether we'll come back in the spring and find that it didn't survive well.  We'll see.  

We've got a bunch of trim work to do still.  Maybe during my vacation we can stay out there a few days and get that done.  Our handyman Todd is staying out there this coming weekend - Father's Day weekend.  He'd done some free work for us last summer and we'd offered to let him and his family use the camp in exchange.  They never got around to it last summer and now that he's built the deck, he's pretty psyched about a weekend there.  He'll be surprised to see all the work we've done.  

The Bumper Sticker Anthology – Part IV – Howl If You Heart City Lights Bookstore

Howl if you heart City Lights Bookstore.  The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this one is that we were scheduled to go to California two summers before we actually went.  Christopher’s accidental fall off his Segway, requiring immediate surgery at Boston’s Children’s Hospital caused us to cancel our flights and reservations the night before we were to leave.  So instead of strolling around San Francisco in early June of 2007, I was spending the night in his hospital room at Children’s.  The plan had been to fly to California and drive back across country.  We had looked for a Westphalia to buy while we were there but decided to just rent an SUV to drive back.  In the end it didn’t really matter obviously as we cancelled the trip.  So two summers later we decided to give it another try, only this time we’d just be there for 10 days – fly into San Francisco, spend a few days, and then take two days to drive down the coast – through the Big Sur area – to Los Angeles and spend some time with Rick’s son, Jason. 

Our first full day in San Francisco we spent riding the trolleys, visiting Chinatown, Coit Tower, Vesuvios Bar and City Lights Bookstore, famous hangout of the beats.  Rick left one of his books there, The Beat Handbook, 100 Days of Kerouactions.  A reverse shoplifting or guerilla marketing kind of thing.  A year later he was offered the opportunity to review Helen Weaver’s book about Kerouac for City Lights and he asked them if they’d carry it.  They declined.  But little did they know that they did in fact carry it for some period of time.  Probably ended up in the trash but who knows, maybe some person bought it and City Lights sold it to them, not quite understanding their snafu with the inventory as he/she checked the book out. 

It’s a cool little bookshop, more polished and sterile now I suspect than at the time Ferlinghetti first co-founded it and Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Cassady hung out there.  I bought a couple poetry books, a t-shirt, and the bumper sticker.  The reference to Howl was kind of a double entendre for us as just before we left Maine we’d volunteered with the Wolf Inquiry Project to go out into the woods in western Maine in the middle of the night and howl like a wolf and record any responses we got.  And of course, the obvious reference to Ginsberg’s poem. 

That had been my first, and so far only, trip to CA so I’m a little sad to no longer have a bumper sticker on my car in memory of the trip

Perhaps I’ll order one from their website for the new Forester though that’s not quite the same.  

Sunday, May 2nd

I hear the occasional splash from a fish jumping or an osprey diving for his prey.  It’s humid today, temp about 75.  Pretty nice for early May.   The water level in The Cobb is very low due to repairs being made to New Mills Dam in Gardiner.  The leaves are starting on the trees but the lack of foliage and water makes everything look brown and dead, especially on this slightly overcast day.  Yet there’s plenty of wildlife: there are probably 6 or 8 red squirrels within sight, running through the trees, coming to the feeder.  Many people dislike the little ninjas but I’m kind of fond of their chattering and the way they vibrate with life most every moment of their existence.   I spied one sitting for an hour in a notch in the tree out by the stream this morning.  I seldom see them still for that long.  There’s birdsong all around, red wing black birds, goldfinch, the hairy woodpecker, as well as the ubiquitous osprey.  I saw four of them flying overhead yesterday while sitting on the deck. 

An occasional boater passes lazily by, sometimes with poles cast.   The monkey like sound of what I’m guessing is the pileated woodpecker joins the scene.  I wonder sometimes if it’s a flaw in my character that I can sit here for hours just taking all this in.  “Shouldn’t” I be doing something?  At least pretend to be reading a book?  There is a list of things I should be doing: getting ready to go to Jim Lunt’s 90^th birthday party, finish cleaning up after my paint job on the doorway, pack stuff and get ready to leave, but . . . 

I did write a poem today.

They greeted her with smiling faces

their prickly thorns and petals of love

she went about her chores

while the flowers sang their music

Raku Firing April 2010

We did our raku firing last Thursday night at Malley’s house.  It starts out on a base of lightweight fire brick which you pile your pieces on, and then set and load up two more layers of shelves using regular spacers between them.  We put the asbestos lined chicken wire “kiln” over the shelves and torched it with a propane fired weed burner.  I’d never seen a weed burner before but it’s a pretty big sucker and puts out quite a flame – fifty bucks at your local hardware store.  We let it heat up the kiln for about 45 minutes and very carefully lifted the kiln off the top of the stacked pieces.  Using very long tongs we took each piece off the shelves and gently dropped them into a large tin trashcan filled with some type of combustible material – leaves, sticks, shredded paper.  After each piece goes into the can we threw in more combustible material to give the next piece some cushion.  The various materials make unique colors against each glaze. After they smoke in this for 20 minutes we put them in water.

We used special raku glazes and left parts of the pots unglazed.  The bottoms of the pots turned out a really nice, almost shiny black, just from the charcoal of the fire.  Each glaze has a range of colors it might turn, depending on the temperature of that part of the pot, or what combustible materials it sets against in the smoking part of the process.  It’s a very unpredictable process but with very quick results.  We fired two kilns of pots in about three hours – very different than using an electric kiln where it takes a good 20 hours to heat, fire, and cool down. 

The raku process is not meant for dishware that you’ll be eating from so it has a limited usefulness.  But it makes a very interesting metallic like finish with various colors and patterns in each piece.  Here are some pieces:

Weekend at camp

I had planned to take some vacation time last week after the long weekend and spend it at camp.  Then we got a call from some friends from PA who wanted to come to Maine for the weekend so we offered to let them stay there.  I sometimes feel very guilty about having two nice homes while some people go homeless and it helps abate my guilt to generously share camp.  Many of my friends know where I keep the keys and know they're welcome to go out and use it when no one is there.  So I was happy to change my plans and let Keith and Beth stay there.  They stayed Saturday through Tuesday and left for Acadia on Wednesday.  I left work early on Tuesday and we all enjoyed a paddle and a campfire.  

Keith

                                Beth                           

This wicker chair had seen better days so we decided to make it part of our campfire.  Later, looking at photos, we discovered what appeared to be some evil spirit enveloped in the flames.  Look at the top of the flames.  Scary.  I tried to convince myself it was benevolent but in reality it does look pretty evil.  

So I took Tuesday afternoon off work to spend with our guests and Wednesday afternoon off to spend solo and stayed the night at camp and woke Thursday to a beautiful morning.  It was tough to wake up to such a gorgeous day and leave camp but I did.    

Even with all the rain we'd been getting the water on The Cobb had been going down and became extremely low this weekend.  This time of year the water should be high.  The loons and ducks count on knowing where the high water is in choosing their nesting sites.  I emailed the Cobbossee Watershed District to find out what was up and discovered that the water was being lowered to allow for some emergency repairs to the New Mills Dam.  Apparently the repairs should be done early this week and then the boards will be put back in place and allow the water levels to return to normal.  I think it's still too early for the birds to have started nesting so I think they'll be ok.  This is how low it was on Sunday:

Thursday night I woke briefly about 3 a.m. and found this little guy peeking in the window.   Actually he wasn't all that little but he was definitely cute.  

Sunday Rick and I were sitting on the deck and saw this heron land in one of the dead trees in the marsh.  I was able to get this photo of the heron about to launch just as the osprey flew into the frame.

I love that you can see his little rat tail thing (there's probably an official name for it) and the hair on his neck.  

Easter day kayak paddle on the Cobb

Some photos from our Easter day paddle.  It was sunny and 70s - a very unusual event for Easter in Maine. 

 Here I've stopped to listen to a chorus of frogs.  

The turtles were plentiful, albeit a bit lethargic after their winter hibernation.  I'm guessing we saw over 30 of them throughout our paddle.  Normally we see just 3 or 4.

The Bumper Sticker Anthology - Part III - my other car is a Segway

My youngest son was born with a physical disability known as arthrogryposis.  At birth we didn't know if he'd ever be able to walk.  After a some surgeries on his feet and legs, and about a year of serial casting, and several years of physical therapy, he is able to walk, albeit with difficulty.  When he started at middle school and had to begin walking distances around the school to change classes, he began falling quite a bit.  The school asked him to start using a wheelchair because they were concerned that he would bang his head on a desk or something when he fell and really hurt himself.  So with some hesitancy, we ordered a wheelchair for him.  He had started playing wheelchair sports with a great group called Youth in Motion, so the idea of a wheelchair wasn't as disheartening as it might have been.  In fact, we made sure to order him one that had cambered wheels for better maneuverability on the basketball court and a wheelie bar to help prevent tipping over backwards when he did wheelies.  He always felt weird about using a wheelchair in public because when he'd get up and walk the few steps to a car or whatever, he felt like a fraud; like he didn't really need a wheelchair.  

We had been following the development of the Segway for quite some time.  If you don't know what a Segway is, check out this link:  http://www.segway.com/individual/models/index.php

I had told Chris that when it was available I would make every attempt to get him one.  It appeared to be a perfect tool for someone with his disability who can walk, but just can't walk distances.  So sure enough, come Christmas 2002, I discovered the Segway was now for sale to the general public.  The only place you could buy it at the time was on Amazon.com.   

I ordered it and they sent me a poster of it in a long cylindrical tube but it wouldn't actually be available for pick up until March of 2003.  So for Christmas that year, I wrapped the tube and both his brothers and I kept remarking about how much he would totally love his Christmas gift.  Of course, the poster tube sat there wrapped and Chris had no idea what could possibly be in such a package that he'd be so excited about. Needless to say however, he was totally blown away when he opened the gift and realized what it meant. 

We were required to go to the company headquarters in NH to be trained on the Segway prior to it being shipped.  And they would not train Chris on it as he wasn't their minimum age of 16.  So Justin and I drove to NH and got trained and while we were there, they gave us the bumper sticker, "my other car is a Segway."  

Chris has now had the Segway for about 7 years. We lived about a half mile from the high school so he rode it to and from school whenever the weather permitted and then left it at school during the winter months so he could use it to get around between classes.  It's taken some spills and has seen better days and he may be getting a new one soon.  For a mere $5,000+/- investment, you too could have the Segway sticker.  But the boost to his self esteem and the confidence the Segway gave him during high school was priceless.  Instead of some unfortunate child wheeling around the school in his wheelchair, he zoomed around the school on his Segway, with a grace that he could never acheive in his usual lumbering gait.  Talk flew about why he got to use the Segway.  "He has no kneecaps" was one of his favorite rumors he'd overheard.  Teachers and students alike begged to be allowed to try it, sometimes to their own detriment.  The school insisted on a strict rule that he not allow others to use it inside the school but when a favorite teacher asked, he was hard pressed to say no.   I think the teacher later wished he'd refused after running into a wall and wiping out.  Chris made it look so easy and graceful but it had become second nature to him from constant use.    

Though other times after weeks of straight pain he perhaps felt differently, I was very impressed when he told me once that if he could wave a magic wand and make his legs normal he's not sure he'd do it.  I believe the wheelchair sports through Youth in Motion, learning to snowboard through Maine Handicap Skiing, and the Segway had a lot to do with that.   

 

We've been through a lot of changes in the last seven years, with Chris going from age 13 to age 20.  If he gets a new Segway this year, I guess the new "my other car is a Segway" sticker should go on his own car. 

The Bumper Sticker Anthology - Part II - Everyone's an Artist

My friend Mark Miller gave me this one.  “Everyone's an Artist” it proclaims.  It meant a lot to me that it came from Mark who is a master guitar player.  We became dear friends in late 2004 just as the first relationship I’d been in since my husband’s death a few years prior was ending.  Mark and I decided to be friends.  A very good decision for so many reasons.  I love Mark dearly as a friend but I knew from the start that I had to be free to make an immediate exit whenever he'd start up his neurotic Mark bullshit, and I didn't hesitate to do so.  But when Mark was being his true self, he was such a beautiful and sensitive person and a joy to be around.  It often involved him having a guitar in hand, taking us on soft and elegant musical journeys while we talked.  His guitar wept . . . and then danced with ecstasy . . . beautiful . . . soothing . . .   He would finish a gig at 1:00, be completely wired and needing to stay up until 4 or 5.  The schedule worked well for me at the time as I had become an incurable insomniac, staying up that late with or without him, especially on the weekends.  

And I can't think of Mark without thinking of Tom whom I met shortly after Mark and whom I dated for about 5 minutes - another very good decision for so many reasons.  I introduced the two of them and we would spend evenings at my camp on Cobbossee Stream, them playing their guitars, with bullfrogs and peepers screaming in the background. Betty and others joining us at times. Starry nights with a campfire crackling.  The music and friendship was very healing and rejuvenating for me. 

My friend Maya left a djembe at my camp after spending a weekend once, and Mark encouraged me to beat on it.  Solo nights at my camp I'd thump away on it, wildly at times, and gently for hours.  I think it called in some critters and scared away others.  Being a positive person I chose to believe the loons and tree frogs were voicing their approval, not screeching at me to stop.  And during that beautiful summer Mark gave me the bumper sticker, “Everyone's an Artist” it declared. . . . Mark at his sweetest.  

The Bumper Sticker Anthology - Part I - Evergreen Sudbury School

I love bumper stickers.  My car windows suffer the consequences.  When it was time to trade in my car earlier this year it broke my heart to bid goodbye to my old friend, and the stickers.  The car had served me well but it needed substantial work.  It came at as good a time as possible.  I could afford a new car, but it felt like saying goodbye to an old friend who held many sweet memories within the bumper stickers it wore.
 
One of my oldest stickers was from the little school in Hallowell where all three of my sons attended at one time or another.  “Self directed learning in a democratic setting” was their motto - a beautiful place that every child should experience at least for a while.  The kids ran the school through Business School Meeting, dealing with issues of budgets, hiring staff, purchasing supplies; and Judicial School Meeting, dealing with disciplinary issues.  They chose what to study and when to study it within availability of the staff, their mentors. 

“Who are you?” the school asks, and the kids answer, with books . . .  often choosing to start off looking for their intellectual side in their search for themselves.  And art - working with clay Jared created elaborate scenes of a forest with cowboys sitting around a campfire , their horses, nearby.  The landscape and inhabitants changed daily for weeks. 

And then comes the music, heard incessantly with the thump of the bass reverberating through the walls until the other kids convene a Judicial School Meeting to air their grievance and consensus is reached that bass free zones would be honored - democracy in its truest form.  Later however, the musicians prevail in their motion before the Business School Meeting to purchase a school guitar that could actually be tuned and some of them are never to be seen again, though heard softly practicing with sweet and not so sweet melodies emanating gently from the music room.   Well at least not until the winter comes with a bountiful snow and they're free to bring their sleds and snowboards to school and enjoy a full day of, hmmmm, let's call it phys ed, the conditioning of public school still tugging at them.  Snow always leads to forts and elaborate tunnels which inevitably lead to snow ball fights - and the teachers (ooops, mentors) are right out there with them.

Winter wears on and long conversation abound about the philosophy behind the movie Fight Club, (the book is better cry out the avid readers) or moral and ethical issues surrounding the new video game one of them wants to bring to school, Grand Theft Auto.  

As spring nears my oldest, who's never been good at fractions, understands them intimately within hours as he decides he's going to learn how to sew in order to design his own clothes; he's always had his own style but he takes unique to a new level, and my husband cringes when he appears for church decked out in his new outfit and hairstyle.  Yes he says, I realize people will see me as a freak but when they meet me one on one they'll see I'm not scary or weird and maybe it will help them overcome preconceived judgments about people.

hmmm, how can I argue with that logic.  Damn school. 

So goodbye Evergreen Sudbury School, self directed learning in a democratic setting.  You'll always be in my heart, if not on my car.
  

Squirrels

Our squirrels are so well fed they look more like prairie dogs

Some new pieces

Here's a few new pieces still in the rough. On this one I threw a bowl and then cut out a notch to put the first spiral coil into and added more coils to the top

 

 I braided some coils to make the handles on this one.  

Added some decorative coils to the outside of this one:

Some interesting handles - similar to one I made a while ago:

A small platter:

One I finished a while ago being christened with some flowers from Rick.  

The Playboy Rant

Rick's very good friend Keith sent him a subscription to Playboy as a Christmas gift.  The first issue arrived on Friday.  I was not pleased.  Buying Playboy for someone is kind of like buying them a puppy.  It's a lifestyle choice that one should only make for themselves.  I'm no prude but I've always felt that Playboy's attempt at legitimizing the objectification of women by couching it within bona fide interviews and articles makes it much more insidious than a magazine like Hustler, which is at least authentic about what it is and the message it's promoting. 

It just so happened that Friday was also poetry night at A-One with a theme of bitter love poetry.  I didn't have anything new to read and the feelings that the magazine evoked seemed like good motivation for a poem. 

I call it my Playboy Rant.

Stepping from the shower and standing before the evil mirror
I see an old woman standing there
A dismal array of sags and bags and bulges everywhere

Just yesterday I saw her as a well aged woman
whose smile radiated passion and love,
worn but sensuous, with plenty of life left to live and give

But now that the scantily clad lass in her provacative pose
with the Playboy title emblazoned overhead
has taken up the table top real estate where my card to him once set

"You're fabulous it declared - as a friend, lover, partner" I'd added
an effort to keep the romance and passion alive
but my effort feels feeble and fallacious peeking out from

beneath her sumptuos breasts that even I want to embrace
and that figure in the mirror has gone from vintage to
downright grotesque

causing a visceral repulsion that I can't help but think
would be shared by anyone whose memory holds both images
Who knew that perfection could be so depressing

or that a collection of interesting interviews
adulterated with the latest selection of
nubile salacious and seductive females

who in all their beauty are still unable to attain
the flawless perfection that every man feels is his equal
and with a little lengenthing of the torso here

some airbrushing to remove a blemish there
ostensibly intended to offer pleasure and gratification
has the opposite effect on me, evoking

pain and bitterness and overwhelming feelings of inferiority.
even with full knowledge that I'm falling prey
to our male dominated society's plan for me.


How's that for bitter?  : )

More pottery

The tea set is finished and I'm pleased with the finished product.  Teapot, creamer, sugar bowl with spoon cut out and a teacup.  I decided to glaze it in celadon froth and not use any over glazes because I was worried that with layers of glaze it would run and seal the lids.

A couple of coffe mugs.  Mottled blue (left) is my new favorite glaze.  I did a little swirl on

it with pippin (I think).

This started out a pretty boring little dish but after adding the imprints I think it's pretty cute. 

A casserole dish

I've finally got enough relatively similar coffee mugs to fill my mug tree.

The pottery stock is starting to fill up again and Christmas is very far off. 

February 14th

February 14th - 9:30 a.m. - Valentine's Day - Rick just headed out for Arkansas for a consulting job he's been working on.  We celebrated Valentine's Friday night with dinner at the new Hallowell restaurant, Francesba's.  Nice atmosphere, good food, friendly and fast service with lots of extras. 

Saturday Rick played with The NitPickes at a private party here in Belgrade Lakes while I went to the studio for a few hours. 

I glazed the tea set I've been working on, along with some larger bowls and a plate.  Decided to use celadon froth alone on the tea set but I got pretty creative with colors on the bowls and plate.  I'm always anxious to see how glazing comes out because I just never know what it's going to do.  New batches are thicker or thinner than the last, they sometimes react differently in the kiln and vary when you combine them, depending on which color is on top.  I really like the way the glazes on this mug came together and will experiment with this a little more.  I'd like to combine some red glaze with a brown to see if I can get kind of a brownish rust color and get kind of a southwestern feel to it.     

I was pretty nervous after glazing this piece Thursday night.  The green stain I used on the bottom coil and the cover was way too green when it went in the kiln but seemed to diffuse a bit in the firing, or else the celadon and spamboo just toned it down - just about enough. 

Here's a tile I made last November but just got fired last week.

After pottery I visited Betty for a while and then we went down to Hattie's to partake of the Mardi Gras festivities.  Fun parade, good friends, a little dancing music and headed home before 8 p.m.

David Bustin

Betty, David, and me.

Bob and Susan

 

Betty and Bruce

I had to get the goblet I'd just finished for Justin out of my car to use instead of the plastic glasses they were giving us.

And, of course, the parade . . .