Cows, Criminals and True Love

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that cows don’t care how sick or tired you are. They want to be fed, watered and milked twice a day every day…rain or shine, in sickness or in health. Cows are funny like that. They don’t want to hear your silly excuses about how exhausted you are or that your back is out or that you need to load your kiln.

And criminals don’t seem to care whether it’s your anniversary or your birthday or if you have the flu. They don’t care if you have front row NBA tickets or if your husband already worked 36 hours straight dealing with some other criminal, or if you are so sick you can hardly cope by yourself, they will still be all stupid and evil and ruin your day by making your husband chase them. Jerks.

But in honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve also learned that true love doesn’tjust show up one day a year, and it is in all of the little things that get us through the hard times. True love is when Matt does chores at 2 in the morning because that is when he is home and he knows I’m sick. True love is when he never reminds me that he’d have been happy with just a couple of low-maintenance chickens.



True love is a man who will spend countless hours and his last pennies tracking down a discontinued glaze chemical I need to make my very favorite glaze. True love is a man who bought me a $100 collector’s book by Bernard Leach, just because I wanted my very own copy.

And today, even with my drippy sinuses, those demanding cows and those jerky criminals taking my Valentine away from me, I know how lucky I am. True love isn’t flowers or chocolates. True love is 17 years of constancy and companionship and saying “thank you” every day.

True love is the man who hasn’t just let me follow my dreams, no matter how crazy they are, but who happily came along for the wild ride.

Frozen Clay, Compost, and Snow...

Saturday was a sunny day, bright enough that I got a little sunburn on my nose and cheeks. We borrowed Matt’s dad and his tractor to clean out our cow corrals on Saturday. We turned the cows and sheep loose in the pasture and took down all of the panels so we could do a good, deep-cleaning. Urban farming requires vigilance and a conscientious effort to keep our small space tidy.

Herbie the duck grazed with the cows all afternoon, of course.

We have a compost pile in the pasture where we make our own fertilizer from all of the barn waste and manure. The chickens and turkeys work and scratch in the pile as it starts to break down, looking for bugs, so it requires only minimal turning or maintenance from us to turn to black gold. Matt and his dad moved most of last winter’s compost from the pile in the pasture into one of our gardens since it was such nice weather. The rich dark soil and the sunny day had me ready to get out all of my spring seeds and start planting!

In the house, we use a giant worm bin to compost the kitchen waste. The worm bin compost is used as compost tea and fertilizer for house plants.
We had a lot of drop-ins for Saturday farm hours, and it turned out to be a good sales day for honey, eggs, quail and some turkey poults. I normally only put pottery out for sale during the spring and summer when we have a farmstand or go to farmer's markets, but with all of the winter traffic we've been getting on Saturdays and Sundays, it might be worth putting together work to sell during Fall and Winter weekends.

The neighbor directly behind our pasture also stopped by to buy honey and to make arrangements for his daughters to come and see the calves when they are born. We enjoyed the visit, but with all the interruptions to corral cleaning, it made for a long day. We didn’t finish rebuilding the corrals and getting everyone fed and set for the night until almost 9 pm.

Sunday morning, we woke to two inches of snow and freezing temperatures. I woke to a raging fever, stuffy sinuses and a sore throat. I wasn’t up for much besides puttering with some laundry and bringing clay into the mud room from the studio to thaw and getting it ready to throw tankards to replace the ones that fired with crawling glaze around the handles.



The Best Laid Plans...

One of the fun things about being a police wife, particularly the wife of an investigator, is that your life is unpredictable. I never know when my better half will get called out, and I can’t count on him to be home at any particular time when he has to respond to a call-out. The needs of the community come first, and I knew that when I signed on for this 15+ years ago. Some weeks there are no call-outs, and some weeks it seems like the interruptions never end. Don’t even mention the nagging worry that I’ve learned to hide and smile through over the years when I have no idea what the man who is the center of my universe is walking into and if he will make it home. There are crazy, crazy people out there.

Yesterday was a particularly long day – I’ve been battling worsening sciatica for weeks, trying to work full-time, tending to pregnant livestock, trying to complete pottery projects, and working to keep Little Q on track, clean clothes in everyone’s drawers, and the house in some semblance of order. I also have several new pottery students who want to start up lessons. Any potter will tell you that back problems suck the fun right out of throwing. And sitting. And standing. And pretty much every other activity you could possibly do with or without clay while you wait for your back to get better. When Matt's work schedule has allowed him some flexibility, he had to spend 2 full weekend days rebuilding my old car and tending to a thousand other unpleasant chores. The gas fireplace decided that the pilot light won't start up on it's own, the cabinet catches in the kitchen needed to be replaced, cows and sheep needed vaccinations, and the mild weather that everyone else is enjoying has turned our corrals into a muddy mess that requires a clean out every single week. Matt does all the fixing and building and heavy lifting in between everything else he has going on.

These are not meant as complaints – any police wife will tell you that we get used to the unpredictability, especially when we are the parents of younger children. You learn to pinch hit, and you learn that not everything has to get done right now. Things don’t have to be perfect. It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, and our Christmas tree is still decorated and up. Little Q jokes that if we leave it up all year, then we won’t have to find time to get it out and decorate next year. You’ve gotta love that kid – he’s learning to be flexible, too.

Long story short, I did not get my kiln unloaded last night. After Matt & I both worked late, I was barely able to help Matt feed Little Q and study spelling words, get Q to bed and do farm chores with Matt before I needed to lay in the fetal position in an attempt to ease the shooting pains radiating from my left lower back down to my foot. Matt, of course, got called out in the wee hours of the morning.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, but I honestly can’t think of anything in my life I’d be willing to give up, even if it meant that it made things easier sometimes. Besides, Little Q made it to school on time this morning prepared for his spelling test, the cows were happily eating when I left for work, and I’ll be visiting the chiropractor tomorrow to see if I can ease some of the pressure on my sciatic nerve so I can comfortably throw this weekend. Things go on because they have to, and I like to think I’ve gotten good at being independent when I have to over the years, even if I don’t like it. I couldn’t be prouder of my husband, who is an incredible man who selflessly and endlessly serves others because he wants to, and is very, very good at what he does.

So, maybe pictures of the fired kiln load tomorrow…

Crawling, More Quail, and an Award...

The kiln was still too hot to unload last night, but I got a good view of the top shelf. There was some crawling on a few of the tankards that were already earmarked, which will make for a long weekend getting more ready to fire next week. I usually rinse my bisque ware to remove any dust or oils that might affect the glaze during firing. I didn't do that this time because I was in a hurry. I know better than to skip any of the steps in a tried and true process! Hopefully the crawling isn't a prevalent problem throughout the whole kiln...I guess I will find out later tonight.

On the farm front, we hatched out more quail last night! This past Fall, we invested in a cabinet incubator that lets us incubate and hatch about 700 quail at a time. It was a great investment and has already paid for itself both in money and in saved time. It's nice having all the eggs in one place, instead of spread out in 5 or 6 smaller incubators where we continously have to monitor temperature and humidity.

In other news, yesterday I was given the Versatile Blogger award! Thanks to gz, a talented Welsch potter! If you haven't been to her blog, you need to visit!

I literally follow and read dozens of wonderful blogs, so now the hard part - picking just a few to pass this award on to:

1) My good friend Meredith at Whynot Pottery. She is a talented potter, a faithful blogger, and the polarizing center of a hub of potter-bloggers.

2) Linda Starr, who makes amazing wall hangings and dishes. She is also a wonderful (and adventurous) cook.

3) Cindy Shake, a multi-media artist in Alaska, who works with fiber and metal, but is also a brilliant illustrator.

4) Fellow goat lovers, BooneDocksWilcox.

5) Sara, a (new to me) blogger who writes about self-sufficiency, a subject dear to my heart.

And, now to share some random facts about myself, per the rules of the award:

1) I love reading, but I rarely read fiction. I read mostly non-fiction books - everything from biographies to how-to's. I hate self-help books.
2) I am the youngest of 7 kids, and I was raised Mormon (just like a couple of recent US presidential candidates). I'm not Mormon anymore, but most of my family still is. Some of my ancestors were pioneers that crossed the plains as part of the settlement of the west.
3) I'll try any food at least once, as long as I feel confident that it won't give me parasites.
4) I'm phobic of parasites. If you want to watch me scratch spontaneously, mention tapeworms or ticks.
5) I'm a proficient hunter, and I killed a 5-point elk on my first ever elk hunt (that's a 10-pointer for those of you back East).