Ho ho ho

Santa's bringing snow!

The latest on Tux

The old girl was doing a lot of licking at the nether region so off to the vet we went. After getting an elevated blood calcium reading I was advised to be on the lookout for anything unusual. Turns out she has quite a urinary tract infection which we are now treating with antibiotics. She had an issue with an anal gland that got expressed, too. We're hoping that was the cause of the calcium being off. This girl certainly hides her discomfort well as there were no signs of a UTI other than the licking.

While paying for her visit I got a call confirming my knee surgery on February 22. Glad I got the earlier date so there is less time for worry.

A new place to pot

My new studio is just about done. The door needs a sweep, and when the taping mud dries I will paint and begin to move in.

Here is the new wall on the garage side. Just calling out for shelves to fill with useless junk.

And two shots of inside. It's a little narrow at about 10 feet wide, but quite long. I'll work with it to make space for all my essentials. The stall mats in the shed need washing before I bring them in for the floor, but it's a little too cold to do that now. These big windows will need shades or the summer sun will bake me out. I hope to be working with clay again within a week or two.

Day length begins to increase after today!

Missing Summer

Gray days and rain are back. It's a good time to do clay work but my shops are a mess. Construction on the garage wall begins this Tuesday and should be completed Wednesday. Hurray! I guess the wall will need some paint then I can move in and get to work. Here is the mess that will be my new studio space.

A few pieces I liked from the last firing...

The boys ask to go out to the temporary pen every morning. I have to keep shifting it around. The grasses and weeds they like to dine on are growing very slowly now. They work well with Hattie on walk-arounds so I'm hoping we can move into neighbors' fields soon.

Her highness patiently waiting for the action to begin...

Tux is out with Bob for the morning so no picture. Results from latest bloodwork came in Friday. Cocci titer is back to 1:8 which is where she was before the temporary stop in medication. Our local vet is taking over from the AZ vet and uses a different compounding pharmacy so we're getting Fluconazole in tablet form that is much cheaper than the capsules she's been getting. The rest of her bloodwork was excellent except for slightly elevated calcium - which is very concerning. It could mean the fungus is doing something to Tux's bones, it could be a cancer, or it might just be that Tux was slightly dehydrated when the blood was drawn. Of course, it means worry for us to keep a watchful eye for increased lameness or anything else unusual and another round of bloodwork in a few months. Hoping for the best.

This...

Gray sky. There is nothing to be said about it. 

Decorating

This is the extent of holiday decorating for us. I haven't felt like doing even this much for years. The Vit D therapy has given me a good boost in strength and energy, not that this requires much of either. But the way I had been feeling was that any movement took tremendous effort so I was pretty selective in where my energies were spent. Anyway, hooray for feeling better. I made these stockings so many years ago I can't remember when. Almost forty years I think. It's amazing that they are in such good condition. Jason used to play with the soldier Santa holds in his hand. 

Surprise! The porcelain paper clay flowers didn't melt or deform in the glaze firing, and the underglaze colors turned out well. Now I can start doing more expressive work with some confidence that all won't necessarily be lost. 

We are remodeling the garage to move my studio inside, having a wall built to close off what has been my glazing bay. I've been sharing the area with the John Deere and other gardening equipment - which means I can't keep the dirt out and have to maneuver around all the equipment to work. Then there is the disgusting collection of flies, wasps, spiders and other insects that live and die on the window sills and who-knows-where-else in both studio areas that give me the creeps to work around. So all the gardening stuff will be moved to the shed and my wheel and stuff in the shed will come in to the garage to the enclosed bay. I will post pictures when construction begins.

Who says sheep are dumb?

Today we put the boys in a temporary pen out front where there are more greens. They've pretty much eaten everything in their pasture down to the ground. It gives Hattie a chance to move them and everyone is happy.

I didn't want them to eat too much so went to get them after three hours. Bob asked to see if Hattie could control them walking down the driveway to the road, a test to see if walking around the road to a neighbor's pasture is possible. We detoured down the drive and all went well. Bob was impressed and the boys enjoyed the chance to expand their horizons before heading back to the pasture.

Later I could see from the kitchen window they weren't happy being back. They stood at the gate looking forlornly towards those greener lands.

Then I realized something was wrong. One of the boys was on the wrong side of the gate - but I had left them all inside! By the time I hobbled outside (my arthritic knees prevent a run or even a fast paced walk) all the boys were out and heading towards the nearest Shore Pine with hopes of stripping it to shreds. 

Hattie shines at times like this, as she has no problem running. Off she went to gather the boys to me and save my tree. What would I do without this dog? 

The sheep were either very lucky or watched me wrap the chain around the fence post and figured out how to unhook it. I had to find a more secure way to latch it and am thinking I'd better find a way to secure the other gate which is even easier to open than this one. Well, I can't blame them for wanting to get out where there is so much to eat. Tomorrow they can spend the entire day in the front pen and happily gorge on fresh greens.

Endless Rain

Yesterday brought some relief from the rain but today we're back to more of the same. What happened to Sequim's blue hole?

Hattie isn't keen on the wet weather either.

But this Bonica is still putting out flowers.

Surgery Plans

So it looks like I'll be getting a new knee come February. There is a six month wait necessary from the date of the cortisone shot -- something to do with infections. In the meantime there is lots of blood work to do, dental cleaning, visit with my primary physician, physical therapy, and preparing the house (and Bob) for post surgery recovery. I'm feeling nervous about the whole thing already but every day my knees hurt more and more so there is incentive to carry on. I'll post developments as they happen.

Brighten the Night

The short, rainy, gray days have become depressing so we brightened the night with sparkling lights. I wonder if the sheep like it? This is the redwood in the back yard. Bob was on tippy toes at the top of the ladder and tossing the lights to reach the peak of the tree. It is very bright. 

Only two trees in front of the house were lucky enough to get the light treatment. I'd like to do one more next to the tree in the rear of this photo... if I can convince Bob. Our cloudy nights are really black.

Morning Routine

This morning begins in fog.

Hattie waits at the barn door, keeping the sheep out while I clean up. The barn modifications were completed just in time for the latest storms and are working well.

Wick-a, wick-a, wick-a.  A flicker watches from a tree top.

The hay santa is on his way and the boys are very excited.

The eating machines dig in to their hay bags. They don't care for the new hay so Bob mixes it with some of the tastier old stuff. They will have to adjust soon or go hungry.

Yes, I said go hungry...

When all is done Hattie lets me know it's time to throw the ball.

Barn floor

We've done a ton of work and expect the barn to stay dry now. It is built on what is essentially a sloping sand dune and all the sheep activity and poop removal during the dry summer resulted in a depression in the floor that was filling with water that drained through the sand. So the first step was to build a French drain, similar to the one we built in Homer but on a much smaller scale. I didn't take pictures of the process, but it involved digging a trench along the front of the barn, laying landscape cloth in it, adding the holey pipe in the bottom on a slight slope down to a bucket in a deeper hole beyond the barn, filling it all with large gravel and wrapping the landscape cloth around the top, then covering with sandy soil. The first picture shows that part completed.

Then we started to add smaller gravel at the outside base of the barn wall and inside to fill the depression and raise the floor a couple inches. Here's the outside as finished product. 

With the gravel base laid we put down holey rubber stall mats - the holes allow pee to drain rather than sit on the mats - and spread gravel. Here's how that looked.

Then we spread finer sand to help compact the gravel. Here is Bob using the foot tool to distribute sand.

And here is the new barn floor, ready for sheep. 

I expect the sand and gravel to compact as the sheep walk on it so every week or so we can spread more sand until it stabilizes. This is a good surface for cleaning and should be a nice place for my spoiled boys, although they usually prefer to sleep outside. If they poop on it I will consider it a success.

Hattie approves of the new floor and is ready to boss the boys around.

Now that's done I can focus on glazing. I've underglazed these poppies and will spray clear glaze over later, so that's all for now.

Herding With a Deaf Dog

I guess Hattie's hearing loss is getting worse and she relies on gestures for communication more than I realized. A flag or arm swing accompanies vocal commands when we herd and yesterday we had an interesting development as a result. 

I was dragging Tag's Radio Flyer wagon around with a slop bucket cleaning up sheep droppings, as I do daily. There is a large temporary pen set up in the back yard that the sheep can access through a gate at the east end of their field. Hattie sat at the gate while I cleaned up in the pen. The sheep were eating in their barn at the west end of the property. 

It had been raining so I had my hood up but was getting warm. I raised my arm to lower the hood. Hattie, sitting at the other end of the pen, interpreted that as a sign to fetch and took off on a beautiful wide outrun, circling around to the barn. I felt a moment of panic as she entered the barn, fearing the sheep would bolt and crash around, but all was quiet and five sheep exited the door followed by my little dog. Not a fence or board was smashed down in the process. 

She herded them along the fence, as we've practiced many times, over to the gate, but only three entered the pen. Now she had to deal with two rebellious sheep splintered off the group and going in opposite directions. This has been a sticking point for her in the past. Would she fetch them or leave them to focus on the larger group? I was still a good distance away and decided to stay out of it. This was entirely her show. Without hesitation she circled back and fetched each reluctant sheep to the gate and, to my delight, brought them as a group right to me. What a good girl! She looked quite proud of herself, deservedly so. It wasn't something I planned to do but couldn't ignore what a splendid job she'd done all on her own. 

Now if only I could get her to do the rest of the chores, too.

Stormy Days

What is there to do when it's too miserable to spend time outdoors?

My fair weather sheep shear grass in the yard when the rain subsides then run back to the barn when it starts to fall.

I'm not into eating grass like the sheep, but I made cannabis butter. After cooking last years buds in butter for hours and hours the mixture was ready to pour into the red silicone mat I make dog treats in. It makes perfect serving sized pieces to keep in the freezer. This was a great idea, even if I do say so myself. Much better than pouring it all into a single container and chipping off frozen chunks. 

I ran a bisque firing, too. Finally. I couldn't put it off any longer. Now there is glazing to do, my least favorite chore. I won't bother to go over what's here. I'll save that for whatever survives the glaze firing. My clays here are porcelain, porcelain paper clay, and a stoneware with iron. A few of the porcelain pieces cracked so I've patched them with some stuff that was recommended by other potters. We'll see how it works. Porcelain is so fussy.

Coolaroo Door

The Coolaroo fabric arrived and we finished the gate/door. Gimpy had to inspect our work then nibbled on the little clips holding the fabric on. So this is a nice windbreak. I hope it will survive the horrendous windstorms we can get. Last night we had a doozy that had me running around securing or removing tarps and anything loose. It was so bad my glasses were being blown off my face. This morning I found all the neighbor's walnut leaves piled in drifts under all my plants and had to spend a few hours cleaning that up. Walnuts produce a chemical in all their parts, juglone, that is toxic to many plants or can stunt their growth. That is the last thing I need in my garden with our poor soil. 

Here are the paw imprints of Tag and Hoopie in the Memorial Garden. We found the footprint rocks somewhere on our walks around Sequim. Leaving painted rocks hidden in places for people to collect is a sweet tradition. The footprints were perfect to place with the paw prints since the dogs and I spent so much time hiking together.