The week in review

Three things I did last week: (That may or may not have involved clay.)

1. Canned tomato sauce. We hit our favorite local farm stand and came home with apples, sweet corn, apple cider donuts (Denise's requirement) and two lugs of Roma tomatoes. Also mushrooms and green onions, which I sautéed and sweated, respectively, Sunday night. Monday, I washed and stemmed the tomatoes, cut them into wedges, and commenced cooking. Took a break at lunchtime, during which Denise diverted a bunch to be sliced and loaded in the food dryer. Cooked down the tomatoes, two kettles at a time, mixed in the mushrooms and onions, commenced to canning. Came up a little short on the the additives, so I ran some of the cooked tomatoes through the food mill to can as juice. Water bath canner, 35 minutes per batch; by suppertime, we had made and sealed 20 quarts of tomato sauce, 4 quarts of juice.


2. Threw and assembled two dozen animal banks, elephants and tyrannosaurs. Also 21 pie plates (not pictured).

The Rex's are lying on their backs overnight to let the legs stiffen up. Or possibly to encourage you to pet their tummies. (It's a trap!)

3. Tearing off and replacing the east side of my pottery shed.

When we bought this place, one of the attractions was available storage. There were not one, but two storage units adjacent to the car port. Denise took over one for paper; I got the other for pottery. Over the years, the east wall has deteriorated. It was never great--they'd nailed up a couple of sheets of plywood, cross-wise, with two-by-fours supporting them, slapped on some white paint, and called it good. The past two years, the plywood has started to de-laminate, and dry-rot has attacked the two-by-fours. I really wanted to replace things before the rains returned.

So Wednesday, I went out to Jerry's and bought two 4x8-foot, pre-primed siding panels, wrestled them up on the roof rack, and drove them home. My drill driver's battery packs no longer hold a charge, and DeWalt doesn't make replacements anymore so I borrowed one from the Toolbox Project on Thursday. Friday morning was devoted to tearing down the old wall, repositioning a couple of studs, framing in some cross-members. Had to make another trip to Jerry's for a primed 8-foot 1x6 and a couple of 2x2's for the crosspieces, but got the whole project done by suppertime. I still need to pick up a bucket of paint, but Sunday morning's rain did not get inside.

Civil

Another sportsball weekend, this time the annual Civil War match-up between the University of Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers. I didn't have any beaver plates in stock, so had to make do with a platypus.

The game started at noon, so I think a lot of vendors figured it wasn't worth coming out to Market. Lots of empty spaces, and quite a few folks who usually get a 4x4-foot space found themselves expanding into a full eight-foot square.

Including my neighbor for the day, a jeweler named Be, selling necklaces and bracelets with crystals and semi-precious stones. A bit of a tough sell, her price point was above the average for this Market, and pitching the healing power of various crystals didn't seem to help. She said she estimated her prices based on time and cost of materials, then checked against what ChatGTP thought she should charge, and how does that even work?

I'm sure it didn't help that her neighbors were selling appreciably better than she was. Jim the glass artist was having a particularly good day, I was above average for me, which is close to unattainable to a lot of vendors. Even Jesse started out the morning with an early sale of two bug-and-butterfly shadow boxes, and sold steadily the rest of the day.

Saw a lot of folks in Oregon green and yellow early on, but only one old duffer in an OSU hat. None actually buying anything, of course; they can come to Saturday Market any time, and at this point in the year, they're mostly asking if we'll be at Holiday Market. Still, I needed to be there for a couple of orders to pick up. (Only one of whom actually did, but she bought two cat stew mugs, so there'd be a spare if her mom broke one again.)

Had a bunch of repeat customers, though, one picking up a pair of plates to fill out her set, another young couple continuing to add to their collection. Best sale of the day went to a woman buying a wedding present, who couldn't decide between a barn owl serving bowl and barn owl platter. So she bought both.

Had a mother and daughter come in with sad news: the pie plate daughter had bought for mother's day split on first use. Not in the oven, actually, cold on the edge of the sink as mom was scooping out the remains of the pie. I offered to replace it, of course--I stand by my work--either a different pattern from current stock or the same pattern from my next firing. Mom asked if she could replace it with something else of similar value, which I of course agreed to. She picked out a stick butter dish which was a direct price match and went home satisfied. I'll probably glue the plate back together--it's quite a nice otter and baby pattern--and hang it on the wall of shame in my studio.

Saw a couple of crow-themed t-shirts: Jesse, my neighbor, had one that said Crows, not Bros: Support your local Murder. And someone walking by had a crow-patterned shirt that read F-(caw)f! (Say it out loud...) So it's probably appropriate that I took a special order for two raven bowls, a soup and a toddler.

Never was super busy, but never got slow enough to pull my Kindle out of the bag. The last end-of-day dinner plate sale brought me over $800, a worthwhile outing.