Blog –May 23, 2007

Today we were visited by a group of sixty students from Readfield Elementary School, who were studying different types of soils. They were given a guided tour of our pottery business and also treated to a slide show of last year’s clay dig. After Molly and Sam demonstrated how we make pots and ornaments here at the pottery, they were given cat ornaments to decorate, which we will fire and deliver to them. They were a delightful and very well-behaved group of students, and this is the second year that we have hosted them. Last year they each got to cut out ornaments, and we gave them finished ones when they left.

We find that this type of activity makes them more aware of local resources that they are often unaware of, and, at the same time, gives them an opportunity to appreciate what it is like to own and operate a small business. Who knows? Some of them may end up as future employees of Wayne Village Pottery!

As many of you know, Molly has for many years taken Wayne Elementary students out to our island, Black Sand Island, in Lake Androscoggin, and taught them a unit on local flora and fauna. It’s a unit that they all enjoy, especially since it comes at the end of a long school year, and involves a trip out on the lake on a sunny June day. Again, we have found that this type of activity increases their awareness of the world around them and teaches them about places that they may know little about. It also gives Molly a chance to teach them about respecting property and sharing resources with those who may not be as lucky as we are to own our own island.

Our involvement with the community, particularly in an educational setting, is a means of giving back and saying thank you to the townspeople that support our small business here in Wayne.

A Happy Mother’s Day to all of you wonderful mothers out there! We spent a beautiful day here with family and their various dogs, and were able to cook out and have a picnic lunch outside – the first of the season. The pottery is selling well on our new wholesale website, and retail sales are picking up as the first of the summer people are showing up to enjoy these early spring days. There seem to be lots of birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, etc. this month and next, so the shop has been busy, especially on the weekends. Of course, many will show up on Memorial Day weekend, which for many marks the official beginning of summer, while others will have to wait for the kids to get our of school before arriving.

I had an interesting chat with the editor of the Kennebec Journal the other day. He was asking local people in town about ways to promote the area, and what our needs were. I told him that the newspaper and its online edition need to do a better job drawing people to the area for the first time, since many tourists come to Maine and only travel along the coast, which, while beautiful, is different than the experience of traveling through inland Maine, with its many attractions, and quaint places to visit and stay.

Our daughter Heather is off to Guatemala this week for 10 days to volunteer with a group of school kids. We are thrilled that she is doing this work out of the goodness of her heart, and she has worked hard to help with the fundraising in preparation for the event. She also recently got her teaching certificate, and will soon be an elementary teacher, and, again, we are very proud of her joining the ranks of such a noble profession.

The water is receding finally, and uncovering our island, and this week we will celebrate my birthday by spending the day there.

Please be sure and stop by our shop when you’re in the area. We look forward to seeing you all.

Blog –May

April showers are certainly bringing May flowers, and we’ve had lots of sun this week and cool Canadian air to dry things out. Now we need some warm days to really appreciate the fact that we have survived yet another long winter.

Still, signs of spring are everywhere; the peepers are noisy at night, we awake to songbirds in the morning, my boat got delivered from winter storage and sits in the yard beckoning me like some siren, and I almost ran over two raccoons last night on the way home from Auburn. My neighbor Norm is out rototilling his gardens today, the buds are colorful on the maple out front and the lilacs are also budding up in preparation for their annual show, which lasts but a few weeks, but thrills us each year.

Molly continues to fight for the lake and is attending hearings on the discharge licenses by the paper companies into the Androscoggin River, which, of course, affects us all on the lake. She even convinced me to testify in a room packed with paper company workers who were bused to the hearing in a show of force.

Molly has just about made her way through all the special orders that have accumulated over the past year or so, and is designing her next ornament, still a surprise, but which will be as delightful as each previous one has been.

We are now marketing our ornaments through a website called www.wholesalecrafts.com, as we continue to look for new markets around the States (and around the world). Sam is a true genius at setting up such things on the computer. It’s a skill that we never cease to marvel at, and one that we could never do ourselves, thus adding another whole dimension to our business.

This month is full of birthdays, graduations, and celebrations, including Mother’s Day, so here’s wishing you all congratulations and good cheer for you and family and friends who are celebrating!