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!

April 24, 2007

What a difference a week makes in the weather at this time of year! We have gone from winter to summer and skipped spring altogether, it seems. Mol and I were out in the canoe in the cove by the yacht club a few days ago, and tested the ice, which is slowly melting. We saw six loons as they swam by us at its edge. They were paired up and waited patiently to get to their nesting sites. They reminded me of runners approaching the starting line before a marathon.

As we rounded the cove by the yacht club heading for the Mill Stream, a loud honking started up, and in the distance we saw a pair of Canada Geese, the male making protective noises to warn his mate of our approach. They flew over us as we neared them on the shore behind the library. Several pairs of ducks also headed off as we continued our paddle.

Androscoggin Lake is filling like a bathtub, since the Androscoggin River is cresting and there’s nowhere for the water coming in from Pocasset to go, and we were able to paddle in and out of trees and bushes, where there is normally dry land. When we got to the edge of the ice, Mol insisted on hacking away at it with her paddle, in an attempt to get rid of it more quickly. I thought this was a futile and silly gesture, until I remembered that for the past several days I had been out on the lawn at home shoveling and raking the last of the winter snow to get winter to leave us finally and get on with the next season. It’s been difficult to deal with the weather these past weeks, and we so often find that April is like some cruel joke being played on us.

But yesterday was a record setting 84 degrees, and I exhausted myself doing yard work from dawn to dusk. I ache all over, but gaze out proudly at my brown, but neat, lawn.

Tubby’s is open, another sign of spring, the ice on Pocasset is breaking up, the flooded waters of the Mill Stream are receding, and as of this morning, the ice is officially out of Androscoggin. Time to get the boat in the water, and celebrate that, once again, life is good!

Spring comes slowly to Wayne, dragging in with muddy feet, leaving footprints in the dirty snow. It’s a slow process that can’t be rushed, and raking that small brown patch of lawn too soon will only bring clouds, flurries, and eventually another snowstorm, as if to spit in your face and say, “Who are you kidding? It’s not time yet, you old fool!” I know- I ‘ve tried it before and have now learned patience in my more mature years.

But the signs are there despite the rebuffs from Old Man Winter. The buds on the lilac and the bright green shoots pushing through the munch, the sap that drips slowly from the wounded maple out front, and the herons that flap lazily down the length of the mill stream as Blue and I walk to the post office, speak of the inevitability of the coming season.

Neighbors appear on the street, leaving their warm dens like our Maine black bear does each year, and look at us as if trying to remember who we are after being “away”, literally or figuratively, since last December. I wonder where they have been all this time; we practice speaking out loud after months of reading, reflecting and listening to our inner voices.

Wayne seems like it always does; little changes on the surface of this small New England town, but there are some who sadly are no longer here, and others, strangers, who have come without our realizing it. The church held a newcomer’s dinner, and they were introduced to the town. What a wonderful thing to do! I remember vividly when we moved to town in 1976 that we were treated to a similar reception and how welcome it made us feel.

These are days when you feel like opening all the windows and letting out all the stale winter air and dust that has accumulated from burning the woodstove and the furnace for months. Spring cleaning happens every year because of this desire, particularly for those of us who spend that time indoors.

So the Open flag is flying again, and Molly is finishing up all the special orders that people hoped she would get to one day, and we are open for business, selling everything is sight at a discount as we do our spring cleaning in the shop. And we anxiously await the arrival of the loons, the eagle chicks on the island, the campers, and our wonderful summer visitors. Some, like the robins, will arrive early, to open up camp and to drop by to see what’s new at the pottery. Others will wait for school to get out before bringing their kids to the lake for another idyllic summer. Still others will arrive during their appointed week, having rented one of the camps, and hoping that they will be as lucky as they have in the past with the weather, and swim and sail and fish and sit idly on their porches watching the sunsets and listening to the haunting cry of the loon.

And so, as another spring snow begins outside the window, I look forward to warmer and happier times – and to your visit!

Signs of Spring

Idea for a large plate



Called by the sun and warm air on Feb. 1st, and celebrating two of our "kids" being home, we headed out with three joyful dogs through the pine woods and out onto the lake. With so much rain lately, we wondered, is the ice safe? Sam forged ahead and broke right through two inches of soft ice, up to his ankles. The dogs were already way out, leaping and racing; we tentatively found a safer place.

The ice was weird- I've never seen it like it: a thin crust over six inches of slush and water, with ice under that. Some of us had leaky boots - not fun! We crunch, crunch, crunched out to the snowmobile trail, thinking it would be easier walking, but it was flooded with a foot of water. Later we saw intrepid snowmobilers, with water spraying high up behind.
We walked along the shore instead.

Sitting on the rocks at Tom's beach, Heather took her coat off, and we turned our faces to the sun and basked. It was noon and the sun was only half way up the sky, but every day is a little longer now.

An eagle flew by, low over the ice. They spend the winter thanks to the ice fishermen - I wonder how they are doing in this strange winter.
We've been watching the eagles in awe since they returned to Black Sand Island. I've always wanted to do something to express their elegance and power on my pottery - but that has seemed a daunting task. Now, like grace, a way comes to me- large plates with the soft lake colors of sky and water, and the dramatic unmistakable sweep of an eagle in flight in the distance. Two brush stokes!

On the walk home, I looked for signs of spring and was amazed to see the first white on the tips of the pussy willows in our swamp. Are they signs of spring, or is this a strangely warm winter? We've heard the maple sap is running - too early - not good for the trees!

Anyway there is one true sign of spring: the players arrive at spring training tomorrow. Hope springs eternal for these Red Sox fans. And we'll probably have plenty of cold and some blizzards before the real spring comes to stay.

For now it's a good time to curl up near the wood stove with some good books. I need to find a few books about climate change.
And it's a good time to try out some new ideas in the pottery.