December spirits!

HELLOOOO there everyone!

How is the RUSH of December going?  Parties, food, parties, presents, parties, food.  Basically we are all tired, fat, and broke.  Do I have this right?

Over here at the studio we are doing amazing, as always.  NH Chronicle surprised us and replayed our video, wow could life get any better?

http://www.wmur.com/new-hampshire-chronicle/Tuesday-January-8th-Terrapin-Glass-Blowing/-/13383450/18068770/-/r24j59/-/index.html

Certainly can't argue with free publicity!  Helps pay our massive propane bill!  Thanks NH Chronicle!

So pumpkin season was a huge success.  Now that its time for holiday related glass - wait, there is no time.
OK Dom.  Now you know.  I know its hot in the summer, but you just have to suck it up and make those damn snowmen.  THERE IS NO TIME NOW!

No seriously, the summer is so hot and slow that it is hard to stay focused.  If I were to spend the summer making anything and everything to fill up the shelves, I would be in good shape right now.  Remind me of this this upcoming summer.  Dom, the winter is busy.  Do it now while you have time!!!

My status now?  Working 6 days a week, 8-12 hours a day, and still sneaking in on Tuesdays to catch up.  Tuesday you say?  Yes!  Tuesday!  That is my day, my "Sunday" per say.

Sunday?  Yes, Sunday.  I can stay up late on Monday and sleep late on Tuesday.  I cannot stay up late on Tuesday though, because here comes Wednesday!

Do you get it?  Friday and Saturday all of you regular Monday-Friday 9-5 boring folks go out.
"Wooo TGIF"
The "Friday" thing isn't happening to me, I simply just get a "Sunday".

Wah, poor, poor Dom.  Working her butt off and living the dream.  Ya'll can keep your boring Monday-Friday 9-5, I'm sticking with this.

By the way, small rant off a positive topic.  If the complainers of the fact that we are closed to the public Monday and Tuesday are reading this, WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM - A ROBOT!?
No really, the weekends are our busiest time, so we are open on the weekends.  Why on earth do you feel the need to go to our neighbors in the building and complain about the fact that I need a bit of a life!?! No - I cannot afford to pay someone to sit around on our two slowest days of the week, just because you wish to browse.  At this time, I refuse to squish that into our new small-business budget.


OK, OK.  No more negativity Dom.  Back to a positive note.  As you may know, or may not know, I am on the Board for Team Jaffrey.  I have taken over the responsibility for running the Facebook page.  Overall, I am finding it to be a wonderful experience!  It is forcing me to become aware of all that is happening within downtown Jaffrey!

I had no idea Jaffrey had such amazing traditions such as lighting the Christmas Tree on the Common as an event.  Wonderful!  The Jaffrey Public Library read a book to all of the children.  Santa flew into the Jaffrey Airport and the Jaffrey Fire Department zoomed him in for the lighting and photo opp's.  The more I learn and become involved in, the more I want to do.

Did I mention that through this whole event, it was pouring rain and freezing cold?  That didn't bring anybody's spirits down!

I'MMMM BAAACKK

Hello folks!  How's your fall going??

We're doing AWESOME. Yes, we are doing so awesome that it warrants every single letter of the word to be capitalized.  This week we are open seven days!  Crazy!

Pumpkin season is finished, now its time to make holiday items.  This year I'm planning on really focusing in on snowmen.  Different little snowmen with funny faces, colorful hats and scarves, every single one unique from the rest.  Hopefully they will be as popular as the mini pumpkins we had everywhere.  I would like to start getting out there replacing them all within the next week or two.  This means a lot of production work for us.

I have mixed feelings on production work.  I don't want to make it our main source of income.  I don't want to lose the student and art part of the studio.  Seasonally though, I think its fun.

Snowmen will be great because we can really practice making controlled neck lines.  The goal is to have a large, medium, and small ball, much like what you would like when actually making a snow-snowman.  Easier said than done.  Maybe, just maybe, we will have time to try and make a few snowmen goblets.  No matter what, making great neck lines will help us with goblet stems, among many, many, other things.  Great skill builder for a glassblowing future.

Slowly building our skills, our products, and our customer base.  Trying to find our niche in the art world!

Exciting news for the next couple weeks -

This Saturday we are having a party for Colleen & Gary.  It started out as their anniversary party, but we are a little late for that.  Regardless of the timing, its Colleen & Gary night!  We are doing a potluck and inviting glassblowers to come in and do some demos.  Very excited, going to be so much fun!

Saturday November 30, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we are going to do a "Blow Your Own Ornament Day".  We did this for our 1 year anniversary party, and it was a huge hit!  We are going to do two dates this year, we hope it will be a success!  Maybe next year we can do two weekends!

Saturday December 14th will be our second date for Blow Your Own.  This will also be serving as our TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY.  Wow, I think of how far we have come in two years, wow.  I think we need a band, but lets get through some of November first.

Thanks for reading!

End of Pumpkin Season (?)

It isn't Halloween yet, and it is time for our pumpkin season to end.  Our pumpkin making can't come to an abrupt close, but we will certainly be dwindling down.  Why am I in such a hurry you might ask?  It is time to prepare for the holiday season.  Our shelves are barren from simply making to many pumpkins!

Keene Pumpkin Fest was a big hit.  They even broke the record!  Sadly, we couldn't hear much of what was going on, the speakers were very fuzzy around us.  I didn't find out we got the record until we got home!

Man, that was a crazy day.  I'm not sure what was worse, getting in, or getting out!  I swear I'm still recuperating from all the stress that comes with taking on a vendor spot in an event that huge.  A month of preparation, hoping that we will be successful.  Putting all of our cards out on the table.  Spending hours and hours of work, paying for the propane, the supplies, and the labor.  Paying for the booth.  Paying for the labor to get everything out there, and to have enough hands on deck for the crowds of people going by.

Wow.

Breathe Dom.  It's over.  We did great.  PHEW.

For such a small business, with such huge overhead expenses, to put ourselves out there like that, eeek!

But its OK, its over & we did great!

I'm not sure if I am looking forward to next year or not?!?  Catch me after another hot & slow summer, I will be jumping for joy to be this busy and hectic again!

Guess what time it is now????  Christmas ornaments.  Snowmen.  I am now planning on doing two "Blow Your Own Ornament" dates.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Saturday December 14th.  December 14th will also double as our TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY/Holiday Sale.  TWO YEARS.  TWO YEARS.

OK Dom.  No more resting.

The Fall Season is Falling Behind Us

Two days until Keene Pumpkinfest.  Our official pumpkin season is almost over.  Wow.  Time to take a minute to sit down and contemplate how amazing these past two months were.

OK.  No more break time, get back up and prepare for Christmas season!

Seriously.

After a slow summer, and my everlasting jaw injury.  Life is looking pretty amazing.  Busy is great.

As I type right now I am multitasking like a maniac.  I am sitting in the studio, on the computer, waiting for my job title as "Stem Connector" to come into effect.  Notice: I am sitting in the studio and it is a comfortable temperature.  WOW.  Summer has surely gone.  I love summer and HATE the cold.  Benefit to being a glassblower: its always warm at work! (hot)

So behind me everyone is working.  Mini pumpkins galore.  Josh's job title for the day is "Pumpkin Machine".  He takes a big orange bubble, drops it in a mold, and cuts off 5, 6, 7 or even more pumpkins off that one "stock".

Haley's title is "Stemminator".  She has a green chunk of solid glass and constantly works to keep it hot and nicely shaped.

I simply connect the two together.

Voila!  Mini pumpkins!

The buzzer beeped.  We have customers!  Time for continued multitasking.

Later we will have New Hampshire Small Business Magazine in to take photos for an article on us!

Bye!

Positive & Hectic

The mood in the studio today can only be described with two words - Positive & Hectic.

Today the shop was BUSY.  Mark & Brigida were in making pumpkins, while Josh & I were also making pumpkins.  Everyone is preparing for their Art Tours!

Anne Marie is packing for the Wool Arts Tour this weekend.  I am trying to think of every little way to make this years Monadnock Art Tour go smoothly.  Signs in the building giving directions, signs on the doors on where to enter and where not, CLEANING CLEANING CLEANING.  Did I mention that the weekend after this one is PUMPKINFEST?  Lets talk about crazy.

Slight issues with the furnace have slightly hindered our progress on  ... everything.  Thanks to Jim's hard work and Charlie Correll's everlasting patience and advice we hope to have this issue fixed asap.  The furnace has been running steadily at 2075 for a long, long time.  Things have been peaceful and wonderful in furnace land.  Lately we have been coming in and finding it at odd temperatures.  This morning we arrived at the studio and the furnace was at 2035.  eek.

Time to get back to work... aka CLEANING!

I'm Back & It's October!

I can't believe it is already October.

Then I think of how many pumpkins we have made - I can't believe it is only October 1st.

This is our second fall season with the shop being open and WOW it is busy.  IT FEELS AMAZING.  Our busy season has begun, full steam ahead, next stop - December 25th.  Literally, just keep working.

I tried to begin my pumpkin making extravaganza in August.  Sadly my boxer puppy had other ideas and wanted to, well, box mom!  7 Weeks and Two Days Later, here I am!  My doctor finally gave me leave to "continue whatever I've been doing" and I don't have to go back to Tufts in Boston for three whole months.  What have I been doing?  Working my butt off!  Sure, I will continue on!  No eating apples, or other hard foods.  I have still not endeavored to eat chips, sadly nachos have not been checked off my list of thing that I want to eat soo badly.   Pizza? Oh yes.  Pizza & I have become well acquainted once more.  Minus the sad part in which I usually have to take a nap after exhausting myself while eating.

Back to pumpkins.  We have been KILLING IT.  This year we are making three sized pumpkins.  Large for $45, Medium for $35, and Small going for $5-$18.  Everybody loves the small pumpkins. SCORE FOR US.  We have been so lucky to have so many local places within our community offering to sell our pumpkins.  Like I said, it is only October 1st, and we are very pleased with the amazing support.

Thanks out to J.P. Stephens, Sunflowers, Benjamin Prescott Inn, Inn at Tartan Fox, TD Bank, Peoples Bank, Our Town Pizza, Terrapin Traders AND Hannah Grimes Center for being wonderful carriers of this years pumpkins.

Upcoming events:
Cheshire Craftsmen Fair this weekend in Keene
Monadnock Arts Tour & Wool Arts Tour next weekend October 12 & 13
Then we are in preparation for PUMPKINFEST!

Big thanks out to everyone who showed up at Gardner Ale House's Oktoberfest. AMAZING.  You are all amazing.  We feel the love <3.

Time to charge the furnace for tomorrows work ... guess what it is????

PUMPKINNNNNS


p.s. Here are some photos of my walk in the woods today with the woofs.  We love New Hampshire.

E-mail, Website, Facebook, Facebook Page Manager, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Blogger, Etsy, OH MY

Updating all of these social media tools proves to be nothing short of stressful.  CRAZY.  I wish they could all combine into one epic site.  It would save everyone tons of trouble, but I suppose some of the fun would be taken away.

E-mailing is the easiest.  Check your Inbox, Delete or Reply accordingly.  Simple.  Done!

Websites, well I guess our website is the easiest for me, because I have absolutely no idea how to do anything with it.  Thanks Mom & Jim!

Facebook is my favorite.  I began using it when I enrolled in college and got a .edu e-mail.  Back when Facebook was exclusive.  Now I'm friends with everybody and their mother (literally).  As a business woman this is great, it allows me to keep in touch with so many people, past and present, all in one place.  I do my best to try and keep my personal page personal, BUT not SUPER personal, where I am spouting about my drama and pissing people off.  This works well for me because when I decide to do a little business advertising, my currently 1,382 Facebook give me quite a possible audience for advertising.

Making a Facebook business page was an obvious step for me.  I hate it when you look up a business and they don't have a Facebook page, UGH, now I have to look up their website.  I'm not sure what is worse though, not having a Facebook page, or having one and not updating it for years.  Get out in the real (cyber) world folks!  Now that I got one of those fancy smart phones (of course just for business purposes) I had to figure out a way I can update the shop page more often.  Facebook Page Manager it is!  Boy, it really limits the functions one can do as a business, but my phone keeps doing some updates, I hope it improves ASAP.

LinkedIn - is that how its typed?  This is all a new thing for me.  It took me HOURS to create a profile, filling all of the tiny little details that would never fit on a proper one page resume.  The hardest part for me?  Finding a "professional" photo!  I think that other people have the same problem, I notice a bunch of blank LinkedIn versions of "profile pictures" - is that what it is called?  So similar to Facebook, but somehow much more intrusive, which makes it more professional?  I feel like some identity thieves would LOVE LinkedIn as a tool.  I'm finding that I only updated my status once, not sure what is appropriate to be saying.  I'm just slowly collecting friends and creeping along, maybe someday I will be as proficient as I am with Facebook.

Twitter.  OVERWHELMING.  We took a class "What the Heck is Twitter and Why Should I Care?".  I was left caring about Twitter, but still very uncomfortable with the whole process.  I think I need to spend some time grouping the pages that I'm following, into pages that I might like to "Retweet" their posts.  Right now I am overwhelmed with news twitter updates, which is great for my personal knowledge, but news and politics are not something a glassblowing studio should bring into their business.  (We may lose some friends)

Instagram.  Easy-ish.  It's annoying how I can't take photos on my good camera and upload them on the Instagram.  My fancy phone is a terrible photo taker.  I like the cool effects that you can make the photos, pretty awesome to check out.  We actually have some followers on Instagram, which is cool to see.  Basically I spend a total of 5 minutes on Instagram a day, posting a few photos, putting some weird hash-tags and linking it to my Twitter.  Two points for Dom.

Blogger.  Do you remember when you were in college and you used to get "writers block" over these short little page papers.  You build it up in your mind to be the end of the world, oh so much time and effort.  When you sit down you find that you actually enjoy writing and it isn't that difficult in the slightest.  That is how blogging has become to me.  To be described as a rewarding burden.  Slightly difficult because the whole time you're typing you're wondering - "Do people really care about this?  Does anyone care about what I have to say?"  OH WELL.  Read, don't read, poke fun, at least I snatched a minimum of a second of your brain power. MWUAHAHA

Etsy.  Oh Etsy.  Etsy is an amazing site, it really is.  It is a LOT of work.  Everyone wants to know if our stuff is available for sale online, complaining if its not.  When we only have a couple things on our Etsy site we get complaints.  When we have a bunch of stuff on our Etsy site, we get no sales.  I know that we really need to establish an Etsy presence, connecting with other artists there.  We need to build a regular customer base and hold strong.  It is hard when my mom, Jim, Josh and I are trying to run a pretty monstrous studio, attempting to sell stuff out of the shop, and constantly updating/deleting our glass on Etsy.  Also, the cost to keep our stuff up there is a small hindrance on our Etsy money-making progress.

Now you know my "educated" opinion - feeling smart yet?

Have a lovely Saturday!

1,005 Facebook "likes"

Today is a small celebratory day, we have hit 1,000 Facebook "likes" and even gone 5 more over!

Boy 1,005 is a beautiful number.  Soooo proud!

Like most fall days, today was a day of pumpkin making

What a workout!

We then went on an adventure to J.P. Stephen's Restaurant and Tavern in Rindge, NH to bring some more glass for display.  It is such a beautiful location, and an honor to be represented there

Oh wait, wait, it DOESN'T END THERE

We went off to the Shattuck Golf Club, right at the base of Mt. Monadnock.  I think I mentioned before, they are letting local businesses make a little fall set-up.  Great advertising.  They let us take a golf cart tour around the whole course!

Exciting, exciting, exciting.  Look at that beautiful landscape.  I love New Hampshire.

The last photo is of our little setup.  We are going to go back tomorrow and tie our sign up between the two trees, up nice and high.  We also want to buy some bales of straw and put some of our glass pumpkins around the area. 

Jaffrey

I will blame the couple day lapse in my blogging to productivity.

I would now like to discuss how much I love our new community.  It is great to feel proud of the place I both live and work.  There is nothing more satisfying.  

I grew up 20 minutes away from here with "Massholes".  Immediately upon driving over the boarder into New Hampshire the attitude changes.  

Imagine walking down the sidewalk and having someone stop every time you simply glace at a crosswalk.  WHAT!

My first time trying to pull out of a parking spot in downtown Keene, someone let me go!! 

I just couldn't understand it!

After being transplanted here, I have finally found that there is hope for this cruel world.  There are individuals in this community that actually care about you.  People that actually want to help, without the sole purpose of benefiting themselves.  Seeing the bigger picture, we can all be successful together.

Free time is nonexistent to me, especially with a new/very old house and a brand new business.  Of course I am the type of person that isn't satisfied without completely overbooking my time and working myself into the ground.  

With this in mind, you can understand why I joined TEAM Jaffrey.  I had high hopes for this organization, having an opportunity to be directly involved in community activities.  My mindset was; if it isn't what I expected, its only three year commitment.  I enjoy all time I spend working my house and on my business, if meetings and events are the only drudgery work I do in my young life, it won't kill me.

I love it.  I am at loss for words to truly express how proud I am to be a part of an organization with such an amazing purpose.  

I promise to tell you a little about the upcoming ideas and events TEAM Jaffrey has in mind.  NEXT TIME on "Behind the Scenes at Terrapin Glass" - from the viewpoint of Dom... duh duh duh

Well, I promise to write more often.  I also promise that I won't have to make this promise again.  

I will reach out and see if we can get Jim on here as well.  Give us some words of wisdom Jim!

Cheryl

This blog post is going to be dedicated to our student Cheryl who was in yesterday.  Cheryl started blowing glass by taking a weekend glass at Snow Farm.  For those of you wondering what Snow Farm is, check this link out http://www.snowfarm.org/ .  Cheryl has probably been taking classes with us for over a year now and her work is an inspiration for all.  She doesn't come every week, sometimes she only comes once a month.  When she does come to glass class, she kicks some serious butt, regardless of what is going on in her outside life.  Yesterday she came in and worked with weird shoulder injury.  Throughout the summer she continued to come in, facing the heat, even after having surgery.  Cheryl's work yesterday was bigger than she has ever worked, with cane, and every single piece made it to the box.  The look on her face after those two incredibly successful hours was priceless.  GO CHERYL!

Sunday Funday

I can already tell, making interesting titles for my posts will pose great difficulty.  I have the same problem with our facebook page, creating different albums every day for our different class photos.

We teach so many classes, and I like to put up pictures of all the different people that come and learn in the studio.  I think it is also great because then our students can find photos of themselves blowing glass.

But, back to the original topic, creative titles.  Difficult!  I have now gone to a standard, date of class, what they wish to learn, people in the class type of title system.  I suppose this will make it easier for our students to find photos of themselves in the future, but it is boring!

Back in my good old college days at Frankie P, we used to do what we called - "Sunday Funday".  Today's title will be a testament to my younger days and how much I have grown up in the adult world (ha!).

Sundays are a great day at the studio.  We often get a lot of visitors, we always have a renter, and the weekends are a favorite for students to schedule lessons.

Today's agenda is as follows -

Our friend/renter Mark & his doggy Lela are up visiting from CT.  He is working by himself today practicing pumpkins and whatever he feels like working on.  He began working today at 9, and will conclude whenever he feels as though his leisurely day of glass is over.  Mark is lucky enough to have a wonderful full-time job down in CT that supports his glassblowing addiction.  We keep trying to convince him to move to New Hampshire anyway, so much better than Connecticut.

We then have our student Barbara in for a two hour class and our other student Cheryl for a two hour class. 10 to 12 and 12 to 2.  These two ladies are awesome.  We offer a bulk class deal, 12 hours of private lessons, we are ecstatic when people sign up for it.  Teaching beginner lessons is fun, giving everyone a taste of glass and watching them leave with such an appreciation for glasswork.  But, to actually watch an individual grow and progress, ah, its amazing.  Glass addicts everywhere!

After that, we have a woman named Angela coming in with 4 other people and we will teach them a beginner class.  It is always fun to watch a group of people, that already know each other, learn together.  It leaves leeway to laugh, joke, poke fun, and congratulate, all in good spirits.

One last thing to talk about, Colleen's work party yesterday!  Awesome!  What a great group of people!  They got through clear flowers, colored flowers, and a colored ornament.  Colleen also had time to do a pumpkin demo for everyone to see.  Hopefully we will see some of those great people back for another class.  I think it was amazing for Colleen to be able to show the people that she works with, her private weekend obsession, GLASS! <3

Its the weekend!

The weekend for us = our busy time.

Yesterday was actually a very busy day as well.  I met the owner of the Inn at the Tartan Fox in Keene, as well as the owner of the Benjamin Prescott Inn literally two minutes down the road from us in Jaffrey.

I love this area.  The more people I meet, the more I love it.  These two individuals have great things going on in their businesses, and they wish to extend it out to other local businesses like us!  Both of these inn's brought home some glass to put on display and for sale on a consignment basis.  Works great for everyone!  Hopefully we can continue meeting people, making these connections, and helping everybody out!

Yesterday was also exciting on the topic of our interns.  We are always trying to reach out and help students in the area.  We do this by giving them experience helping us in the hot shop and teaching them what we know.  It is very much a work/learn exchange.  We get some much needed help, and they get to experience the wonders of glass.  It is also a great resume builder.

Over the summer we had an art student named Haley who came in to help us.  Haley turned out to be so reliable, loved glass, and is transferring to Keene State.  Keene state is only about 25 minutes from us and she only has three hours left on her internship.  Therefore, Haley has agreed to come on as an employee to help us sporadically throughout the school year.  She is also going to be representing us at our booth during Keene Pumpkin Fest, which is our biggest event of the year.  Thanks Haley, great job!

Yesterday we met a new volunteer intern, Abbi.  Abbi took a glassblowing class over the summer and wrote us a letter requesting to do an apprenticeship with us.  We aren't comfortable with the word apprenticeship because we are nowhere near master glassblowers, but we could use some help!  Abbi will be coming in to help us in exchange for being able to hangout in the studio and learn about glass.  Boy, we love being surrounded by people that think glass is cool!  Yesterday was Abbi's first day and she did great.  Very excited to see more of her.  See you next Friday Abbi!

Boy, so much happened yesterday!  In the middle of all these appointments, we also managed to make almost an annealer full of pumpkins.  I injured my jaw and have been out of commission for over a month now.  Yesterday was my first day of actually blowing glass.  Time to commence PUMPKIN MANIA in preparation for all of our fall events.

So the Shattuck Golf course has opened up free "vending" for local businesses.  They have a bunch of visitors throughout the fall, leaf peepers.  We are working on a setup to represent us.  It has to be outside, and it has to last safely throughout one whole fall month.  Yesterday I spray painted a trash barrel black on the outside, and orange on the inside.  I also spray painted a stool black.  This will be my representation of a glory hole.  Josh and Abbi helped me begin a glassblower scarecrow.  Hopefully I will have some time this weekend to continue working on it

Sad news for us is that today we were supposed to be attending the Antrim Home and Harvest Festival, which we will not be able to do.  Anne Marie is sick, and we have our wonderful friend Colleen bringing all of her coworkers into the studio for a team building workshop.

I will let you know how the workshop goes though, very excited!

Thanks for reading!

-Dom

Jaffrey Chamber of Commerce Breakfast with Annie Card Creative Services

This morning Jim and Dominique went on an adventure to the Woodbound Inn to have breakfast with the Jaffrey Chamber of Commerce.

This blog post is written through the perspective of Dom.  I plan on having everyone take their turn to write blog posts, hopefully this will be successful and interesting to all.

I have not explored much of the Woodbound Inn, and today we got to experience a whole new little building around the back.  We ate some breakfast and spoke with our neighbors for a bit before our speaker began.  Today the speaker was Annie Card, who also helped our business when we were first starting up.  She did a "Marketing Fitness Test" to help your business increase awareness and increase visibility.  We are proud to say that we did very well on our test, a small reward for all of our hard work.  One of the things that we lost points on was not maintaining a business blog.  Here we are now, giving it a try!

At the end of the meeting a representative from the Shattuck Golf Course handed out fliers asking for vendors at "Shattuckfest".  A vendor sets up a business display with a sign for free to decorate the golf course.  Apparently the golf course does some very exciting activities in the fall including golf cart rides showing the foliage!  Time to start brainstorming the kind of setup we may like to do! ... hmmm.... Glass pumpkins, a bale of straw, a glassblower scare crow!  Oooo the possibilities.  Maybe a "glory hole" and a bent blow pipe display.  We need to have it figured out, and set up by September 20th.

Today will be a good day at the studio.  I am still fighting a jaw injury, so first I will go to my physical therapist.  While I have my appointment, Josh will be teaching our regular student Christine.  What she wants to work on, I'm not sure.  Christine is an amazing student, always present and focused throughout class.  Every time she is in the studio she makes huge strides of improvement, it is wonderful to watch.

After Christine's class we have one basic intro class with two woman.  Then we will begin working on making more small pumpkins.  Today we are letting the furnace get really low, basically emptying out the pot.

For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about - We have one large furnace that runs at 2075 degrees all the time.  Inside the furnace is a ceramic pot that holds 135 pounds of glass when it is full.  After almost every work day we "charge" the furnace; we throw more glass inside.  Overnight the glass melts down and the bubbles that got trapped between the nuggets of glass floats to the top.

Today we are letting the furnace get low for two reasons -
1.  We keep finding little rocks in our glass and we want to make sure there aren't a bunch of them floating around in the furnace.  If there are we may need to address an issue with the "crown", the ceramic chunks that sit over the top of the furnace.  We also want to clean out as much of the rock chunks as possible so that they don't interfere with our work, our renters work, and our students work.
2.  It is time that we start with some fresh glass.  My comparison for this is as though you are constantly cooking a pot of chili.  Everyday you add fresh ingredients on top of the chili.  Eventually you want to empty that pot and start fresh.  If you don't you will have chewy, stringy, overcooked chili.  There is some glass in our furnace that is overcooked and it is time to start anew.

Well, I'm off to check e-mails and get settled before today's "real" work begins!