Loading the kiln... a story of good help and bad weather

Well as has become tradition for our spring firings the weather has been horrible. In what was one of my most bloggerly ( blogger is trying to tell me bloggerly is not a word... hah!) moments ever I took this picture while carrying down pots to load into the first chamber.

That's right driving snow in the middle of April! Don't worry though the snow stopped by mid morning, changing into sleet, changing into hail, and finally changing into rain and lightening! Quite the day. Chuck, who is a potter/sculpture at UW-Platteville helped out all day though and we still managed to get the second chamber loaded despite the weather.

Krista came out the next day by which time everything had melted which left us with this:



A little slippery, though we still managed to get the third chamber loaded. Chuck helped out yesterday and we finished up with loading the first chamber. A full kiln.

Third chamber:




Second chamber:


back of the first chamber:


And the front of the first chamber which as always is impossible to get a picture of everything due to the narrow door:

The kilns been preheating overnight and is currently at 200 degrees. We did have a little bit of a scare this morning as our propane weed burner blew out sometime in the night. We had to open everything up and let it air out. Luckily nothing blew up when we later relight the weed burner, so we are back on track... just a couple of hours behind schedule. Not a big deal. Firing party Saturday night, finishing up Sunday evening. Should be good.
Joe