and when we took down the kiln…..

and when we took down the kiln…..there was a message from the kiln builders…

A few years ago we removed the old kiln. The bricks were beginning to crumble, and the arch was beginning to deteriorate. It had some time left, maybe, according to all our home made” experts”.

Some were sure it would fall any moment, and some were sure it would last forever. But one thing we knew, it had lasted at least 30 years, and we had spent $5,000 upgrading it to meet modern standards with proper digital gauges and fans, and it was like the bionic man, part “old school” and part newly minted.

The time had come, the grant had been written after much research, and we knew we would need a kiln shipped in one piece from California, to do gas reduction, and delivered with all of its 4700 pounds of brick and metal.

The Canadian dollar went down the day after the grant was sent and the actual cost was going to exceed our grant by almost $10,000, but we were already in process.

The kiln delivery was smooth as it was sent to a heavy equipment moving company, a place that delivers bank vaults. We opened walls and they built ramps and with lots of men, might and equipment we had the new one moved. But my story is not in the move, it was in the destruction of the old kiln. As we removed the layers of brick we found a message, delivered by the late potter and teacher Ann Sneath and her building crew from sometime in the past, and not unlike finding the entrance to the pyramids, we were left a message:

There is no greater pleasure than to have your arch supported by your friends.