Winter Wonderland

Winter sucks. Plain and simple, I hate winter. It was even worse, because I forgot about securing wood for heating up my minuscule house. In the middle of some of the hardest snow, I realized I was nearly out of tinder for my fire. Trying to trudge through knee deep snow, and locating enough wood, was a huge endeavor that I had not even stopped to consider.

Father had always been the one to keep stock of our firewood storage. And at the hall, it was a communal effort, especially for the unChained ones. It was good for mind-numbing work. Chopping wood, hauling it, stacking it, and then having to haul it again to locations that needed it and stacking it again. It was a fairly continuous chore done throughout the year, that I never considered the practicality of the task.

I will at least consider myself lucky that I have my power, when I went out to find more firewood. Being able to alleviate the symptoms of being cold was one of the more useful things that was taught during the training of Unleashed. Learning how little heat you need to add to an area of the body, to offset the never ending chill of winter, is complicated on how little heat is needed, before you can overheat the area that you are trying to warm up.

One other situation that came up with my house, and lack of foresight, was that the stairs leading to the basement was covered by a door that was essentially flat to the ground. When the snow finally fell a good amount, I was trapped in my house of a few days, as the weight of the snow was more than that I could move when opening the door.

I could not use my power to move the snow itself, as the amount exceeded my ability to push away. As for trying to melt it, no. Melting the snow, would have made the water drain into my already quaint house. Too many things could go wrong from there, such as freezing again in the basement, or just simply dropping the temperature of the house to an uncomfortable degree. That is also ignoring any structural problems that could have developed from that water.

This upcoming year, I need to figure out some type of drainage, or storage system for precipitation that flows into my basement. My current idea, is to dig some type of water reservoir that could, possibly, drain, once it reaches a certain level, back into the nearby river. If I knew how to make a water pump, even a hand powered one, I would use that to draw out the water. Alas, I am ignorant of how to do that.

As for food, I was lucky enough to have stockpiled enough of it, to not have to worry. However, due to me just putting the produce into piles of the same type, I had a lot of spoilage. I can use the spoiled food for fertilizer for the upcoming year, but I need to figure out a better storage system for the food.

The biggest cause for the spoilage, was that there was not enough air being circulated around the food, causing an excessive amount of moisture. I can still pile up the food in the future, but I will need to make smaller stacks, and try to figure out some type of shelving, so the food has better circulation. Maybe some type of thatched shelves to support the food. I do not honestly know at this point of time.

Other than those factors, everything else around the house was decently fine. My only problem, was that I was bored to no end. I never thought of stockpiling clay so that I could utilize it throughout the winter. Once winter set in, the ground froze too much for me to be able to dig up enough to have enough processed clay to work with. And with the water. that I needed to separate the clay from the unnecessary particulates, being nearly frozen, to all the way frozen, I was barely able to even have enough clay to practice with.

Yes, I was practicing my pottery skills, instead of trying to produce usable items. Other than my hands, and a very rough wheel, I had no tools to speak of for my work. I had to create my own, and find out how practical my ideas were.

Ignoring the really rough pottery wheel that I made, the first tool that I had to make to my liking, was a tool for being able to spudge separate parts of clay together. I had plenty of bones that I could have used, but I wanted to try and use the bones in my pottery. So instead, I used wood. Wood is abundant around me, and if and when I mess up on my tools, I can relatively easily replace them.

My initial spudger, I made to thin, causing it to bend and warp. With my second, I started it by making it thicker, so that I could slowly whittle it out further. Unfortunately, it broke. The same kept on happening for the next couple. Some time around nearly a dozen tries, I finally produced one that I liked, and that was comfortable in my hands. It was only two or three days of work, but a lot of that was spent in frustration over my failures.

The next tool I worked on, was for roughing up a surface of clay. Much easier to do, than the previous item that I made for myself. I just needed to find a green enough twig, and separate the fibers from each other, and essentially make a brush out of it. Once I figured how to make the bristles, the work went fairly quick. I ended up make a few of them, with different bristle lengths, as I am not sure which length would work best for what I wanted to do.

One of the other main things I prepared for my future work, was some measuring sticks. I want, and need, consistency on the pieces that I produce. How can I sell sets of my completed work if they are all of different sizes? I am starting to realize that I am know where near as skilled as I thought I was. I might have some of the knowledge, but as Girts had pointed out to me previously, I need to develop my skills. Pottery is my career, and I do not wish to produce pieces that I do not think that are not up to the standards that I am trying to set for myself.