A Tale of Lye Gone Wrong or the Two Pot Event

This started out as a relaxing Sunday. Birds at the feeder, the patter of rain on the roof, our bellies full of baked pancakes and Larry's Bean Martin roast. Then the rain picked up, and the furious dripping began. Apparently, in cleaning out the stovepipe early this morning, J dislodged part of the roof along with the creosote. My understanding is that as the creosote dripped off the rain cap, it ate away the paint and eventually a piece of the metal roof. Though he's an affable guy, you might understand I wouldn't want to ask a lot of questions at this point :o) J has done a temporary repair, and says he'll put some metal down and get a piece of rubber roofing to span from under the rain cap all the way to the eave. I've known, from my studies of soapmaking, that one can make your own lye from wood ash. I've not had any real desire to try that, but I guess I've just gotten a taste of how corrosive wood ash can actually be.

I wanted to share these stems of ornamental plum with you. When I pruned earlier this week, I brought the stems in and put them in a couple of vases. I've not had luck with this before, in "forcing" blooms. I must have gotten the timing right this year, and was rewarded by lots of blossoms. Thankfully, this is the only sign of spring in the house at the moment! The two lovely jars are creations of local potters. The white one is Anne's, and the green is Mark and Meredith's. Check out their shops for some pottery goodness.