300

No, not the movie, but how many pots I filled with soil today.

I’m going to be volunteering all summer with a grad student in the forestry faculty at the university, and this was stage one. We took great huge bricks of hard-packed soil, broke it up by hand and saturated it (it’s very peaty, so it needs to be prepped before it’ll take water properly), and then filled the pots.
300 of them.
5 hours later, my shoulders are feeling well and truly violated.

Oh, how I love to play in mud, full of squelch and slap and oozy goodness.

I ought to have been a potter.  Not for any talent or skill, mind, but for the pure visceral joy of it.  Good thing it’s never too late for a new hobby.

The ridiculously awesome owl is Leslie’s masterpiece.  I made two simple plates and a small misshapen bowl.

I’ve always been fascinated with construction sites, particularly those great block-long pits of steel and mud that precede the appearance of new condominiums.  I suppose in part it’s the heaps of dirt that attract me - I never could resist a good dirt pile - but there’s an element of mystery in it as well.  What on earth are all those bizarre chunks of metal for?  How is all this meant to hold up a fifty story building?  Miles of pipe and coiled tubing, scaffolding in every colour, cables strung all over…it’s magical.  It’s like a great huge playground made just for me.

Except, of course, I’m not allowed to play in it.

I have, at various times in my life, entertained the notion of going into construction.  Of course, I’ve also considered joining the army, teaching grade school, opening a cafe, owning a bike shop, becoming a veterinarian, and going into video game design, among other things, so I don’t know how much you can really take from that.  I just want to play in the dirt.

I also want to live in this building once it’s done, but that’s besides the point.  Who can afford to live in Yorkville, anyway?