Sunday, March 17, 2013

Kilns - moving them, the EPIC - Part 2

Last week when we tried to move the new kiln from the lawn and down the sloping grassy driveway about two metres onto the paved area in front of the garage I tried to help but in fact I totally lost my bottle.  Husband Henry and two of our sons joined in with the A frame Hen'd rigged up to hop the kiln forward a little at a time into its destination.  Engineer's are pretty smart, this wasn't about just grunt work, there was a lot of lifting and planning involved.  I was hopeful but remained unconvinced that we could all do this safely and said so, and Hen to give him credit, promptly abandoned the attempt.  He said he'd wait for our friend and neighbour to be available to give some extra help, muscle and wisdom.  Relieved, I dashed off to the shop for the makings of dinner but in Woolworths car park I threw up - that's how anxious I'd become over the kiln issue.  It isn't elegant but it is my body's alarm for when my blood pressure is soaring and I'm ignoring my stress signals.  

A week later, and a massive rainfall later, we 'put the band back together' and with very good communication and teamwork we hopped the kiln gradually into place (we?  I lie, I kept really busy in the vicinity so I could avoid being too involved and chuck up again).  Neighbour Gary and Henry were brilliant blokes and our young guys were very valuable too in doing their bit with the ropes, the block and tackle, the A Frame and generally shuffling things slowly in a very safety conscious manner.   The soil is nothing but grassy sand and very inhospitable to top heavy items such as a kiln ... yes we all wore tough shoes and minded our fingers. 




My two beauties a Kilnswest and a  German WELTE Prins KS 35 brought in from the Netherlands.  
 So then I proceeded to 'christen' the new kilns in the traditional manner where I come from.  It seemed like a good way to mark St Patrick's Day and that sometimes life feels very good indeed, I didn't even break a nail - moving the kiln or opening the can of draft Guinness.  Now Hen's gone back to making his new 'old' motorbike work and I cannot say a word can I?  And I have to Google Translate the manual for the WELTE.




2 comments:

  1. You did it! I'm impressed!

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  2. wonderful what can be done with team work and a block and tackle!

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