Blue Skies and Quimper

Isn't this a beautiful blue sky?  The weather was great yesterday with temperatures almost warm enough for t-shirts, a light breeze, and these beautiful sunny blue skies.  We were working hard on cleaning, packing, etc. etc. etc.  (will it every stop??) but made a point of breaking off in mid afternoon for a long walk.

The ice-topped water along the trail was both pretty and fun to mess with.

Oh, sorry, Mom! Did I splash you?

My goal for the weekend was to pack up the collection of Quimper pottery that I inherited from Ben's mother.  The realtor had suggested that we pack away any valuables we had and we needed to get them off the built-in bookcases anyway so we could finish that paint job, but oh, I was so not looking forward to this task.  Too much work and too much responsibility!  I watched several YouTube videos on how to pack china and in the end felt good about the packing method I devised; wrapping each piece in layers of paper, foam, and bubble wrap, putting them in small boxes within big boxes, and using lots of paper to cushion the space between the boxes.

The name Quimper refers to a town in northwest France (Brittany) which has produced pottery continuously since 1707. There were two major factories, Jules Henriot and Hubaudiere-Bousquet, and they eventually merged in 1968 and then were restructured in 2011 to form the company now known as Henriot-Quimper.  This tangled history makes identifying and dating pieces a challenge, and understanding what Suzanne collected and perhaps adding to it will be an interesting project for my retirement! 

Meanwhile I have the pleasure of simply enjoying the folk art beauty of the pieces. About half of what I have is plates. 

The rest are vases, pitchers, sconces, candlestick holders, and other pieces in interesting shapes.  I wonder if this one was made to hold rolled up towels?  Or a low flower arrangement?

 I originally thought this wonderful bull was made to hold small flowers, but when I put short-stemmed daffodils in it one year it looked odd.

By the end of the day this big packing job was done.

As you can imagine, our house and shed are filled with boxes!  I think I see a PODS container in our near future. We'll use one to get this initial packing out of here and then use another for the actual move in early June.  The plan is for PODS to store the first container here and then transport both containers out to Boulder.

I hope I'm smiling like this lady as I carry boxes out to the PODS container!

While I had been packing, Ben had been doing a variety of odd jobs on the "get the house ready to sell list."  To reward ourselves for all this work we had an early dinner at Ben's favorite restaurant.