Lilies in bloom

Wow, some of the lilies are in bloom - exquisite!
I checked the garden at 6am, and there wasn't any more bunny damage to my beans and peas - guess the blood meal is working until the next rain. As soon as I get time I'll spray with the bunny/deer repellent which is supposed to work for 30 days.
Today is going to be a super busy day, getting ready for the TRAC tour. Yesterday I got all my throwing bats washed, arranged pots in the gallery and got the floor thoroughly cleaned with the new wet vac. It works great, picking up dried clay spills and doesn't leave streaks like a regular mopping. It was also lot easier on my lower back.
I did a super thorough job of it, moving heavy glaze and slip buckets out from under tables, etc. My friend Shane came over to help me figure out the wet vac since the instructions were somewhat confusing and definitely lacking. Thanks Shane - great potter and all around great guy, who always makes himself available for my big and little emergencies. He's also cute and available ladies. :-)
Jim and I had a nice dinner out and then watched the Lakers game. Orlando was just too good last night, making 75% of their shots; but the Lakers are still ahead in the series 2 games to 1.
After breakfast I'll do more studio organizing and bring some pots in to photograph today or tomorrow. There's food shopping to do at some point today, and if our new kitty had surgery yesterday, we'll be able to bring her home. All we know right now is that she was at the vets yesterday, but the girl at the shelter said that they didn't know if the vet would get to her this week even if her weight was enough to permit the surgery, because there are so many adoptive animals needing to be altered before the shelter will release them to their new owners. We should hear something this morning.

Yellow Rose

This is the most beautiful, yellow rose! Another climber, an heirloom pink rambler, started blooming yesterday. It's acting more like an ungainly shrub rose than climber, so I may have to do some pruning after it blooms to get it to climb.

I did my garden check at 6am when I went out to check the kiln's temperature and the after heavy rain all the flowers look a bit bedraggled. Before the rains came yesterday I got eggplants planted, did some weeding and put more soil around more potatoes; but the weather didn't permit me to do any more planting and the forecast today is for more thundershowers,and showers again tomorrow. There are about 6 flats of plants that desperately need planting.

The kiln is still too hot to unload; so I opened another spy hole at the top front and opened the damper a hair more. Unloading may have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I had to deal with a Trojan virus on my desktop and Web Root Spy Sweeper removed it but now I've lost computer sounds and a hardware check says it's a hardware issue; yet I can play sounds of archived radio shows. I guess this morning is going to be spent trying to fix this problem, while I watch the French Open.

If planting is out of the question, I'll start on getting the studio cleaned up for the TRAC tour the weekend of the 12th. I don't plan on starting another throwing cycle until after the tour and until I get caught up with planting.

Tonight is the start of the NBA finals - Lakers versus Orlando. I'm betting on the Lakers winning ! :-)

Till later,
June

Test tiles ready to load

These are the glaze batches and test tiles I've been working on the past two days, that will be going in this kiln load.

After lunch I decided to play with the bag wall some more and redid it (twice in 2 days). I also reduced the exit flues a bit. I think too much heat is going up the chimney. There's a new school of thought about flue sizes, so in the interest of fuel economy, shorter firing potential,and my need to continually experiment, I reduced the flue to about 47 sq in, about 17" less than was recommended by one source. I also removed two layers of brick from the chimney, which I had Shane raise for the last firing and lowered the bag wall. Those changes worked; but they worked too well, with the bottom now getting too hot.

I'm hoping that these current alterations will shorten the 24 hour plus firing which includes an overnight candling, and give me a more even firing. I'm also going to leave the spark arrestor cap on the chimney - hoping that removing those two layers of brick would open up the space enough to not impede the pull of the chimney. It should be an interesting firing! To be on the safe side I've unscrewed the cap in case it becomes necessary to remove it.

I got 3 shelves loaded before it was time to head in and get ready for dinner at the seafood buffet. It was after 7 when we got home. I did a quick garden check and caught some snails in the act of chewing on some veggies and on one of my climbing roses. Who knew they could crawl 4 feet up a rose bush!! It was too late and I was too tired to continue loading, so I opted instead to get caught up with email and snail mail and watch the Lakers, who won and clinched the western division. Kobi was sensational!

This morning I need to check part of my veggie garden. Jim spotted that big, fat, bunny in there last night when walking Bodhi and I have some pea seedlings in there that would be his idea of a gourmet snack! I put down some blood meal a couple of days ago. It works to keep the bunnies and deer away; but the problem is that it has to be replaced every time it rains, which lately, has been every day! :-(

Till later,
June