Never too old to stop dreaming

Decided to not get this deep gash stitched up, so I sat up with my hand above my heart till bedtime to slow down the bleeding; but added three more band aids to protect the sheets. This morning I cut off the band aids and cleaned the area. It's still oozing a tiny bit but I think it will close on its own in another day or so. The swelling hasn't gone down and the  black and blue from being traumatized is now on the whole pinkie, but it feels a whole lot better than it did last night and the cut area looks a lot better.

Needless to say I didn't get to say goodbye to our son and his family. Jim drove our grandson home and brought back some lovely brownies our daughter in law made. Fortunately I had a mac n' cheese in the freezer and a lovely big beefsteak tomato that I harvested in the morning, so we managed to have a comfort food dinner and finished off a lovely bottle of Seghesi Zinfandel with it all.

Our daughter-in-law has left us a leftover dinner care package of pulled pork which we'll pick up this afternoon so I get a dinner kitchen break tonight.

Since it looks like I won't have to sit with my hand above my heart today, I'll get my morning hand watering done and after breakfast get back out to the kiln and continue spraying the liquid wrench, which is what I started doing before I got attacked by that concrete brick the size of a double hard fire brick. Hopefully the liquid wrench application will help the plumber remove those burners so I can clean the orifices and also get that bar that they are attached to unscrewed, and moved so that the burners will sit upright and be centered in the ports.

Jim, my sweet husband said "just get a new kiln". That would be nice, but Olympic is the only company these days making these small gas kilns which is the only kind I can have here. If circumstances were different, I would build another soda kiln, but since they're not I just have to deal with what I have to finish firing these bisqued soda pots and probably just focus on the electric kiln after that.

These hobby type, small Olympic gas kilns with the upward facing burners and insulating firebrick won't last long with soda firing. I think it will last long enough for me to get all these pots fired but who knows. If it lasts that long and goes even longer, then I'll switch to cone 6 soda. My other option would be to look for a free, non working, larger electric kiln and set it up with a single, quality, powerful burner  coming in from the side, and hitting the center of the floor placed target brick to disperse the heat and flame. I could probably use the current stand which I put on rollers, to hold it - just might have to put a piece of steel slightly larger than the stand to hold a larger kiln. I guess there are always options. Another possibility is to use the current stand, put a heavy steel plate over it and build myself an updraft  IFB kiln, first spraying the bricks on five sides with ITC 100, and use an ITC 100 treated, high alumina fire board for a lid  At my age and life circumstances, it may all be wishful thinking; but I figure that you're never too old to stop dreaming.

Blood sweat and groans

Got the kiln unloaded and of course the glue on the wadded pots had gone up the flue during the aborted firing, so I brought the pots on the shelves into the studio and got all the wads glued back on.

Then I installed the new thermocouple for the pilot burner and turned on the kiln. Fine so far, turned the heat up high no blue flame and a couple of seconds later the kiln shut down. So it look like I need a new baso valve.

I tried to clean out the orifices by reaching into the kiln with my make shift long piece of wood with a  thin sewing needle taped to the end. This has worked for 40 years, but I just couldn't feel the orifice opening, nor see it with the 3 flash lights I tried. I also noticed that the burners were not only slightly tilted, but not centered properly in the port openings. So I got out some pliers figuring I could loosen the bolts that hold the metal bar that the burners are attached to, and try to remove the burners to clean them. All the bolts are frozen. Being prepared for most studio problems, I went in to get some liquid wrench spray to unfreeze those bolts and as I was spraying, my left hand was in front of one of the wind screens, which was secured from wind with a very large, heavy brick.

Somehow I managed to hit the wind screen and it and the heavy brick came crashing down on top of the front of my left pinkie hitting the bottom edge of the nail and creating a deep gash in the finger. Intense pain, blood everywhere, ran to the studio to run finger under water, grab hand towel paper and get in the house for a better look, antiseptic and band aids and antibiotic cream. The pain was so intense that it made me nauseous. A tylenol or maybe just time made the severe pain go away after about twenty minutes. Now it's just aching.and a lovely color of blackish blue/purple but still bleeding.

Bottom line is I will not be firing this soda or any kiln for a few days at least. I hope when the plumber arrives he
can fix that plumbing, get those burners off and get the pipe they sit on shifted so that they will point straight up.

Time to change these band aids. It's been over a half an hour now with me sitting here with my left hand in the air most of the time, trying to slow it down. I sure hope I don't have to get stitches. It's the family's last night here before they head back to L.A. and I'd much rather be spending it with them, than at the emergency ward.

My daughter-in-laws step father and our friend Doctor Bob is on the way over to take a look at it. Maybe there's a special suture like tight bandage can close this gash. I certainly hope so.

Facebook soda group address correction and firing update

Here's the correct URL for the Soda and Salt firing group I started on Facebook:;

https://www.facebook.com/groups/746611698711026/

Seems the first group I started, was not a true group; but a community. Who knew there was a difference! This corrected one (a true group), now allows members posts to be in the main part of the page instead of off to the side. It also allows member to create albums to post photos of their kilns and work, and add files. Members also have the option of receiving emails whenever anyone posts or they can opt out of receiving those posts via email, and just check messages at their leisure on the Facebook, group home page. Ask to be invited if you are interested in soda or salt firing, or are planning to be involved in this type of firing in the future, or are just a fan of soda and salt firing.

Got my little, soda, test kiln loaded yesterday and candled overnight and then ran into the first problem around 700 and again at 900 degrees (kiln just shut off even though it was well protected with a wind screen). The second time I just shut it down and waited for Jim to get back with the car and then we headed to Lowes where I got a new pilot thermocouple, a 6 inch bar clamp and large C clamp just in case the problem is with the baso valve and not the thermocouple. One or both of those clamps may work to depress that starter button on the baso valve and thermocouple and just light the burners manually.   I thought the bar clamp was a better option at the moment.
I've decided to unload and re-load it tomorrow morning. Once empty, I'll drill a 1/4" hole in the one exposed brick, for one of the Fluke thermocouples. I've been removing the thermocouple during my spraying so this will be a time saver.  I'll still have to remove the other thermocouple when spraying but better one than two to have to deal with.

There was a great heat differential top to bottom early on which I didn't have in the last firing, so I'm going to change the spacing on the first couple of  half shelve,s as suggested by Olympic, and use the solid shelf as the last shelf. Other Olympic owners have reported these huge temperature differences and have come up with some
some interesting tweaks to try to get these kilns to fire evenly. Some have had some success and others have given up. Uneven kilns are a good reason to have glazes with a wide firing range, or adjust your glazes to fit the uneven temperatures, or have a lot of patience and be willing to do many firings to figure out your kiln's idiosyncrasies.

Since our son and family are in town and leave on Sunday, I'm going to put off this firing till Sunday and use the cool of the morning tomorrow to do those little adjustments, re-load, then candle overnight with that clamp depressing the baso valve button for insurance. This kiln should be cool enough to unload late Monday or early Tuesday, giving me enough time to clean, price and pack those few pots for Wednesday. Some kilns like some horses are just hard keepers!

Started a Soda Salt fire group on Facebook

One of the members of my Yahoo soda and salt firing group suggested that it might be a good idea to start a Facebook page for the group, so I did that yesterday. Here's the URL https://www.facebook.com/sodaandsaltfiring for anyone interested in soda or salt firing to check out. I still have to figure out how to get members messages to post in the main body of the page instead of on the left side.

The Yahoo group is moderated to avoid spam mail and the group has been very quiet as of late, but it's a good repository for a lot of soda and salt flashing slip and glaze recipes, as well as photos of members work and kilns. I think the Facebook page, might bring more activity to the group since I allowed anyone to read or post on the page.

Because of the rain yesterday which prevented me from candling over night, I decided to put off the firing a day and load today so I could candle over night. It makes firing day a lot easier that way.

We had some lovely barbecued ribs at our sons last night and right after dinner a couple of the guys went out with the guide to fish the salmon holes right in front of the house. Within minutes we heard a lot of celebratory hollering and they caught the first of salmon for tonight's dinner, so I don't have to cook again tonight. What a treat!

After morning watering and harvesting chores I'm heading right to the studio for the day. Since I put off loading yesterday I wound up glazing and wadding more soda pots, mixing up a bit more wadding, and weighing out a test batch of turquoise oribe and using that as an accent glaze on one of the mugs since I don't have any cone 10 test tiles on hand.

This morning I need to clear the slab roller (my only work table), which means clearing the short side of the table and moving the earthenware pots waiting to be glazed to that side, and getting all the soda pots that are decorated on the table so I can decide which ones to load for this firing. There are enough pots already decorated to do a couple of firings in this tiny, four cubic foot Olympic soda test kiln (now my only soda kiln) so I just have to decide to pick a selection of pots to add the already fired ones to take to the Eagle Point Women's club luncheon/sale next Wednesday. I have no expectations of 20 or fewer, mainly retired women, buying any pots, but it will be the easiest show I've ever done, since they supply the tables and covers and all I have to do is set up some pots on an 8 foot long table and get to know more of my neighbor ladies.

The early bird catches the worms

I didn't catch any worms but I was in the studio at 5:30 am waxing a few more pots and will glaze them as soon as I finish my first cup of tea.

There are more pots decorated and wadded than will fit in this tiny Olympic gas soda kiln, but since the glazes were made and ready to pour, I decided to keep going, so I 'd have enough for another firing when weather and my energy permits. Seeing all these pots ready to be fired is making me think that a larger kiln might be a good thing down the line. My first thought would be an old electric kiln to convert; but then I think about my health and my age and take a deep breath, and tell myself that it may be time to just give all of that up and stick with this little kiln and fire it the few times a year when the weather permits. That would be the most practical thing at this stage of my life.

Checking today's weather (thunder storms, isolated thunder storms, rain and showers, all day and all evening). The forecast says it clears at midnight when I will be happily in restful sleep, so it looks like I'll be up very early again tomorrow to load and start firing. If I see that there's a lull in those isolated showers, I might just take a chance and load and re-cover the kiln, then wheel it out first thing in the morning and start firing. Ideally I would have love to candle it overnight, but that is just not possible with this forecast.

This rain is welcome since the Eagle Point/Shady Cove fire jumped the fire lines and doubled overnight and is threatening 134 homes. There is a mandatory evacuation order for those threatened, so hopefully, mother nature will help the firefighters with a bit of this rain. August is always a big fire season on the west coast. We get these dry storms - no rain, but thunder and lighting which starts the fires.

We have light rain for the last half hour and with more on the way all day, I won't have to spend any time gardening, so it going to be a long studio day. Once I get another batch of wadding made, and finish these soda pots, I'll start glazing those earthenware pots if it has settled enough for me to get a bit more water out of the bucket, and get those fired over the week end.

Soda firing on schedule for Thursday

 Since it was obvious to me that I wouldn't have enough good earthenware pots for a decent display in 8 days, and my clear glaze needed settling before I could glaze, I decided to shift gears and do a soda firing. I have plenty of finished work to choose from and just needed to make a liner glaze and one or two of my accent glazes, do a bit of wadding and glazing and be ready to fire in two days.

Miracle of miracles, I actually got what amounted to a full day in the studio yesterday and it felt great!  Soda firing is my passion and I haven't felt this good about being in the studio for a while. Wish I could get as excited about the earthenware as I am about soda firing.

The morning was the usual gardening chores at two gardens, but afternoon was all studio time and I even went back out after dinner and worked till 9 o'clock.

I made a small batch of my bright blue celadon liner and wadded more pots and got enough pots glazed and decorated for a firing. Since rain is in the forecast for today and tomorrow, I'm aiming to fire Thursday which will be the coolest day in weeks. It's forecast to be in the 80's which is a great change from the 100 plus degree and 90's we've had for weeks.

This morning I have to make up a tiny batch of amber celadon which I use watery thin to make flashing orange halos. For insurance sake, I'll wad and glaze a couple of more pots this morning and if I have time maybe make a small, 1000 gram batch of my temmoku liner for a few pots. I'm not sure a couple of these pots will fit on these shelves in this tiny Olympic kiln. .

Dinner is my leftover spicy Mexican stir fry chicken and margaritas, so it looks like I will have plenty of time to at least finish these soda pots and maybe even work a bit on the earthenware if that glaze has settled enough since yesterday for me to pour off the excess water.

Time to do my morning hand watering, breakfast and off to the studio for the day.

Abundance

This is yesterdays first harvest of Corno de Toro frying peppers. These grew in half of one of my earth boxes. Bell peppers are in the other half.  Needless to say these were part of  our hero of  fried sausage, onion, and of course, pepper dinner. The rest will be used again tomorrow. Maybe I'll add some tomatoes to the mix and serve it over pasta instead.

The kitchen table is covered with onions, potatoes and shallots which are drying and a part of the kitchen counter is covered with tomatoes. My dinner menu is governed by the abundance of the days harvest, so tonight I'm doing a Mexican chicken, tomato, onion and serrano chile stir fry and margaritas.

The maintenance and generosity of these two gardens is taking up at least half of my days working hours, ; but I did get a full  afternoon in the studio yesterday. It took almost 3 hours just to re-mix six of my under-glazes which resembled settled concrete after sitting for months. I managed to wax the pots, get those under glazes remixed,  which entailed  a lot of pounding, grinding in a mortar and straining (not fun), and at the end of the day, after waxing and re-constituting those under glazes, I had only decorated  one mug and one bowl.

Today should go quicker since not too many pots need a lot of decoration. The only glitch will be if I have to re-mix any more under glazes.  Time to hit the shower,  then do some hand watering out front because someone working on the lawn broke one of the drip system connectors and I would have lost a lot of plants if I hadn't discovered that yesterday. It's always something!

Bisque unloaded

Got the bisque unloaded last night and forgot how few pots were actually in there! I had a lot of test tiles and impression stamps and not many pots that could be for sale. The teapot is a special order for our daughter, the large bowl is one I made for us. A couple of the pots have a problem with the slip cracking and I think it may be because I didn't slip them early enough - still learning on this earthenware journey. With this scant amount of possible pots, I may just have to fire my soda kiln early next week. The pots are made, just have to line and do minor glaze decoration on a few more. I'm not thrilled with firing a soda kiln during these mid 90 and 100 degree days but it looks like I may have to.

One nice thing about earthenware is that you can fire bisque and glazed pots in the same load. One of my experimental decorations turned out to be ugly to the max.  It might have been OK if I just omitted the bright blue center on the plate.  This was definitely a case of the need to remember the "less is more" philosophy.. 

 I'll head to the studio late morning after all my garden and other chores, and start glazing and decorating these pots till late afternoon when we have to go to town for some shopping and dinner out. There definitely won't be enough earthenware pots for the sale in a few weeks, but I do have some finished soda/salt pots that I can add to the mix, and if I get another small soda firing in, all should be fine.

These are for our women's club annual luncheon and members craft display/sale, so I wasn't wanting to lug boxes and boxes of pots to start with,  just make a small presentation of my current work, have a nice lunch and finally meet some of these ladies, after over two years of being a member and being too busy or not intrigued enough  to attend a single event.

Bisque firing day

Doing a bisque firing today. The kiln isn't full, but I have enough other bisqued pots to fill it for a glaze firing, so all is well. I signed up for the Eagle Point Women's club annual member sale/show and I have about two weeks to get all these pots finished, which shouldn't be a problem, even with only half days available for studio time.

There's no expectation that this is going to be any kind of a money generating event, since so many members of this club are retired and on fixed income and this is not a club with a huge membership; but I figure that after living here almost 2 1/2 years, it might be time to temporarily end my happy, almost hermit like existence, and see if there are any kindred spirits in the community other than my friendly neighbor Kay.

My garden spraying was done by 7am and I just have to get the hand watering done before breakfast and the rest of the day will be for cooking and re-mixing two of my glazes and decorate and glaze the few bisqued pots on the ware cart. I'm hoping that the air conditioner will make the studio comfortable, even with the kiln on; but that remains to be seen. If it turns out to be an oven in there, I'll put off those chores till tomorrow, which may not be a bad idea, since I've been fighting some kind of bug which has really zapped my energy the past three days.  I'll continue with my mega vitamin and oscillicocinum therapy and keep moving, albeit, at a slower pace.

Half the slab roller table is clear, now that the soap making storage area is complete, so I just have to clear the rest of it and get it ready for glazing. This big slab roller is my only work table, so I'm always having to clear it for the next job. After decades of having very generous sized studios, it's still taking me time to get used to all this moving and shifting in such a tight space. It's doable, just a pain in the butt at times. But this is a first world problem, so I'll quit my bitchin'.

 

Tomatoes and peppers are doing great

My two earth boxes are loaded with tomatoes and peppers.; and the hot peppers and other tomatoes in the raised beds are doing just as well, and maybe even a bit better if I got by size of the largest tomato in the garden. I'm going to have to look up a lot more tomato recipes soon, and probably do a bit of canning and/or freezing in another week.

Went to the store after breakfast to buy some canning jars and pectin and was ready to make peach jam when I got home, and the bottom rack of my big canning pot is missing, and no where to be found! AARGH. It's another thing that may have just gone walkies during our move. Looks like peach jam is not going to get made today or till I get a bottom rack. Oh well, there was Buffalo wings, fresh corn on the cob, garden fresh wax beans and margaritas for dinner. I shall not complain too much!

Got my gardening chores done before 8am. It's was smoky out there and got worse as the day progressed. We now have 7 fires here in the valley,  plus that very large one east of Ashland, so it was a good day to stay indoors once my morning gardening, and a trip to the local farm for corn and another quick stop for some canning jars and a few other pick up groceries.

I  found a vintage canner rack on Ebay this afternoon, and it should be here within the week. The Amazon reviews on the new ones were not good (the word flimsy came up a lot) so it was time to look up vintage racks and Ebay has quite a few. Fortunately, peaches will still be in season for another couple of weeks, so there may yet be some home made ginger peach jam in the Perry cupboard this fall.

Since the day's plan was thrown off,  I got in the studio a bit and moved some things around while searching, in vain, for the bottom rack of the canner. I think I can free that whole shelf  for those test glaze containers. I'll finish that right after breakfast tomorrow.

 Jim wants a quiet Sunday at home and he'll get his wish, but not until after the morning drive to our sons place for me to do some garden chores.

I should get the whole afternoon in the studio since, at Jims request I've put off gumbo making till Monday. He loved the corn so much he wants it again tomorrow, so corn on the cob, a tomato salad with these garden fresh tomatoes and a mild Italian sausage will make for a fast, easy dinner in this 100 degree weather and give me a decent block of studio time, which has been a rarity for me this summer. Next year I'll be content with just dealing with one garden to care for. That's about all this old body can manage these days if I still want time and energy for the studio.

It's almost there; but one shelf wasn't enough for these soap making supplies. I just need another hour in the studio to finish it - just have to find a place for the rest of those glaze test batches.

Yesterday I had my gardening chores finished before 8am. With these hundred degree days, getting out that early is a must. A few days ago I had a bout of heat prostration and that was not fun, so I'm being super careful for the rest of the week.

The rest of my day was spent cooking and getting some of these soap making supplies off my slab roller and getting them on the cleared shelf, which obviously wasn't big enough, so I found another large, deep container and filled it with enough glaze test containers to open up another half of the shelf below. Today I need to find a place for the rest of them. I also put together that wooden two tier stand. That was a great $9.999 buy at Fred Meyers, because it is perfect to double as a soap drying rack.

I made some truly delicious oven baked zucchini fries for lunch the other day. Even Jim who prefers the flavors of high fat foods love these.  If you want the recipe, you can check our my other blog: www.plantharvestcook.blogspot.com

 Dinner was quesaillas and an apple crisp with vanilla gelato for dessert. That was pretty much my day other than making a chart for all the soap ingredients I have on hand, doing email and some computer cleanup.

Time to do my hand watering, have some breakfast and do some refrigerator cleanup and process some of those surplus veggies for the freezer. I'll get in the studio after lunch to finish that soap supplies storage and maybe actually get my hands on some pots. Our son is in town for a couple of days and we're going to have pizza at the river house tonight. He has a fishing guide there for till dusk and I might just go out and cast a few while the guide works the salmon hole.

Now this is some kind of wonderful production throwing skills

Post by Mustafa Deniz.

This video is wonderful. I'm sure he could do this blindfolded - amazing demonstration of remarkable, production, throwing skills.

We are back to the well over 100 degree days. It was over 106 yesterday and the heat really got to me. Today I will get all my gardening done before 8am and stay indoors the rest of the day. I have veggies to process for the freezer, after breakfast, and early dinner prep to do after lunch and maybe a bit more time in the studio.

I was in there yesterday but even with the air on it was way too hot to stay in there too long. Too much of that lovely cool air just leaks right through the garage door gaps. This morning I was in there at 5am, trying to make space for the rest of the soap making supplies and  filling a big rubbermaid bin with containers of glaze tests. Seems that one shelf is not enough for all of those soap and mold making supplies.

Yesterday I bought a couple of shelf organizers to make better use of my tall,  metal shelving unit. The wooden one that I unpacked this morning will help. With it's spaced, wood slats, I realized that this little $9, double shelf unit would be a perfect soap drying rack, so I'll probably be back to Fred Meyers in the next couple of days to buy another one just for that job. Now I just have to figure out where I'm going to store the rest of those earthenware slip and glaze test batches. Hopefully I can find some space under the Bailey slab roller. It's the only possible place left unless I buy another outdoor storage unit. Now that's an idea!

Where do you put it all

The last of my necessary soap supplies arrives today. Since lye is used by some people with some not very good or legal intentions, the government keeps track of lye sales and I have to sign for delivery.

I was lucky to find the right non virgin olive oil at a Cash and Carry store in town. I was told that it's hard to find except on line, and shipping would be horrendous. So I went to Google(the font of al wisdom) and searched wholesale foods and restaurant supplies in our area, and found this store. I was even able to do a search for their products which saved a driving trip if they didn't carry that particular oil.

It's a great store for restaurant cooking tools, food storage items,  and large,regular and gigantic sizes for food, etc.  and discounts for case purchases, and even fresh veggies. We were on our way to Ashland for some grocery shopping yesterday, so I didn't spend a lot of time checking out the whole store. They have stores  Washington state, Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho. I was like a kid in a candy store just roaming down the kitchen equipment aisle; but Ashland was calling, so I'll have to go back another day and see what other goodies they have.

My other goal was to stop by a few charity shops in search of a crock pot for soap making and I got lucky at the Salvation Army store, where I got a Rival crock pot for five dollars.

Right now, the short end of my slab roller has all these soap making fats, oils, scents, molds, bowls, mixer, etc. taking up that space and I'm scratching my head wondering where I'm going to store these things. I've gone up as much as I can in my garage/studio with shelving and two metal racks suspended from the ceiling, so I may just have to look under my big slab roller and see if I can consolidate some of those buckets and made room for these all these supplies. Or, my only other possibility is a tall wire shelving unit which now houses lots of glaze test containers, bowls of fired glaze test and other studio related things.  That just may be the better choice, since it would put everything closer to my scale.

I'll just have to get in there at some point today or tomorrow. If my delivery comes early enough, we want to drive up to the mountains this afternoon for lunch and maybe check if the wild blueberries are ready for picking at Blueberry flats. If not, then I'll get in the studio and figure out this storage dilemma.

Quiet Sunday in lake country

We had a lovely, quiet Sunday afternoon after a busy morning of  running around town shopping. We took a drive up to Fish Lake for a burger dinner. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as it's been in the past, so next time we'll order something else, or try one of the other lakes; but we prefer the smallness, and less glitchy, non resort vibe of Fish lake. I brought my fishing pole but was so relaxed, just sitting near the lake, with the lovely breeze, that there was no need or energy to fish. I did take a little stroll with Bodhi along the shoreline which he loved, since there were several other dogs there who he was happy to meet. He is a very social guy!

In the morning we ran around to a bunch of stores for me to get more of my soap making supplies and a bit of food shopping. No one had the brand of silicone I was looking for, so when I got home I watched a few more mold making videos and saw that there were other brands people were using. So tonight, on the way back from doing evening gardening work at our sons place, I'll stop and pick some up. I did get lucky at Good Will and found a couple of silicone molds made for cooking, which will work fine for soap making.

Later this week I should be able to have all the soap making equipment and raw materials either on hand or waiting for delivery. There are only 3 things left to buy, so that fall project will be ready to go and I can focus on finishing up studio pots. One order is due to arrive on the 29th, but everything else will be here sooner.

Jim is off to the hospital for a test and wants a pancake breakfast when he gets home. Yesterday I made him bruschetta for lunch with the first tomatoes. He was smiling with every bite. I have a lot of baby artichokes that I have to find recipes for. The large ones are easy  - I just stuff them with a bread crumb, parmesan, herb mix. In the past, I always got large artichokes but this year, the plants are giving off a whole bunch of babies. Don't know how that happened. It's a mystery yet to be solved!

I'm still transferring files from the hard drive that I salvaged from the Dell XPS laptop that died, and I have to get my old iPad set up for emails. I was at ATT a few days ago and they got it set up for cellular, but I'm hitting a wall trying to set up my email up on it.  Following their on line instructions is repeatedly giving me error messages about my password and user name, so after breakfast I'll have to call them and see if they can figure this out. None of my other apple devices are sending emails, only receiving them after upgrading to the new operating system. So maybe they can help with that problem as well because I've tried every solution I found on line and even one call to Century Link a couple of weeks ago, proved useless. Maybe this time I'll get a more knowledgeable tech person. One can only hope!

Oregon is on fire

This morning the news is reporting that 150,000 acres are on fire in our state. Luckily, so far, the fires are north and east of us. I hope this year isn't as bad as last year, which was horrific. We had to stay indoors for weeks at a time because at one point we were surrounded by several big fires.

I was out at 7am planting some more beans, tying up and pruning some tomatoes, harvesting some chiles and repotting a,  going to seed, dill plant to make room in the raised bed for the beans, and doing my hand watering. The Serrano chiles are now producing well, so it looks like there will be nachos and margaritas this weekend.  Some critter has stuck his nose into the bottom of my earth box with the big, beautiful tomatoes, and has eaten half of the one just starting to ripen. There's been a skunk smell around a couple of times this week, so it's either him or a large rodent - probably a relative of the one I named Ratatouille last summer, who came face to face with a rat trap and lost, thanks to big time hunter - my husband Jim. Time to find a critter repellant or something more drastic.

Some more soap making goodies (shea butters and a couple of essential oils) arrived late yesterday and I got those unpacked and gave myself some pre-breakfast email, soap making reading and note taking time. Now it's time to make some breakfast, put the laundry away, hit the shower, feed the sourdough starter, turn on the studio air conditioner and watch a couple of soap making videos while the studio cools - not necessarily in the order given. One must always remain flexible, since the unwritten rule that  man/woman plans and God laughs, will always prevail.

107 in the shade

Got my hand watering, transplanted a couple of veggies, and fed all the veggies before 9am. I'm not going out again till around just before dusk, when I'll plant some of my spinach starts. It's going to be 107 today!

Last night, I got in the studio after dinner and went through my tools to make up a package for the potter in West Virginia who just lost his house and studio in a fire. When I had a much larger studio, I had a couple of wheels and a lot of duplicate ribs, trim tools, and some other small tools, sponges, etc. So it was just a matter of going through boxes and trays to sort out duplicates. 

One can only imagine how dreadful it would be to not only lose your home but your studio - the source of your income.

Other than cooking, gardening and a couple of meetings with  the lawn guy and TV repair man (good news is that the TV isn't dead. Bad news is that it's a $450 fix!). It was a costly day since it's going to cost that much  or a bit more to replace our sod in the front yard.). Good thing I decided to put off buying a new computer and the iPad mini after I found out that new iPads are supposed to be coming out this fall.

I spent some time after dinner ordering some Pyrex bowls and a vintage double burner cook top for the studio. I can use it for soap making and for heating wax. My old one was going strong after 38 years or more but it was pretty raggy and I left it in North Carolina when we moved; but after reading reviews on modern versions of anything electrical, they seem to all be junk - don't work well, fail in a matter of months, have cheap plastic gears, etc.

There's still an immersion blender,some old pots and wooden spoons to get before I get started on my first attempt at soap making. So far, I haven't found a used one, but I'll look a bit longer before I bite the bullet and buy a new one since the quality choices all seem to have limitations.

Some of my soap molds are coming from China and won't be here for a few weeks, so there's no rush to complete the list. Meantime, I'll finish up paperwork here while waiting for the TV repair man who's going to be here within the hour to remove the loaner and get our repaired TV set up.  When Jim gets back from the hospital I'll be heading to the studio for a little while, to do a bit more organizing - a never ending chore in this small space, and more so now that I have to find a place for all these soap making supplies. On days like this I'm so grateful that I put a heater/air conditioner unit in my studio.

In this extreme heat, I'll be making one of my ten, fifteen minute dinners - linguine with clam sauce. It's almost too hot to eat, let alone cook! 

West Virginia potter needs help after a house and studio fire

West Virginia potter Dan Templeton had a house fire that destroyed his home and studio and is in need of donations and equipment and such........donations can be sent to Dan Templeton 1106 North Fork Road
Wheeling West Virginia 26003. He has use of a wheel already but is need of ribs and other small tools and any money donations will help him get backup and potting. Dan makes wonderful traditional style salt glazed pots in the 18th century American nature.......a great guy with a lot of talent. from Ken Westfall

I'll be going in the studio when we get back from my morning gardening chores at our sons place, and start searching for things to send Dan Templeton. I know I have a lot of duplicates as well as things I no longer need. So if you have extra boxes of cones from temperatures you no longer work at, extra brushes, sponges, ribs, trim tools, etc. put them in a padded envelope or small box and send them. And of course, a little donation to help him would help a lot as well.

It's 6:30, I've had my last sip of my first cup of tea, and it's time for me to head out in my nightie and do my morning hand watering. It's going to be another 100 degree day in Southern Oregon, so we'll be heading over to our sons place before breakfast to harvest some veggies and do a bit of hand watering.

Hopefully in the afternoon the TV repair man will arrive to fix this bedroom TV, although I must say the quiet after dinner last night was lovely!

Doesn't everyone garden in a nightie

These 100 degree in the shade days are going to continue for the rest of the week, which is why I was out in the back yard at 6:30 this morning, in my nightie, watering, planting, dead heading and re-potting a bunch of things.

After breakfast I decided to have some Sunday morning relax time, do email and turn on the TV for some background noise and see how the championship soccer was going. The bedroom flat screen Samsung was dead! First the Dell XPS laptop dies and now this TV.  That was my first AARGH reaction! But, It may not be dead. Some google detective work on my part turned up a class action lawsuit around these Samsung flat screen TV's. seems there's a little six or seven dollar capacitor in them that is a faulty design, and since Samsung knew about it they settled and did a recall. So why were were never informed of this? And now they tell us, the recall,  and free repair ended in December.

All they could do today was give us a phone number for a repair person We have a second Samsung in the living room, and that was bought in the period where there were still these problems. They knew of the problem and kept selling TV's. According to court records and their attorney's, about 7 million sets are affected. Thanks for nothing Samsung. There won't ever be another Samsung product purchased in this household. Problems can arise with anything; but impeccability demands you own up and fix it and not sweep it under the rug.

Needless to say we spent a lot of time first with Direct TV on the line, after we had spent a lot of  time on our own trying to fix the problem with re-setting everything. So I checked the Samsung book - no help there. Google was next and that's when I found out about the capacitor problem and the class action law suits in 3 states.

Next it was on the phone with Samsung, who informed us that the deadline was December to request the free repair. How were we to know there was a recall when we were never notified! So the best the Samsung customer service people could do was give us a number for a local repairman. That call made (he'll be here tomorrow), it was time for lunch and back to my email and finding out why all my Apple devices refuse to send emails. That problem still isn't solved, but I'm just too weary to get on the phone with Century link and find out whey they're refusing to let me send emails on Apple devices. It's been a technical over load day.

At least I did get to order some soap making supplies in between all of the above busyness, and join a soap making group on Yahoo, where I got some tips and information about some raw supplies. The past couple of days I've purchased some molds, oils and fragrances. Now I just need to buy a few more supplies, a stick blender,  and maybe some kind of double burner electric cook top, so I can make soap in my studio instead of the kitchen. Since soap making is going to be a fall project, I'll have time to check out local charity and thrift shops and garage sales for some of those things.

I had one of those double burner, portable cook tops in my studio in North Carolina , but I don't know if I brought it when we moved. It was pretty ancient and had been used for decades to hold my large wax pan. I'll check the studio and see if by chance, I kept it. Then it will be time to start on dinner. Tonight, it's a simple sardine, onion salad with boiled potatoes, and  cheese and fruit for dessert. It's way too hot to spend a lot of time bent over a hot stove.

Where will we go from here

In my bits of down time I've been perusing Pinterest and remembering the various trends and changes to pottery since I started in clay in the early 70's. At that time cone 9 was the preferred temperature and a reduction kiln was the dream of many of us just getting into clay. There wasn't much color in those days - lots of oatmeal and matt glazes, temmokus - probably the influence of the Leach era.  There were people like Betty Woodman, Ruth Duckworth and many others whose work went in a different and sometimes brazen direction for the time, but that wasn't was was seen at the majority of craft shows.

There were some great salt pots in those days from Karen Karnes, Don Reitz, and so many others. How many of us wished we had thought of the idea of those wonderful cut lids n Karen's jars, that made her pots so recognizable.

Remember Voulkos with those powerful platters with tears and holes? I always dreamed of owning one of those; but it was a dream unfulfilled; but I can still enjoy them from afar in well documented photos.

We had potters doing selfies, before they were called selfies - doing sculptures of themselves and doing it quite well.

Then cone 10 became the new ideal, and then wood firing caught on and everyone including myself was building wood kilns - lots more brown pots with few exceptions, like David Hendley who found a way to put vibrant color in his wood fired pieces. It seems for a while, and still true in many cases, that many were trying to mimic the historic, mingei and wabi feel of the tradition Anagama and Noborigama kilns of Japan. There were a lot of anagamas being built and a lot of brown crusty, pots in the 80's and 90's. At the same time we became conscious of what we were putting in the air, and all that black smoke coming out of those kilns made us consider an alternate choice for a wood kiln. I and others were building bourry box kilns in the early 80's in an attempt to have it both ways - wood fire pots without filling ours and other peoples lungs with too much of the bad stuff.

For a while temperatures were rising well beyond cone 10 and still may be.

There was also a big Raku trend in the 70's and 80's. There was the crystalline glazes trend with a lot of not very intriguing forms being covered with a glaze that held the hope it might bring an otherwise mediocre pot up to a higher level; but there were those who were also taking it to new heights with exciting forms to match the power of those glazes.

We saw clay being used to create lifelike pieces of luggage, and then there was the funk era with David Gilhooly leading the way with his amazing, outrageous and so funny pieces of frogs and beavers doing the most outrageous things in clay. Have you ever seen his erotica series of frogs making love inside a cheeseburger, and sliding off the melted cheese? It was one not to miss! The 70's were definitely fun.

Shinos were big in the 80's and are still a favorite with many of us potters; but often not so much for buyers. For some of the buying public it was more like shi - no. Temmokus often run into the same problem. Even black dogs are the last to be adopted. There's color prejudice every where it seems. Malcolm Davis made shinos very exciting with carbon trapping and his other discoveries, and opened the shino market up a bit more. People noticed.

We've been through so many style changes, some borrowed from other eras, like the duck bill pitchers and others and the newer, maybe not so new, boat forms, animated, dancing pots etc. etc. In the 90's and currently we've seen a big resurgence of majolica but in a newer, fresher presentation by many, slipware, both traditional and reaching for newer expressions. Raku grew, as all things must, from just shiny glazes that faded in time. And as the glazes in some cases, took a different, mellower, velvety road, the forms also grew.

We've had naked raku for a decade or more. There was salku and pit firings. People learned to wrap pots in silver foil along with some organic  materials and fire them in their electric kilns. I was doing some fun cone 10 saggar firings in the early 80's using jars that were made for industrial use and later sold in new age stores as crystal sounding bells. That was around the time I took as Paul Soldner, hands on workshop for low fired salt. I didn't stay with those too long, although I loved the look - just hated having to tell people that the pots shouldn't be put in a humid environment, like a kitchen or bathroom - usage just too limited for what I wanted to be functional work.

In the 90's soda firing and salt firing were very much in view and continue till today. The salt pots were not the pots of earlier eras with the look of brown sewer tile. Flashing slips and directional deposits of soda, gave a new look to the work. I joined the soda fire group, first converting my ancient Geil gas kiln in the early 90's and later went to a cross draft hard brick kiln. Health issues necessitated a move cross country and a huge lifestyle change, otherwise I'd still be solely, making that work. I love it.

With energy costs skyrocketing and communities putting more and more restrictions on wood and gas kilns, we've seen the firing temperatures lower and electric firing become the majority, I would say, of hobby and other work being produced now. Ceramic companies saw the trend and started selling some interesting glazes for cone 6 oxidation. People experimented with slow cooling, firing down techniques and overlapping glazes, using ash glazes, etc. to get more interest in those oxidation glazes. Spraying became a big trend and still is thanks to the efforts of Steven Hill, whose never ending exploration found a way to get the look of his cone 10 reduction glazes to work at cone 6 oxidation. Many professionals who previously worked in cone 10 reduction, switched to cone 6 reduction and oxidation. Many soda firers are now working in cone 6 and I've done a lot of testing at this temperature and may switch one of these days after I get these cone 10 pots fired in my mini, converted, gas, soda kiln.

Earthenware too is ever evolving. Ron Meyers made us look at other possibilities. Animal figures rule lately with rats, goats, chickens, birds, cows, squirrels, possums and others showing up with regularity; and charming they are!

The past few years we've seen birds on everything. I have to admit I love them and have drawn a few and put a few on some lids. But when will they become a cliche? Or, maybe they already have and my liking of them is blinding me, but  happily so, to that fact.

Deconstruction became a word not only in the food world but in the world of pottery as well. Slicing and dicing, nips and tucks are well underway in recent years.

These are some of my memories and observations and I'm sure I've missed quite a few. Hopefully some of my readers will fill in some of those gaps when reflecting on their own memories.

Pinterest an amazing resource

I discovered Pinterest a while ago, and it's been a great resource for anything you can imagine - all types of gardening projects, and gardening hints as well a amazing photos of gardens, as well any kind of art and craft information, organizing ideas, food recipes for any diet you can imagine and any other information you can think of.

When I decided that soap making would be fun to try this fall, I got a video and a few books from the library, and then I thought it would be a good idea to check Pinterest. Wow! It's a wealth of photos of amazing, creative soaps, links to suppliers, tools to buy or make, recipes, etc.etc.

If you want to look at pottery, find how to pottery videos, hints, glaze recipes, and on and on, it's all  there. It can also be a very good source for getting photos of your own work, or link to your own blog on there. You can create folders that relate to your special interest, whatever they are. People will find you if they are interested in your type of work. If you do earthenware, slip ware, stoneware, soda fire, woodfire, salt glaze, or whatever you do, just enter the key word and it will call up pages of that type of work.

If you haven't explored this amazing resource, you might want to give it a try. Or if you're interested in looking at pottery, gardening information, soap making, cheese making information and some other things, just go to my pinterest page and you can see all the amazing things I've saved for my own perusal, on my home page. Or, you can just type a key word in their search box, i.e. wood fired pottery, vegan recipes, cheese making, bread making, do it yourself project, and on and on.

Our day started early - out the door by 7am to get to our sons place where I finished planting bush beans in the other half of the raised bed where I planted some two days ago. We were so wiped yesterday, we put last night's visit off till this morning. I also had to harvest a few things and put out some organic granules to send those chewing critters, who are eating more than their share, to insect heaven. Maybe they'll reincarnate somewhere else next time. One can only hope!

Then we were off to the farmers market for more veggie starts, and few other things. The first peaches are in so I bought some and will be making a peach cobbler as soon as I post this. From there it was off to the  organic grocery store  for a few items, home to unpack, do my hand watering and finally have breakfast - the lovely croissants that I bought at the farmers market. After all that activity, I decided to take an email break and order some soap making supplies on ebay. I'm not sure I got the best prices but I got a bit of this and a bit of that - enough to get started this fall, once I get all my thermometers and other necessary tools.  I also spent time searching Pinterest and found a never ending supply of soap making recipes, links, suppliers and a huge amount of photos of some amazing looking, hand made soaps.

Then it was time to make a fruit salad with almond cream for lunch. Now that all that's done it's time to start peeling those peaches and make the peach cobbler, prep dinner veggie and get back to moving files from the old hard drive to this HP laptop. My days are busy and flying by way too fast these days!