Greenstorm's Journal

The seed cleaning event yesterday went really really well. Someone I'd swapped seeds with (and nearly gone to live on her property once) several hours west of here is the person with the seed cleaning trailer; she loaded up her car and brought the stuff out and we set everything up on the lawn at the art studio and we cleaned seed for three hours straight in the sunlight. Then a storm showed up, blowing up the lake with exactly enough time to load things back into the cars before the first drops came.

We had enough folks bringing seeds that we worked steadily but unhurriedly the whole time. I learned to use a threshing board, bucket thresher (with basically a paint mixer with chains on it), various screen tricks, and a debearding device. We also used the office clipper, which uses vibrating slanted screens, a fan, two drawers, and several chaff ports to get seed really clean. My dango mugi barley, chiddham blanc wheat that thrived as winter wheat, and a bunch of last year's wheats got cleaned, as well as a bunch of brassicas. Other people brought carrots, orach, peas, lily bulbils, celery seed, coriander, lettuce (which can be done really well with the screens, we learned through experimentation), some things for IDing, and I'm sure other bits I missed.

There were between six and twelve people there the whole time, enough to chat happily and keep busy but not enough to overload the equipment. I came home with some brassicas and chervil uncleaned, but with the rest of my brassicas cleaned, and with some extra seeds (black chickpeas, white breadseed poppy, rye). The farmer with the seed trailer runs a farm called Woodgrain Farm, and so I contributed a hand-carved woodgrain mug to the thank-you basket (plus some soap and seeds) and she was super excited about that. I love when a piece finds the right home.

The trailers were created by a grant from one organization, but as always grants are happy to do capital costs and less happy to pay for ongoing use-costs, like moving the traler from one town to another so it can, you know, actually clean seeds. So I'm hoping everyone sends an email to the funding body talking about how excellent it was to have the farmer, skilled with equpment, come out with the trailer to our town.

I was tired before yesterday and my body is more tired now, but it was a joyful day and a joyful group of people all having fun and solving problems and learning together and ending up with an abundance of seed. Really very lovely.

Tomorrow is teaching clay for a couple hours.

I've realized that these two groups, clay and gardening, are what brngs me joy from the outside world lately. And I've successfully navugated changing my perspective on being in these groups. When I joined them I knew I didn't want to put myself into any leadership vaccuums, organize them, plan them, run a tight ship, and then ultimately burn out. I deliverately attended and did little pieces of things, did not fix things when I saw a lack, did not organize things to make them more efficient. I gave a couple ideas, supported a couple ideas, did some daily tasks, committed to a moderate amount of effort (which felt like a minimal amount of effort). I chose absolute uncontrol of anything. And while that seemed like it would be scary and lead to frustration and chaos, I knew it was the only way to proceed sustainably, and I knew it needed to be sustainable for me.

And it worked. IT was frustrating at first but less so now. IF I really want a thing to be done I have freedom to do it, and others work similarly. Folks don't get assigned things and run on a timeline by other folks; they step up or not, some things don't happen, some things appen less perfectly than they might, but no one burns out and everyone has fun. And we've been having fun for a couple years now in both cases? And it feels syustainable.

My body is being iuncooprtative, as my typing is likely showing, so I'm going to go back to lying around with cats. But: I'm happy. This micro-environment is good. The bit of how I interact with the world that I have control over is going as well as it can.

Doing pottery in town every second day is *definitely* too much.

It's entirely possible we'll get a light frost tomorrow night.

The kids homeschool group is going to use the pottery studio-- they have a coordinator who does pottery and has used the studio previously (before my group reopened it) and I'll do the firing, she'll do teaching and cleanup. She was worried we wouldn't want the kids in there; I didn't consult any of the other members when I said we'd be delighted, and if she stuck to school hours it wouldn't disturb anyone much. It gives me so many warm fuzzies to think of some kid coming to it like I did, in school, and then being able to return to it throughout their lives. They'll pay a use fee for wear and tear and heat etc, and then the standard kiln fees. And it won't need me except for the firing, which is perfect because I'm overextended as-is.

The apples are so heavy on the trees they look like weeping varieties. Normally the geese wander around eating the low apples, so the branches don't come down as far, but the geese are in back now. This is the time of year I start craving my apples; there is something so special about a fresh-picked apple after most of the year without. It's a good crop this year; rain has helped and I've kept the dog and freelance goose water under them, so the bowls get dumped daily on their roots and then refilled for the animals.

The light outside has gone buttery yellow as the season progresses and the sun stays lower.

I'll need to turn on the heat or start fires on and off soon.

I still wake up everyday and think in wonder and disbelief, "I'm alive!" Possibly in part it's because I'm so tired the night before that it doesn't feel survivable, partly because I still believe in bonus time. It's implied I should be more worried about my future, and indeed some days I am, but.

A friend has been diverting themself by doing some of my geneology. Unbeknownst to me, the side of my family I thought was German/Irish is actually a little bit of German/Irish with a TON of deeply colonial American people with deeply colonial American old names. That's the side of my family I'm still connected to, so it's very weird to see how wrong I was about it. Meanwhile the Hungarian side, which I've never been connected to socially or familially except by blood and birth certificate, is indeed as Hungarian as I expected. Information on the Jewish side is pending (I have three sides of the family because my biodad and my stepdad both count in various ways). I've got a bunch of feelings about this. Those are very deep American roots, and although I've always felt connected to my American parts I just hadn't realized it came from somewhere. And of course, these days, it's... extra complicated.

Started the MCAS over the counter drug protocol because that's something I can do without my doctor's help. They say that after two weeks you know if it'll help or not. My mind feels more comfortable, and my body less distant, despite taking tremendous amounts of antihistamines which should theoretically make me sleep all the time. This is day two or something, so I'll report back.

Even through the antihistamines the weird week-old bumpy and occasionally oozing thing on the side of my face is itching. Luckily I have a drs apptment coming up (with a random doctor) and I can ask about skin cancer. As a very fair-skinned person who's spent a lot of workdays in the sun and who's moderately allergic to sunscreen (I did wear a headscarf!) I know I need to keep an eye out.

Nibling has had his first vaccinations. It's a big relief, I wasn't sure where that brother stood on it.

Throwing on the wheel requires finding a moment of absolute stillness and... armouring it. The clay will try to push stillness off-kilter. It can't be made still by simple force, but it requires assertiveness, a coordinated effort by every muscle in the body, if just for one or two full revolutions of the wheel. After that first, armoured stillness movements need to be relatively precise but gentle.

It was a good idea to get back to the wheel.

A friend mentioned that sometimes overstimulation for them feels like having energy. I feel like I have energy today even after taking two dogs in to the clinic in town for vax and doing pottery (mostly glazing but some throwing) for many hours, from 3-7.

I've been carefully staying in bed, resting. It's raining and cool but not too cool, the air is soft but not sticky, it's not too bright or loud. I have attracted four cats to the bedroom, which is either rain or the fact that I should be resting-- they pick up on that. I want to go down to the wheel or out to the garden but I am not. I'm being good for my future self.

I have buns and prosciutto and blue cheese and lovely fresh lettuce and herbs. I also have corn dogs but after the burns I gave myself canning I'm resting active cooking for awhile. I have a package of shrimp and a lemon for the rice cooker too.

Having been reminded by the wheel what stillness feels like it's easier to find it in myself for true rest today.

Tomato seeds are in for the year, I believe 101 or 102 varieties depending on how you count. Several of them are F2s, which is the first variable generation after a cross. Many of them are up already.

Peppers are potted up, mostly, and the couple that didn't germinate are replanted.

I put a bunch of greens in too, though just a couple of each except sorrel, with the plan to start a bunch more for the farmer's market later on. Doesn't impact me, but I believe some legislation was just changed so it wouldn't be legal for actual stores to buy veggies from me unless I did a bunch of licensing stuff and joined a group of some sort based down south. Not a great look, gotta say, for a gov that mouths words about food security. As always I'm excited at the idea of ethiopian kale.

Potato seeds started, though seed potatoes are not ordered. The snow is mostly off the garden, on a sunny day I could go up and plant favas and poppies and I bet the ground would be thawed enough; it's still mostly freezing hard overnight which makes chores less muddy.

Looks like many of the apple seedlings I planted are still up there -- some are not -- but the geese keep getting into the garden and likely will eat them all if I don't get better fencing sorted asap.

No legumes or corn or squash started yet. I'm thinking about doing a round of sweet corn or popcorn on top of my gaspe, I'm more likely to eat popcorn but people locally like sweet corn so a seed crop might be nice. Anyway, I could offset those by starting them indoors, especially if I'm starting from several different varieties. I'd like to try runner beans this year too, I don't really like figuring out support but they're supposed to do well in cooler weather. Maybe on the deck? I have a nice assortment.

I did plant some mache and pak choi on the deck.

I would like salad season.

I set up some damp boxes and am experimenting with those. I'd like to be able to throw a bunch, carve a bunch, and handle a bunch of objects not necessarily in the demanding timespan that air drying with a bit of plastic over them forces on me. Fingers crossed! The damp boxes are just clear bins, I set cardboard in them for the mugs to sit on and I can spritz those or just dump water in. Now I need to shift some shelving so they can be somewhere convenient and also allow more plant space when the tomatoes get potted up.

Geese are sitting in a lot of cases, I'd been hoping to keep them off the eggs until midmonth so no babies happen while I'm gone in early-mid May. I've managed to keep the ducks off at least. It all means lots of eggs for me, I sent a box of them with Tucker and stored a box in the back of my fridge (goose eggs keep for a really long time) and now it's time to start making and freezing pasta dough. The little food processor I got way back when is putting in some hard labour on pasta dough.

Thea has really bad matting on her pantaloons. It must be uncomfortable because she doesn't want me touching it. I think I can get in on Solly's before it's that bad, and Avallu's are good, but I think I might take Thea in for a professional groom. She gets spectacularly motion sick, but there's a groomer just a couple kms down the road, I might even walk her down there?

In other dog news, Avallu let me clip his nails the other day after I worked up to treats-for-touches for awhile. None of them are running on the road much, so they're definitely needing clipping. Thea is Not Having It, Solly will be worked up to it ok, she's just skeptical. And Solly has showed truly excellent escalation from tiny liplifts, through gentle escalating growls, to a sudden but roomy air-lunge with the cats. I'm very pleased; when she arrived she went right to lunging to indicate her displeasure, and I've been working on letting her know that growling is a good communication tool. This just makes her a safer dog all round. The cats appreciate the heads up too, and are feeling safer knowing when to be around her and when not to be (the not being: when she's eating or getting lots of attention from me. We're working on this latter one a bit).

I realize I'm supposed to be making some dishes for my brother's wedding but I haven't been in to the studio to use those bats for plates recently. Hm.

I also started a "mug of the day" post on instagram, where I'll post something about something I've made. Sometimes it will be a glaze detail, sometimes another thing I'm noticing or thinking about. At work it's something about the mug I bring in to drink out of.

Visit with Tucker was excellent, though I didn't love being away from home. Finally talked with Josh about all the stuff that had been waiting on me having energy, and that was good. It's a place to start.

So: lots of good.

The drop-dead date for having completed all the stuff I haven't been able to do to keep working is this fall, and I'm just not able to do it in time, plus work, plus manage my health stuff. So far as I can tell they allow zero accommodation there, too. So this lovely castle in the air I've built myself rests on that foundation until October, when I'll most likely lose my job because I'll be kicked out of the forestry thing for not finishing it. The forestry thing doesn't allow it all to be done separately, only while working, so that's a no go. I'm glad to have had this, anyhow. Not sure how long I'll be able to hold down any other job, like retail or whatever is available in town, since I'm working from bed a couple days a week right now. So I know there are changes ahead, but I'm happy right now. That counts for something.

Very satisfying kiln opening last night. Cold night though, I cleaned out the woodstove (it holds a 5 gallon bucket of ashes while still being super useable) and started a new fire. Everything's clean from the equinox cleaning though.

I was using some pretty runny glazes so at last minute I was catastrophizing about things running all over. I'd followed good practices, leaving deep feet and wiping back so the bottom glaze was thinner. Everything turned out well. I think I had 40 pieces in this kiln load, I'm averaging just slightly more than one per day.

A highlight of this opening was a series of carved-mug clay-and-glaze tests I'd done. The carved mugs, together with the glazes I'm settled into, feel like they're approaching a personal style that can evolve over time but still feel relatively related. Variation happens through using the same glaze on different clay bodies, or through layering the set of glazes in different ways, plus through the carving.

I also made up a glaze that turned out quite nice, and I think I'll do some colour tweaking with it.

I also am figuring out issues with some glazes and figuring which ones aren't worth making again.

There have been a couple issues with clay bodies, especially where I swirled the IMCO Night clay in with anything. Plainsman clays seem to swirl ok with other plainsman clays, but maybe best not to cross brands.

So, more info with glazes:

My storebought Georgie's hot orchid doesn't cover dark clays.

The New Hagi ash glaze bubbles when too thick, and maybe isn't as good at cone 5 1/2 as at 6. I'll need to work on the glaze a little more, as one would expect. I would like to try doing maybe a triaxial blend mixing different proportions of that wood ash, of maybe my local clay, and a melting agent to see what I can pull out. Someone online calls that kind of testing "discovering glazes" and I'll need to do it each time I have new clays or a new batch of wood ash.

The Oldforge Floating Copper remains almost nuclear glowing, though where I used copper oxide instead of copper carbonate it is much specklier and not quite as even, I think? Also there's a difference between the 1% (glowing green-blue) and 3% (glowing blue) copper carb, so it might be worth keeping a couple different buckets around of each. This is 100% a keeper.

The Oldforge Floating Iron is a beautiful blue breaking warm brown on darker clay bodies, it's oranger on light bodies. It's truly gorgeous over the dark ones, flowing and depthy, and it's a keeper but it needs a bigger bucket for full dunking.

Val's Turquoise 3134 is thick, covering, and reliable. It even covers IMCO Night. Seems like Val Cushing did several turquoises, this one is an adaptation, and it's glossy. It's definitely going to be a longterm one, though not easily on carving unless it's wiped back. Sadly their Matte Turquoise uses materials that aren't available, but I'm considering trying to adapt it.

Celadon Chun with Minspar is clear, like the hot orchid, so it really needs a big bucket for even dipping. It looks like it's going to be a good layering glaze, which would be lovely-- I'm just starting to explore that.

Oldforge Misty Sunrise I was hoping would be a good manganese something. It's a weird brown on darker bodies, though a pleasant peachy sand colour on light. I probably won't make more of this. I do want to look into manganese violets though, and the chemical makes nice mirror surfaces too.

Ravenscrag Floating Blue is a much softer blue than Alberta Slip. It's less floating but it breaks well; it's almost a baby blue version. I'm not sure how I feel about this so I'll use the cup for a bit, use the rest of the tester up in a couple different situations, and consider.

My Ravenscrag floating copper was an attempt at putting turquoise colours into a local-materials, simple glaze. I used 3% copper, I think, and it's a serene smooth green towards aqua surface. I'm very pleased, and I want to take that same base and do some colourant testing, as well as trying titanium and rutile in it for better variegation.

Storebought "Pumpernickel" from the pottery supply house looks glorious over dark clays with carving and texture. Probably will keep buying?

Storebought "AMACO seaweed" is weird on its own, but glorious with even a single layer under both the cedar hill white at the studio and my ash glaze. It's especially glorious under both. There's a lovely brown break over texture and blue/green/paleish flow down smooth facets. There's something on glazy called "Leah's Seaweed" which I want to check and see if it's a reasonable equivalent that I can make myself, it's based on oldforge glazes so I'm helpful.

As for glazes we tried at the studio, "bubblegum" from glazy, which I translated from dutch, is the only reliable pink I've seen. It covers texture, looks like, but it's a very very good pink.

The Alberta Slip floating blue doesn't seem to care whether we use 1 or 2% cobalt, though it's still super thick.

We added 1% clay and 1.25% silica to the Oldforge Misty Forest and it doesn't seem to be crazing at all. The phase separation and flow is a little reduced, but that could be the cooler fire as well. It looks great. I need to do some boiling water/ice tests on it to make sure it isn't crazing, but I'm hopeful. Given just how much it's not crazing, and where in the stull chart it lands, I'm wondering if we didn't mis-measure when we did the first test somehow. Either way, that's good. I can't wait to have a full bucket of this for easy dipping, and to compare it side-by-side to the floating copper which is the same ingredients in slightly different proportions.

The raspberry riff asked for more than half as much again water as most glazes, and on the test pot it looked very thin. So, gonna try removing some water and seeing what happens. I think the bubblegum will be what we go with though, for purple/pinks.

I need to make up a new bucket of opal blue since the one we have is almost gone.

Clay bodies, current state:

I'm getting more of a handle on these now.

Buff/Brown:

Plainsman Pioneer Dark is really hard to cover with glaze, and it's a nice buff brown. It throws well and cracks slightly on drying. It has very low absorption.

M332 is a good sandy brown, darker than pioneer dark but in the same brown family. Unfortunately they've tweaked it to be very absorptive, up to 5%. Otherwise I'd use it instead of pioneer dark since it doesn't crack and it's cheap. I'm reluctant to use it on food now because it's all on the glaze to prevent absorption, and part of the beauty of these coloured clays is leaving them bare. It takes glaze really nicely, too.

So of the above two I only need one brown, I'm not super happy with either? I'm considering trying M350 which is lighter brown and less absorbent than M332, but still not as vitrified as I'd like.

Black:

IMCO Night remains challenging to work with but I think will be easier on our cone 5 1/2 fires than cone 6 ones. I like how much it alters glazes (doesn't just eat them like the pioneer dark) and I will keep using it. It's special.

Plainsman Coffee actually has retained an ok level of vitrification/lack of absorbency with the recent changes. It's less black and more a deep brown but not as earthy as that description would suggest. It takes glazes nicely, alchemizes carvings and blues especially, and is nice to throw with. I'll keep using this one even though it's expensive.

Red:

Whoo, ok.

Dundee red and Mazama red: I still keep mixing up these two Georgie's clays. I think Mazama red is the oranger one, and Dundee is the redder one? The redder one is gorgeous, speckles and influences glazes strongly, and the box I got was hard to throw because it was so wet. I'm not sure if drying it out a little before I used it would help. The oranger one also speckles glazes strongly, almost as much as an actual speckled clay, which lends a neat effect to some glazes. It's easier to throw but not as spectacular. Neither are hugely expensive but they are a bit challenging to get, and both vitrify well. I think the Dundee might go almost purple when it flashes at the edge of the glazes. I'm putting these in the "play with in the future" category. It also cracks on drying, like the pioneer dark, particularly S cracks on mugs.

M390 is the red plainsman clay, so it's been tweaked to be more porous as the others have been. It annoys me to no end that plainsman, which is the local clay company, doesn't make a fully food safe (eg doesn't harbour bacteria in pores) clay that can take not being fully glazed and still reach the highest standard of safety. I know it's hard with red clays, iron melts at too low a temperature. I know a lot of clays that fire to these temperatures are a lot worse, and even plainsman offers worse ones. Still, I'm not happy. This will likely be my red clay of choice but I am hoping more trials with Dundee above let me make better friends with it. There aren't too many other brands available here. Anyhow, the 390 throws well, carves well, doesn't crack, and is nice to glazes. It just has a bit more porosity than I'd like.

Both Tucker's and PSH offer red and brown clays that may work better, but shipping is likely a lot. I may look into them anyhow? Feels weird to test so many and not come up with any I'm fully satisfied with.

White, buff, and porcelain:

Trillium white porcelain by Georgie's I haven' tested yet.

P300 porcelain by plainsman is lovely to throw but dried/hardens in the block pretty quickly. It's fully vitreous when fired and it shows glazes brightly, without adding any variation. I want to play with carving this, though it isn't cheap. It's weird to carve things when so much is discarded. Anyhow, this doesn't crack on me and it's easy to work with. It's weird to keep around because it hardens though.

M370 is a plainsman white clay that's a little stronger than the p300 but still fires very white and smooth. It's a little more interesting with glazes over it than the porcelain is, that is, it alters the glaze a bit but not a lot. It's ok carved. It's a hair less expensive than the p300 but not much, and it keeps longer. Right now it's my go-to clay where I'm just trying to do a glazed design without really interacting with the clay. I suspect it'll keep being my default for now.

M340 is a plainsman buff clay. It's super cheap, kind of sandy, and in the past I haven't liked it as much because I didn't love the colour of the clay when fired: kind of a medium beige. I'm going to trial it for pieces that are completely covered in glaze so the colour of the clay doesn't matter, and I think it might show through green glaze when it has strongly carved texture in an interesting way. It was the clay we were started on. Getting some because it's cheap, to experiment. Maybe it'll encourage me to do deeper carvings since I won't be as concerned with the waste?

It's been awhile since I wrote. I had that truly terrible cluster of migraine symptoms at first, then work was extremely busy -- we did a last minute heli flight that lasted a full workday, then I was helping with a conference one town over, then I was recovering, then I was helping with our seedy saturday, then I did a tiny bit of pottery at the studio, now it's now. It really took everything I had to get through that. I gave up on non-masked human social stuff for that couple weeks, on doing more than minimum for food and house. Now I want to sink into the deep pool of peace that is my house and my life. I want to watch my cat sleeping and intermittently pet him for hours while my mind unspools and processes.

There's a lot to process.

It's spring and the geese are all over the yard looking for nests and there are melt-pools everywhere. I can hear gregarious honking through my dog door.

While I was at the end of the conference, but still in it, before the drive home, I was sending off a quick email to my supervisor about how my work hours supported the yearly priority plan. I used the term "DEI" and he didn't know what that meant; I sent him a copy of our organization's new DEI plan that had come out and been circulated something like last fall and he said thank you; he didn't dispute (and never does) the time I spend on this but wow.

I introduced my colleague to proper vietnamese food for the first time and as I was dressing and flipping my pho he asked how I knew how to eat it. He loved it, even the (truly phenomenal) fish sauce.

I gave away 8 mugs as door prizes and several hundred packets of my own seed at seedy saturday. They had someone else as a speaker this year talking about "proper" seed saving (how not to cross, for instance) so I spent my time at the seed tables. First I was stuffing envelopes with seed and directing people to label them as I stuffed, but we quickly ran out of packets. Then I showed people how to do the origami seed packets, the librarian used her paper cutter and a pile of recycled paper to make squares, and we folded, filled, and taped. People kept coming in with big bags of seed. Someone came in with elaborate origami seed packets with a crane folded into them. We had such an incredible richness of local seeds come in, I felt so honoured, like a conservator of a community treasure. Several thousand packets of seed went out, free, to people. My mugs, some plant starts, other folks' homemade wine went out as door prizes. The space was packed. Everyone said it was an amazing event. One of the speakers brought 75 varieties of tomato seed to give away. They say that in the coastal indigenous cultures your wealth was measured by what you give away, and I always feel that, and last Saturday I felt wealthy. All the extra seeds go to the new seed library in the library there so anyone who missed the event can still grow things. A+ use of my time but following on the end of a long week it was a lot, and by this time I was really missing talking to my people.

Dogs finally got treated for the fleas Solly picked up when she went on her walkabout. I hadn't seen any in the last month but that means very little. I've been watching videos of a professional dog groomer doing livestock guardian dogs on youtube and trying to figure out how I could wash my pups. I'll settle for getting the mats out and doing a deep brush. Avallu's been loving this; I think it's time to start treating Solly for it. Thea has realized it gets her attention so she's settled into it.

My pepper seeds are all up except for the african birds eye. It's getting on time to start tomatoes and separate the peppers, which means setting up more lights, which means clearing a shelf or two, which means doing some work on my storage container. My first round of seeds, tomatoes from Jan 1st, is doing well-- some of the micros are flowering, and the F2s exhibit the breathtaking diversity that hold me in awe and that I'd always hoped to attain.

The headache seems to be somewhat recurring, but not as constant as it was. Nausea is a near-constant struggle. These two things may (?) be correlated to air quality, as they may get worse when I turn off the CR box or have the windows closed? On the other hand it's warmed up and I can keep a couple windows cracked open so my body just feels lighter in a lot of ways.

In two weeks I'm driving to the coast for a couple days to visit Tucker and bring him (and some clay) back up, maybe disseminate some mugs.

This Wed is a bisque kiln and possibly the following weekend a glaze kiln, that doesn't leave much time for glazing.

Odds and ends, unprocessed. Spring is coming. My mind doesn't think well. Still I'm doing what I love and am happy; I only hope this life doesn't have that fall expiry date.

It's all mud and blood and fire
Dirt and fire and skill
Reaching back into the misty distance
Crystallized into messages
We bequeath ourselves
For as close to eternity as we get.

Looking back
We see ourselves in the magnetic pull of the wheel
Red splattered on our thighs
Birthing beauty and function
Sometimes dying in the fire
And sometimes surviving it
Carrying our fingerprints into the future.

All around me in the studio I see the pottery enforcing both awe and humility on people. It's the same feeling I get working with plants; nature is bigger than us but also is such a magnifier of our abilities. Plants, rocks, it's all chemistry underneath. I like it a lot. I like seeing that combination of awe and humility in people; it's such an understandable way to approach the world and draws me into the community. I love that people are specializing. I love the excitement of the kiln opening.

I didn't expect it but it's perfect
Surface inviting
Like a sponge invites water
A little yielding, a little resistance
A perfect canvas for my pen

My carvings look like flames to me
And between those flames I place
The sparks of hearts
Dense in the center then
Float, dispersing, up to the sky

I don't expect it but it's perfect
Surface inviting, except--
My hearts get stuck in my ribcage
Once I would have written
so many places
so many times
and among it all you:
what awe, what wonder

Surface perfect, surface inviting
The pottery doesn't break
Instead it's my own heart
Watching inscribed hearts spark
And fade into an endless sky
Without a word.

Did things every day over the weekend. Brain is mush. In the office but very ineffective.

Kiln openings very interesting.

There were no issues with the bisque kiln, whatever weird loud cracking noises I heard was I guess normal.

The glaze kiln opening was very interesting. The kiln had fired to a pretty high cone 6, we didn't have a cone 7 witness cone so who knows exactly what it got to but it was overfired for 6-- maybe because it was so sparsely packed?

My black/white spiral mugs seem like they're just gonna bloat under glaze in there. I tried clear glaze on a couple test ones and they bloated, so I imagine both the flux in the glaze and the high temp did that? Maybe they need a longer bisque? I should shatter one to check for carbon coring, but also when I have my own kiln I can play with firing temps.

The studio clear glaze over non-Night spiral ware was full of bubbles, not big bubbles you can feel but tiny bubbles that make it cloudy. Honestly it looks like a deliberate effect it's so intense, like foam almost with a smooth surface, but I want to be able to see the swirls and not the glaze. I'll have to experiment with that on my own.

My Georgie's clays turned out nice. The pioneer dark is a good brown colour but it's hard on glazes. One of the two reds, the hardest one to work, is absolutely gorgeous. That's the one I labelled mazama. The other is more orange and I've labelled it dundee. I may have switched labels accidentally? Though these clays do a lot of s-cracking and need very careful drying the red and the brown are very pretty and maybe worth keeping, especially since they seem to vitrify well.

Night clay remains magic in the way it metallic spots.

Coffee clay is a nice solid workhorse, as is m300 and m370.

I did very few glazes in various combinations; I'd been putting Spectrum texture chowder from the studio on my rims but this time it peeled a lot, which led to crawling. However it stayed on over the studio's plum and led to some gorgeous orange-over-grey-purple runs. I wouldn't have thought those would be attractive colours but they're actually lovely imbolc colours. Some nice standard opal/seafoam colours where they didn't jump off the pot.

The studio had made up five glazes we'd never used before and one we had. We added too much water to most since they seem to be allergic to checking specific gravity there, but the tests turned out nice if a little thin. A little more work on them and they should be very nice: bailey's red 2, pike's purple, oldforge floating rutile, oldforge misty forest, cedar hill white, and the classic licorice. I'm looking forward to using them and to having big buckets of them once we figure out water percentages. We'd also like to do about 5 more glazes, will be fun to have those. The glaze-making process was great, there are definitely a couple people at the studio who can mix them up on their own now.

I'd further tested some opulence glazes I'd bought dried. The instructions said to add "4.5lbs water or 2.5 kg water" which... are not the same thing. I added 2kg water and they turned out nice, maybe a hair thin but decent coverage and nice breaking on my carved mugs. This may have been the end of my long-suffering immersion blender; it's probably time to get two more, one for the kitchen and one for hobbies.

So, fairly good. Now I have to think about how I want to use all these glazes, which direction I want to go in for shape and materials for what I make to glaze, and what I want to make for my home studio glazes when my materials and later kiln arrive.

But, tired. It took me several hours to write this and there's more to think about.

In addition I realized that in the time I've been doing forestry, no one's actually asked me a question about the state of the forests, though many many people have shared strong opinions on what should be done. It made me more tired. Oh well.

THERE ARE TWO KILNS FIRING AT THE STUDIO RIGHT NOW.

ONE IS BISQUE AND WHEN I WAS LISTENING TO IT RAMP DOWN YESTERDAY IT MADE LOUD SCARY NOISES AND I WANT TO SEE IF IT'S ALL BROKEN BUT I HAVE TO WAIT. I LOADED IT SO IF IT'S BROKEN IT'S MAYBE MY FAULT.

THE OTHER IS GLAZE AND WE MADE 6 GLAZES FOR THE STUDIO YESTERDAY, 5 THAT WE'VE NEVER MADE BEFORE, AND THEY ARE IN THERE. ALSO IN THERE ARE 4 OF MY NEW OPULENCE GLAZES AND THE 3 GEORGIE'S CLAYS I'VE NEVER SEEN FULLY FIRED BEFORE.

27.75 HOURS BEFORE I CAN SEE WHAT'S IN THEM.

WAITING IS NOT MY STRONG SUIT.