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Creating an Empire
One of my earliest, most vivid memories is of a field trip I took to Mrs. Hampton’s house, my first and second grade teacher. Her father had constructed an elaborate network of concrete and cobble ditches through the woods for her when she was a child, and there was a beautiful greenhouse. I don’t remember many details except for the…
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Morning Garden Walk
Each morning I step outside to see what growing, what new, and as my son interjects, “what’s old.” I love the cool air and the birds with just a faint buzz of traffic in the city. I sat on the deck for a moment to watch the cat listen to the birds with her ears upright and her head slightly…
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Excellence in Mediocrity
Recently the opportunity was put before me to have a presence in an on-campus teaching setting. I thought about it, I really did. I imagined getting to know students, the environment I’d try to foster, the potential to invest in young people. I even went so far as to consider whether I’d allow music in the lab and if I’d…
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Kiln Unloading
Well… I just unloaded the kiln, and there were some real boogers in there. I used an earthen red clay that I was told could be pushed to cone 5 that didn’t perform well with the glaze. The indigo float pulled away from the clay. The small platter that I put on stilts completely slumped. A few pieces were okay,…
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The ultimate free composted woodchips
A year and a half ago, a local tree company delivered a truckload of fresh woodchips at the top of our driveway. We played on our mini mountain for a week or so before spreading it out. Joe has been parking on the flattened pile, but noticed that they have softened up, evidenced by his tires spinning out this past…
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Deep Winter
It is deep winter, or as deep as it gets in the Piedmont, and yesterday we got a strange yet wonderful lag in the cold after a week of no school. We drove off to a location not far out of town, a future park development site Joe wanted to visit. We arrived and walked down an old two-lane road,…
