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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,…
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