World's Smallest Wood Fired Kiln

Nicky and Todd tending the fire

Or, would you believe, a small test model of a bread oven. I did some consulting and provided a kit of materials, but Helen and Todd built this cute little 'Cob' bread oven last week-end and made some lovely bread this weekend after drying it out. Room for improvement, but lots learned and how cool does it get! The 'Cob' is just clay I've dug around my studio...it's an ancient riverbed and is perfect for this use...good clay and plenty of sand. They mixed long-ish wood shavings instead of straw into the clay, made a form of dampened sand and then covered it with the Cob.

Butter Dishes...or...hatching eggs?

I promised that I was done with birds. The proof follows below. But these are the last ones that I finished last week.

This is a better photo of the piece that I showed earlier last week.

Lidded jars and vases.

This is the proof...

I really liked the form of this extra large 'ginger ' jar and I kept feeling like it was naked without a bird on top. So I kept placing this bird form on and off for a couple of days, trying to erase the what if's that have been feeding the bird frenzy. In the end I left it off and now I'm officially done with birds for now and back to classic pots. This looks a lot different now that's it's done, I'll show you next time.

All the rain has produced fungi everywhere. 4 distinct kinds on my walk today.