Dizzy Dean

"Well what's wrong with ain't? And as for saying (Phil) Rizzuto slud into second' it just ain't natural. Sounds silly to me. Slud is something more than slid. It means sliding with great effort."
When I was kid growing up in the 50's Dizzy was on the radio as the color man Saturday afternoons. He was fun and interesting since he only talked about baseball and the folks he knew in the game. He was dropped from radio since his English usage was considered sub par and a negative image for American youth.

Sauerkraut

As a child my Grandfather made sauerkraut from cabbage grown in the family garden. I loved going into the basement and watching the sauerkraut bubble and looked forward to when it would be served fresh. My Grandmother canned most of it and she always put summer in a jar so it was as good for many months.
I wanted to make my own sauerkraut for many years but I haven't a cool basement nor a crock but today I made two crock's on the wheel, small maybe 10" x 8" with lids no less! Hope the lids survive the drying and firing process! I plan on throwing a large crock maybe 14" x 13" this week will upload some pictures.

Salt firing

Spent the day glazing and preparing for a salt firing next week. Will be my first salt firing (gas) and using a variety of color glazes. Will be looking forward to opening the kiln and finding out how they have reacted to the high iron clay body. It makes like interesting!

Tableware

Much is written along with great hand wringing over hand made tableware vs commercial selections. Generally the most loyal buyers of pottery particularly hand thrown tableware is other potters! Americans have grown up shopping at various strip malls along with a heavy dose of uniformity when it comes to buying tableware. The idea that every plate,cup etc has to look exactly alike is something that modern life has inflicted on us all.
That being said I am working on creating a line of tableware based around local earthenware clay mined in the Sierra's which just happens to be high fire and has some interesting properties. Basically I don't care that the demand is small since I will be making sets for various family members first including my own and will make additional sets for sale but keep a limited inventory. Its a great challenge to create and make my own tableware and look forward to the day when we have a large family gathering so it can be appreciated at least by my Mom!

Learning to run this blog

My first post on this site, will update as I get better at using this computer!