StarDish

This is a nice example of a dish that has been bisque fired but has not been glaze fired. The red clay becomes lighter as all of the water has been removed during the drying and firing process. It is neat to see the clay in this state because many of the small bumps and roughness that are obvious on close inspection become smooth once the clay is covered in glaze and fired for the final time (click the pics to zoom in).

This also happens to be one of Paula's most creative designs. I really like the wavy walls of the bowl and from above you can see the neat star pattern. I am curious what glaze(s) she decides to go with.

Over-birdened

The harvest is going well. Our coworkers may be getting sick of squash and cucumbers very soon. The biggest news is that we have been chosen as the 2007 home for a sparrow's nest! I am pretty sure they are not finches. Anyway, they have secretly built a nest within one of the tomato cages. The mother feeds 2 babies and there is 1 unopened egg in the nest. The mother is somewhat tolerant of us getting close to pick basil, but usually she gets spooked and flies to an adjacent fence to spy on us. As long as she doesn't dive-bomb us like the crows at PSU I will be happy.

Welcome to the Jungle

The harvest is in full-swing. If you live near us and need fresh cucumbers, squash or onions please give us a holler. I wish we had a super-buff cow to pull our haul from the garden to the apartment; Something like the cows described in this article.....


Sounds like a cool company!

The Garden is growing strong, here are pictures of both plots.

This is plot 1 and those are monster tomato plants growing down the center. They have grown so large and have dwarfed the basil and marigolds. On the ground to the right you can see a pile of harvested squash being prepared for transit. The onions are growing wild on the lefthand side.


This is plot 2. The beans are starting to climb the bean trellis and the corn has popped up in the back. There are 2 pumpkins plants on the leftahand side that keep growing into the neighbors gardens and we have to pull them back. Currently, the pumpkins reach all the way across our plot, even past the bean trellis. Front and center are Paula's radishes and turnips, yum. The hot peppers are HOT, I'm not sure what we will do with them.

Back from Vacation

Our vacation to Northern Ontario was very relaxing... except for the frequent concerns about the weather in Boston and the state of our garden. We were unable to find a substitute waterer for the gardens and were forced to do the Rain Dance in Huntsville, ON. Unfortunately, all of the rain fell in ON and the garden was left dry. It turned out ok afterall, the plants are large and could sustain themselves through a semi-drought. Here are some of the first fruits of the garden! The green squash are WAY TOO BIG, they should have been picked a few days ago but we were gone. The larger of the squash is easily over a foot long. We also harvested some turnips, onions and basil. The tomatoes are still 2 to 3 weeks away from being ready.





On a sad note: The LCD screen on our canon sureshot is busted and it is now very difficult to take photos with the tiny viewfinder. We are working on a solution, but please forgive us if the photos seem a little off for the next few weeks. I'll try to take good shots of the garden soon, you will not believe the difference compared to the previous photos. Enjoy!

Curved Lip Bowl

I think this is Aaron's last bowl of the season. We ended pottery a few weeks ago, but I still need to pickup our last pieces from the museum. The colors on this bowl aren't spectacular but Aaron was pleased with the curved lip of the bowl. He wanted to avoid the straight-walled bowls that he has been making plenty of.

Acorn

Aaron hit a creative streak and came up with this funky shaped piece. What is it? A vase? A water jug? Not sure, but he gets high marks for originality. The glaze colors came out smooth and have an Acorn color. I suggested that he make a brown lid that would make this look like an actual acorn.

Bohnanza

We enjoy games and one of our favorites is called "Bohnanza" but we affectionately call it the "Bean Game". The official game site is here but that is a pretty weak description compared to the wikipedia site. I bring this up because today we built our new bean support (V2.0). Version 1.0 is visible in the pictures of garden plot A and was simply the old door to our garden. V2.0 will have 4x the surface area of V1.0 and should yield 4x the number of beans! Beans planted that will use the support: peas, yellow wax and kentucky (string bean). We also planted soybeans, but they are small bushes and do not need the support. Eventually we will put strings or rope across V2.0 (the white pvc pipes shown below in garden plot B) that will support the beans as they grow 6+ ft up.

Garden Guide

We keep posting pictures of the garden as the plants grow, but many of our loyal fans have been asking "which vegetables are growing where?". We are slaves to our fans and now we have a guide for you to use when watching the vegetables grow.


The guide is fairly self-explanatory. For the labels close to the edge the actual plant may be slightly off the edge of the picture, so you will have to trust us. Soon I will post a similar guide for the second garden.

Super Bowls

Paula has 2 bowls to present for your entertainment. The first is s smaller bowl that has really cool textures on the inside and outside. She used a stamp to press the bottom of the bowl and it made a neat "bump" texture. The utside of the bowl has cool ridges made by her fingernails. The glaze did some neat things around the ridges.


This dual colored bowl is very cool because the right side (tan/gray color) is actually the color of the red clay after the bisque firing and glaze firing. The left side was dipped in a blue glaze, but the right side was only dipped in a clear glaze.

Mug Shot

Aaron has made his first mug (handle courtesy of Paula productions). The outside is actually a darker blue than the inside and the edges (rim and handle egdes) turned a nice brown in the kiln.


Paula's best (but not biggest) bowl to-date. The glaze turned out really nicely, and the rim at the top is dark blue. The tough part about the bowls is making sure they're symmetrical at the rim and at the bottom too.