Jane Wheeler’s Blog dogs

anagama thursday

Posted jane -->on 30th Jul 2008

fifth day of firing.

a very misty and warm morning, but cooler on entering the wood. at least two thrushes were singing as I arrived, but not for long. the warmer weather seems to have heralded the end of the need to defend a territory.

we are burning the coppiced hazel this morning, criss-crossing it three at a time diagonally in the top firemouth and filling it; red flame and little pops of black smoke at the blowhole. the cycle of fill and burn-down takes ten minutes or so. the hazel is snakily twisted and bent; I have to turn it around to get it to lie well. it burns very cleanly, hardly any smoke, good heat, but a lot of ember. I must look up its use as fuel in Oliver Rackhams’s book when I get home. Gas says they will coppice more this year, there is quite a lot in the wood. my camper is parked under a hazel tree.

there is hardly any crackle, but the purr is the clue; when it stops purring is the time to stoke. which consist of pushing the bundle almost all the way in; most of the time this gives another reduction. then I push it all the way in with another billet, piece by piece, each sent as far forward into a streaming river of fire over the embers as far as I can. they flare up instantly with a white flame – it is about nine hundred degrees in there this morning. I can see all the pots, buried up to their waists in ember. I love the hazel, it is beautiful, creamy wood and freckled grey-green bark, and each piece has a different shape.

we had a fright before Gas went off to his tent – a very loud explosion inside the kiln. we couldn’t quite understand this; pots should not be exploding at this heat; awful feeling of was that my pot which has possibly destroyed several others; but then we realised it must have been the wood. it was like a gun going off.

Gas is asleep now and I am enjoying my shift, listening to the kiln and the tit-mice. pigeons coo, there is that traffic noise again (it is six am). its very quiet without the thrush song. I recognise a woodpecker’s call, and a magpie family in the trees around, rattling and wheezing. the hazel burns with a rustling sound, not the snapping and crackling of soft wood. there is so much cover in these trees you hardly ever see the birds, except the robins, two juveniles, which pop down and find invertebrates on the soil surface. possibly the changes in temperature around the kiln bring a few to the surface. I found a poor snail which had unwisely chosen the hazel sticks as a hiding place; it had dropped out of the burning bundle, but it was sizzling a bit.

giant wood wasps are fascinating us. they are laying eggs with their drill/ovipositor in the bark of larch in the wood pile; little do they know that it is not a good place to leave the next generation. normally the larvae spend three years in unhealthy trees selected by the mother wasp. they are fearsome looking creatures, hornet sized, the ovipositor protected in a large orange sheath which sticks out from under her abdomen resembling a sting, with bright orange antennae and long yellow legs. their buzzing flight is quite alarming, but they are harmless.

last night’s enthusiastic stoking has broken the shelf which acts as a lintel between the two openings. Ko returns at nine am, I go off for a shower (at last!) and breakfast. when I get back he has the chimney puffing black smoke like an old fashioned steam engine; he has managed a steep rise in temperature.

Belgian potters Linda and Erwin arrived at eight am, off the early ferry, and watched me stoking for a while. Linda is staying, Erwin is off to a ceramics fair in Penrith for the weekend. and later Svend arrived. Hooray. Now we have another pair of hands/eyes/ears and a brain used to wood-firing. and the event proper starts tomorrow. Vicki has arrived and been shopping for me, and gets herself set up in the trees.

my late shift is a disaster. the cedar I am stoking with is slightly damp and won’t split to the same width stick as I am used to for the “wooden lid”, the big pieces allow too much cold air into the kiln. temperature goes down over the four hours, and I get more and more tired and depressed. its made worse by having Svend Bayer and Linda de Nil sitting there watching me. as soon as Svend takes over he finds a piece of shelf to shut the top firemouth off with! when I get back to the van to my horror I am greeted effusively by a very hot and exhausted Tilda OUTSIDE. she has been loose and hunting, and then lost for how long I have no idea. even Sal manages to squeeze out through the side door when I come into the tent. it is too hot at five to leave them securely locked in. tomorrow they will have to come with me.

I go to sleep with all the windows open, but shut them in the middle of the night. It’s cold and damp. the sky is clear with the moon at the last quarter. T wakes me too, dreaming noisily, of some hunt, I suppose.

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anagama wednesday

Posted jane -->on 30th Jul 2008

fourth day of firing

there are three thrushes competing for top chorister this morning at four-fifty am as I walk through the wood. it is a humid, rather grey morning, but I can still see the waning moon high in the sky. the kiln is crackling so loudly that Gas doesn’t hear me and I make him jump. this is Kamataki, the sound of the kiln feeding. when it stops you must feed it more.

Gas and Ko have been stoking with split hazel all night and now there is a huge ember bed covering all the pots around the firebox, which must be reduced, so we change to softwood, close the lower firemouth and open the top one. we can see the pots clearly, Svend’s like a huge pale moon behind Gas’s smaller one.

so now the whole firemouth is crammed with wood – one third sticking out, until the two thirds inside is consumed and we push the rest in over the top of the embers. there is not going to be enough of this exact width and length of wood, and I will soon have to wake Gas again.

the thrush seems quieter this morning. a pair of chiff chaffs are around, magpies waking up with complaining hoarse calls, an owl hoots. and again I am aware of the traffic sound suddenly.

on the next stoke I hear a pot fall with a ting …some partially burned wood slipped down the edge of the ember heap …there is a red flame at the blowhole, and a puff of black smoke – a mini version of what the chimney will do later on – not all the fuel can burn in the kiln straight away, and some of the gases ignite on their way out.

at eight-thirty we have run out of the wood, so Gas is up again, and now the firing has to be slower, using light two-year-old spruce (Christmas tree) stacked solid in the firemouth and allowed to burn right through so that only when the flame starts to burn outside the kiln is it pushed in, to reduce the ember pile. the pots round the edge of the firebox are in danger of being knocked when the ember is this high, and there is not enough room for more wood to burn properly. Gas gives the embers a good rake, and we can see that one of my pots has fallen against one of John Butler’s. later on it is fished upright again.

the wood stacked in the fire mouth plugs it; Gas calls it a “wooden lid”, so that no door is needed, and stoking is simplified. another technique from Japan, although Shiho Kanzaki does use doors, with wire handles, as do most western anagama potters. we spend the day keeping the kiln quiet, plugging the firemouth. it’s hot and humid. at night it is more comfortable to work with heat and there is a better draught. Ko arrives at eight-thirty in the evening, and ups the adrenalin rate; we know that when he comes the kiln will really get going.

I made a teabowl for the raku firing today .. slightly daunting task as it is my first. anyway, Gas approves, after I follow his suggestion that the base of the inside needs to be concave, rather than convex, as teabowls have the tea whisked in them, so a “pond” in the bottom is a good idea.

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anagama monday

Posted jane -->on 29th Jul 2008

the second day of firing

the morning starts early; I am on the five am shift for the whole firing, and last night Gas took the two concurrent night shifts, so he was looking very weary when I got here. a simple task; continue to put two sticks on the fire every time it dies down, keep the flame bright, but don’t let the fire move any further into the fire mouth. he retires to the summer house.

the thrush seems to be singing from just above the kiln, and the squeaking, twittering titmice executing a wall of death in the spruce all around. I try to find words for his song. each note is separate, not like the blackbird’s warble, and varies from a rich contralto to a scribbling high-pitched flute.

piu, piu, piu, teliel, pîel, pîel, pîel,

rrrrrrr like a xylophone up the scale,

a downward whistle,

wet, wet, wet,

ding, ding, ding,

a rich contralto bubbling, then a spray of staccato notes. always with a gap between each phrase, as though he is listening for a reply. then he stops, and I think, that’s it, he’s finished for the morning, but after a few minutes he starts up again.

a pheasant alarums, pigeons flap heavily in the branches around, and coo. there is a young robin and a wren hopping around the stacks of split logs, the wren emits a beady string of little trilling clicky alarm calls, the titmice squeak like so many crickets, but the thrush is king of the wood. I hear a roe deer’s hoarse bark four or five times.

as full daylight approaches there are buzzards mewing above, and the roar of traffic on the A41 begins to be audible. the thrush falls silent for a while. there is sunshine and looking up through the many-fingered network of spruce branches I can see pale blue sky. away from the fire the air is still chilly in the wood.

you tend the fire, keep the flame bright, and the sparks fly into the kiln. the long questing tongue of the fire starts to look for pots to lap. time passes slowly, between the wood you place carefully and the waiting for it to burn. this is the pulse of it, place two sticks, watch them burn down, place two sticks, repeat. in contrast to the world of traffic a mile away, and the jets overhead, this is a timeless place and task.

tonight Ko returned to take the evening shift, and the fire has grown dramatically, it really begins to look like a firing now, the wood fills the whole of the bottom fire mouth. he is very industrious, working away with the log splitter in between stoking and bustling up and down the paths carrying whole logs and bundles of split ones. a perfect evening, still and sunlit. the dogs and I retire early to catch up on some sleep, with the four-thirty alarm set.

(2 comments)

anagama sunday

Posted jane -->on 29th Jul 2008

Sunday

second morning at Spring Meadow, and rather exciting for Tilda. the van is a good viewpoint for wildlife watching, especially when a small lurcher has been allowed the privilege of an early morning cuddle. first there was an innocent little bunny, neat and bright eyed, cropping grass. then there was a big hare, bold as brass, all ginger whiskers and big black-tipped ears. madam found that too much to bear, adrenalin kicked in, and she got the shakes. I did half an hour’s yoga practice outside in the sunshine, hoping that she would calm down. unfortunately when I took them out for a run, goodness gracious, there was a ginger cat outside. I wasn’t expecting it, the dogs weren’t expecting it, and the cat certainly wasn’t; it ran for its life puffed up like a marmoset. there are plenty of trees here, so it was perfectly safe. In fact, if a cat stopped and just swore at these two they would be stopped in their tracks.

the remains of the Christmas tree farm make a charming fairy-tale wood, Hansel and Gretel must be just around the corner. there are groups of thirty-year-old Norway spruce trees with their tiered feathery branches reaching out over the ground, and grass rides between them edged by false brome grass. it has silky ribbon-like bright green leaves and fine narrow spikey flower-heads, and everywhere amongst it are blue thumbs of bugle.

I found one lesser spotted orchid in one of the smaller rides. a thrush is still delivering his liquid song morning and evening, buzzards mew and crows croak above, families of long-tailed tits swoop around in the top branches, and there are hares and rabbits everywhere. in the dusk of the first evening we found a beautiful white horse with flowing mane and tail in the small paddock next to the camp. Tilda was horrified at this ghostly apparition, but luckily Millie was not bothered by her barking and came to the fence for an offering of clover heads. at daylight the next morning she had mysteriously disappeared.

yesterday we had all the hard work of unpacking pots from their boxes, sorting them out, and packing the kiln; we didn’t finish until past nine in the evening. Svend’s pot only just fitted; Gas lowered the floor, (it is sand on earth) dragged the pot into the kiln on a rug, then positioned it on a piece of shelf by clasping in between his legs as he sat on the kiln floor and raising it the half inch of spare space there was, while I shoved the shelf under it. then he was somewhat stuck as there wasn’t room to get his leg and his head out from behind it.

two students from the Czech Republic, Lukas and Pavla, spent the whole day splitting whole chunks of tree trunk down into small wedges with Gas’s petrol driven wood-splitter, slept in the summer house and were back off to London to their respective jobs this morning. Vicki Covacic, a local young potter who also has fired with Nic Collins, was here most of the weekend; she and Gas helped me set up the awning on Friday night, and then her work was part of the kiln load - she is coming back to help in the evenings during the week, and then staying from Thursday night on.

today is much more relaxed; first thing Gas built up the front of the kiln and the fire-mouths, and lit a small fire in front of the kiln to start warming it up. he made an exquisite miniature log cabin style structure of sticks finely split by Ko (an amateur potter and box-maker with experience of firing in Japan, who drove up from Finchley this morning to help) filled in with waste from the log-splitter to start the fire, with the kiln god and a pot of yellow wild flowers sitting on the kiln top above.

after two hours of keeping this small fire going the warm air began to be drawn through the kiln and smoke appeared from the chimney, although the wind blew down the hill and through the kiln shed so that the person in charge of the fire got a good smoking, and during my evening shift I couldn’t sit next to it.

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avocet evening

Posted jane -->on 25th Jun 2008

Tilda is back to normal walking from today, stitches are out and the fluid build-up has disappeared. we went to Morston at low tide. the evening was warm and blowy, and the dogs made the most of the freedom to speed around and play catch.

at low tide we can paddle across the Stiffkey as it emerges from the Fen and flows out across the mud flats, and in some places the dogs can swim. Tilda is reluctant to do more than paddle, but Sal will trust himself to cross the deeper spots.

the water is quite clean and he smells a lot better for it. T contented herself with trying to splash him.

she lost a lot of weight on holiday with Emmet at the beginning of the month, and even the two weeks’ inactivity with stitches and eating well has not put the flesh back on her bones.

the avocets in Stiffkey fen seemed to be annoyed with us and we were treated to several loud fly-overs from their Combat Air Patrol, a good photo opportunity which I fumbled somewhat.

this camera can’t zoom in enough to get a good shot of a distant bird, probably its only weak point.

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woolly bears and dactylorhiza incarnata var coccinea

Posted jane -->on 16th Jun 2008

walking at burnham overy yesterday we came across three woolly bears, the long furred and very speedy caterpillars of the garden tiger moth, A rctia caja . they were in a hurry to get to the next plant, humping across the sandy path, but nowhere near a garden, so that must be a misnomer.

it is a very special time of year in the sand dunes there, the orchids are in flower, masses of them.

early marsh-orchid, “subspecies coccinea is a well-marked subspecies which is confined to damp ground in sand dunes: it is fairly frequent around the coast in suitable situations and is distinguished by its bright red flowers”. bright purple flowers in this case, and only this area of the dunes which is like a flat valley between the older higher dune-hills and a new strip of dunes which edges onto the beach, and has been eaten away into dune-cliffs by this winter’s storms. it looks as though this tiny habitat may be threatened soon with rising sea levels. it is damp and mossy, where the sand has been blown off the soil.

peaceful scenes of cattle grazing in the lush marshes protected by high banks from the saltings and edged with deep ditches and reed beds which hush in the wind, reed or sedge warbler singing loudly from the tall reeds next to the path and larks high up above.

as everywhere this year, dog roses are at their riotous best; white like this one, or pink.

then from the top of the dune-cliff, the beach, almost empty, a shrimp trawler close in.

with Tilda out of action (too close a contact too fast with an old barbed-wire fence) Emmet was our hero, battling the waves and scampering up and down the dunes.

our own comic and rather wet woolly bear.

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mud and flowers

Posted jane -->on 25th May 2008

walking at Morston continues to be a joy; low tides and low rainfall leave the mudholes and sticky black paths dried out and passable in sandals. the patterns of the cracked mud are dramatic.

as soon as we walk onto the marsh pairs of redshank mob us with their harsh calls.

they fly low and land close by, but the dogs ignore them.

towards the end of this week the air has been hazy with a strong east wind; the marsh shines silvery as the grasses all bend away from the wind.

I have discovered the pretty white star flower I found is not chickweed but greater stitchwort. I pulled some out of the hedgerow and checked it in my book. (by the way, Flora Brittanica is useles as a reference book, I am very disappointed with it. I have been using an elderly readers digest “Britain’s Wildlife” complete spotter’s guide)

Stellaria Holostea. and very starry it is.

in my garden all sorts of things are flowering. this is guelder rose, a common hedge shrub, with large red berries. it is poisonous.

I have a wild flower garden and I planted a lot of native shrubs seven years ago. the dog roses have become enormous with their looping habit of growth.

and the meadow itself; it is not at full blast yet, it needs some rain and a few more weeks growth, then there will be red poppies and yellow rattle as well as the big daisies. maybe some other things as well - yarrow, wild carrot, cornflower, ragged robin ……

today in the rain, rounding the edge of the wood, I found a roe deer doe outside the wood, munching on the small hawthorn trees. Tilda let out a squeal of frustration, and the doe looked round, as if in curiosity, she didn’t seem frightened. another doe, clearly visible in the wood, cracked a stick underfoot and slipped off into the trees. I was just fumbling with holding onto both dogs and trying to get my camera out when Tilda barked, and the spell was broken.

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the firing

Posted jane -->on 19th May 2008

yesterday we went to Morston again, to give Sal and Tilda a good leg stretch after the firing day. here’s T ambushing Sal

and rushing about, with a large lump of mud flicked up by her foot.

and here’s something to think on for texture and pattern. its just barnacles on an upturned plastic boat. In fact I think its going to be an inspiration for the knit collection, I can just see an embroidery, or an encrustation of sequins from this photo.

I am pleased with the firing. I had some re-tests of the new glaze, plus the new black clay, and I used the terracotta crank for the small cone settings to see how it reacted to the high temperature (80 degrees C higher than recommended)

here it is, opened up this morning. it’s good to keep a record of where things were in the kiln. the big pot on the left has reacted in the same way as the big bottle I had in that spot with the same glaze combination, fired in December.

the terracotta crank which I used for these cone sets has done about what you would expect a red clay to do - rather purplish and metallic. it might bloat as well, but I will put the pots I make using it in a cool part of the kiln.

the link for the pots is here

here is the black clay with white porcelain spread on it with a knife, then scored through, and glazed with the crawling shino. I think I shall get some more of the black clay, its very dramatic.

with the new versions of my dolomite/copper glaze, it has a lot of depth under the porcelain overlay.

this is the crawling shino glaze again, on the basic crank. it was very near the flue, which is a very hot place, and a lot of the glaze has just thrown itself to the kiln floor. I am going to have to chisel it off. it leaves this gorgeous reddish veined colour on the bare clay.

and the biggest pot came out very well, I think, another in the series of large bottles with the white clay layered over the crank. there is a mystery black metallic spot on its shoulder, which I like very much.

there must have been a bit of the used fireclay grog around when I rolled the clay out.

out again this afternoon, I can’t resist posting three photos, one of red campion in the hedgerow in Cake’s Lane.

and the Lane itself, full of twists and turns, it is very ancient. I would like to think it is prehistoric.

this gateway leads into another big permanent meadow, full of cowparsley. sometimes there are sheep in it, but it is allowed to grow long at this time of year. I don’t think it gets sprayed.

I would like to bet that a roe deer has fawns in here. they prefer long grass, and are as territorial about their fawning grounds as the bucks.

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under the beech tree

Posted jane -->on 16th May 2008

this morning, rather early due to a mixup reading my watch, we went into the wood edge under the big beech tree. its very shaded now all the leaves are out, but you can see the roe deer have been lying under it in the dry leaf-mould, and there are two fraying posts on the circumference of its shade circle.

it’s like being in a cave, a green cave; a little light filters down from the canopy, but not much.

out from under the beech tree there are flowers; blue spikes of bugle further in, and dark pink red campion flowers under the hazels at the edge, where the undergrowth is lush - nettles, mares tail, ground ivy, and lots of other green things I ought to look up.

the beet field had at least eight hares on it this morning - one came bounding past as we ducked out of the wood. it was rather too exciting for the dogs. even more frustrating for them, a fox ran away from us through the wheat and into the scrub as we came round the corner.

Tilda paid me back on Cake’s Lane - something caught her eye and she was round the corner and blasting through the hedge into a field of barley …… back five minutes later very disheveled and panting like a steam train. it might have been a deer. I will have to keep her on the lead all the way up the lane at this rate, the roe deer are in the middle of their fawning month.

the kiln is packed for a glaze firing, so I expect to be out there a couple of times tonight.

(2 comments)

mud

Posted jane -->on 15th May 2008

we went to Morston this morning for a change. after the dry spell and with the small tides this week, it was a good time to walk there. the black estuarine muds are all cracked just like the pattern my glazes make.

the tide was out, a lark was singing higher and higher above the marsh and the sun was on my back.

although the sea lavender, and the grasses and reeds look pretty dried up, thrift (sea pink) and sea campion are everywhere.

Tilda and Sal really enjoyed the freedom of these wide open marsh and mud sand spaces and we paddled across the Stiffkey twice.

there were three swans further up the channel, and they took off, disturbed by the cockle diggers, necks stretched, their wings making that amazing sound as they rowed the air.

the wind was coming off the sea, so no temptation of hare and rabbit scents, and Tilda was very good. she was too busy splashing and paddling and running in circles and ambushing Sal.

also blowing away from us was the pollen from this horrible crop. there is so much of it this year. it affects people who don’t even get hay fever, plus far more chemicals are needed to grow it than any other crop. it does make dramatic photographs though.

back home, I mixed three small lots of glaze, the black and one of the blues from the batch of glaze tests, in larger quantities for glazing, and another version of the dolomite/copper glaze, with no tin, and no feldspar. I should be able to run a glaze firing tomorrow night into Saturday.

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anagama thursday

anagama wednesday

anagama monday

anagama sunday

avocet evening

woolly bears and dactylorhiza incarnata var coccinea

mud and flowers

the firing

under the beech tree

mud

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