Butt Out!!!

I'm a joker, I'm a smoker

I'm a midnight stoker

I get my lovin' on the run

We work hard and we play hard. This is Emma having a cigar during the final stoking shift of the Hamilton Potter’s Guild Wood fire Mentorship with yours truly. I didn’t encourage her to smoke a stoogie. A good woman is hard to find but a hard woman is good to find. I like a woman that can stoke a kiln, carry wood, make pots, load kilns, scrape shelves and is a creative individual. I seem to have surrounded myself with this kind of woman and one exceptional man. These are people when they do the crime they fully expect to do the time.  This was our last firing together as a mentorship and the dang kiln didn’t let us off easy. Not really sure why we struggled to reach peak temperature but if it were easy everyone would be doing it. It was an overcast low pressure day with a slight drizzle and the wood was a tad wet from a previous few days of hard rain.  We leveled Cone 11 all over the kiln so we reached our goal. To do that we had to reach into our entire bag of tricks. 

Right now I ache were I used to play.  I need a stiff drink, a shower and 12 hours sleep. 

Here is another exceptional photo by Richard Rowe that speaks volumes of the last firing together. An empty chair, the kiln and  a cigar on a firebrick.  Hard work, hard brick and hard working people. Hey crew stand up and take a bow- Duncan Aird, Chris de Takacsy, Jen Drysdale,  Teresa Dunlop, Emma Smith, Barb Rose, and Anne Marie Row. The butt is out or has it just been lit?