I have clay!

I've managed to mix up my new batches of clay this week. 300kg of high flux porcelain in the blunger and 100kg of heavily grogged body in the dough mixer.

Heavily grogged boddy in the doughmixer. I've just added a couple of handfulls of pink granite grit from the local Mountsorrel quarry and two of white feldspar, topped off with 7 kg of 1 -3mm corderite grog.

The blunger which I mix the porcealin in is a bit rusty, the little rust which falls in, adds some interesting iron giving some lovely results in the kiln. I'll mix the clays for a couple of days more and then start the epic job of wedging and bagging up. I don't use a pug mill so it will take me a couple of days to get the grogged body wedged (around teaching). The porcelain will be fine sitting in the blunger and I'll just keep putting it out on plaster and wedgeing until I have enough to make the work I want. I've now got two dates in mind for the next firing; either the last week of April or the first week of May. It seems along time off but I know it'll come around quickly.
 I had a bit of bad news today in that my trusty chainsaw has finally died. It's lasted me 12 years cutting wood for firings. I'll have to get a new one before April.