Potter and Nails

It's starting to rain. This season's mud is more willing to act like proper clay, so I'm treating it as such, using a dryer mix and more hands-on shaping. Today's mud extruded two nails, a jaggy, plasticy chunk of something, a thin, very old and nigh unbreakable piece of glass about 2 inches by a half inch and an uncounted number of pointy sticks, twigs, barks and rocks. Lots of sharp little rocks.

Earthworms. I used to pull 'em out and toss them back into the mud mixer. Yeah, that seems a bit counter-productive to me too. Lately I've just been mixing 'em in wherever they appear.

I sympathize with surgeons who occasionally lose stuff during a procedure. It's complicated in there!  The 2x4 and lath are supporting the peter channel* while mud gets applied deep inside (can't see in this image). Yesterday's soup can peter channel has been enhanced and enlarged with a 1980's aluminum printing press plate; bringing the apocryphal slippery slope characteristic to this dubious feature.

Coming soon: see that red clay block in the top photo?  Four of those are going to be placed on the top ring, arranged like baby's first teeth. These four blocks will serve as bridge towers and an odd number (probably five) steel fence T-posts as the deck framework. Bottom of the deck will be directly above the reactor core; top of the deck will be the floor of the oven.

Side effect: all this hands-on mud work requires ever-shorter fingernails. This makes 'em even more lethal to teen-age ticks walking around on top of Wally's fur looking for a less obnoxious host. Previously, with the longer, sharper nails I'd find myself saying, "this hurts me more than it's hurting you."

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*When operational, the peter channel brings fresh air into the fire.

• Entertaining and inspiring physical challenge stories from a 380-mile bike race across Pennsylvania.