It's been ages since I made this tall tower with a coiled stopper. The tower is about 20 inches tall. It was too tall to fire the stopper in the tower so I made an an armature to hold the stopper while it was firing. The tower was made with speckled brownstone clay. Since the ring that sits on the top is unglazed, I think a tower with several rings left unglazed with look good. I might make a few of those.
When I took it out of the glaze firing I thought the stopper had stuck to the armature but it broke loose when it cooled a little more. One thing I think I might do in the future is have a key or perhaps some holes through the tower and the inner part of the stopper to keep the stopper from falling out when I move the tower. I like the idea of the stopper reminds me of a perfume bottle with a stopper. I might have to explore making bottles with stoppers in the future.
It's been so warm this week the three Aristocrat flowering pear trees bloomed out. This year Gary has placed groundcover cloth under the trees and put mulch over the top. He's working on doing the same for the blueberries which line the front of the enclosed basement patio room. That's Barney with his short tail standing in front of the door to the basement room. When we're outside he follows us wherever we go. I had just gone inside the door.
Here are the fruit trees along the wall we planted last year. We also have five lining the driveway. We expected a frost this morning so Gary and I went out and put sheets over the fruit trees and wrapped painter's tape around the bottoms to keep the sheets from blowing off. We have one more night of frost for this week so we'll keep the sheets on during the day to save ourselves from having to put them on twice. If we used plastic the plastic might make it too hot underneath for them to stay on. If rain is threatened we could put the plastic over the sheets and that wouldn't allow the plastic to burn the tender blossoms and leaves under the sheets. More pottery to come so stay tuned.Thanks for reading and for all your comments.
