Good and Bad News

I've been wanting something to blog about, but I'd rather have had a different kind of experience to write about. I found my burnishing stone. I've had it since Mike Ferree - pottery instructor at Montgomery Community College - gave it to me back in the 1980s. I lost it last year.

It turned up in my clay mixer/pugger, a Peter Pugger. I was mixing scrap clay (pictured at right) today, and during the last load of the day, I stepped away to check some pots in another building while the mixer was on.

"CLUNK..... CLUNK!"

"Oh, &%^*," I said and ran to shut the machine down. I dug out all the clay by hand and didn't find anything. I dug some more in the far recess of a corner and found what I thought was a piece of glass, or maybe a piece of fired pottery. I found a couple more little pieces, set them aside and then I turned the pugger on again, and it clunked again. So, I turned it on and off quickly until I heard a scraping. Then I found something larger wedged between a blade and the side of the pugger. I took a piece of 2x4 and forced the blade backwards until I could dig out the larger piece, brought all the pieces into our house and washed them.

That's when I knew I'd found my burnishing stone.

Now, I've got to take apart the pugger and clean it well, and probably throw out that last batch of clay. I might have to grind off a sharp little ding on the pugger blade as well.

Pretty rock, isn't it?