§ The soil in my yard is something like 80% clay, 20% large rocks. The process of creating my hügelkultur left me with plenty of each.

The rocks were easy. I was able to add them to the dry stacked walls that define my garden beds.

The clay is the hard part. In the past I’ve collected it, along with all of my other unamended soil, in an unceremonious pile in a back corner of my yard.

I’ve always been interested in learning how to extract and purify the clay for pottery making, though, which is exactly what I tried this week.

It wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated it would be and the result was a large ball of clay that was, to my eyes, nearly indistinguishable from professional earthenware.

The plan now is to process the clay into bricks then use those bricks to make a small kiln.

§ I took Friday off to look at wedding venues. We have a date or, at least, an array of possible dates orbiting mid July of next year.

§ I didn’t know it was possible for blossom end rot to manifest inside of tomatoes. Like, the outside looks totally fine and then, once sliced, you’ll notice that the seeds are covered in a black goo.

I noticed this happening with my San Marzano tomatoes. After throwing out at least a dozen fruits with obvious exterior end rot, I finally picked a few nice looking ripe fruits but then only noticed the gross center after slicing them.

This is mostly annoying because I originally intended to can these tomatoes whole which I now won’t feel confident doing until I can resolve this issue.

§ I’ve been playing the New York Times Mini Crossword. Full-sized crosswords have always felt like too large of a commitment. Their bite-sized counterparts fill a nice sub-ten-minute niche right next to Connections.

§ I’ve been evaluating Lego’s new(ish) Spike robotics platform. I am inherently suspicious of proprietary systems like these although, after a couple of hours fiddling, I am beginning to warm up to this set. There is enough modularity and flexibility built in that I don’t feel pigeon-holed into particular pre-defined projects.

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