Earthy Endeavors

 

This is just one of those round up sort of posts. No deep thoughts going on here at the moment.

First, though, here’s a golf recruiting photo from Tuesday.

The course where friends and I play is in the heart of farming country. I pass endless fields of corn and others of tobacco (yes, weirdly, it’s a major crop here) and I’m sure this course was once the home of cows or corn.

 Now, though, it has open spaces (of course) interspersed with a meandering brook.

 I’ve lost more balls than I can count in its pools and deeper spots since it seems almost every hole has some body of water we have to get over. The scenery and soft breezes tend to cancel out most of my urges to fling my golf club into the shrubbery.

Today was the first day of my pottery class. My friend and I had gotten the bug this spring and had been hoping to find a local place convenient for the both of us. It turned out to be just the two of us plus the teacher and after a bit of conversation and a little time forming a blob of clay into a workable ball, we were soon all straddling a wheel. Sadly, with no Patrick Swayze behind us.

The rest of the class was spent trying to center the ball on the wheel (not as easy as it sounds) and then working it into a hockey puck, then putting a center into it, shaping the sides, raising the sides, and evening out the top. My friend now has a recognizable small vessel on a shelf there, waiting for its first firing. I, however, have exactly as much clay in my big bag as I began with, my maiden effort having collapsed into a sad brown pile. Probably just as well I don’t have a photo for you.