Freeze-proof Pottery & Garden Art

I was a potter for ten years and one thing I quickly learned is that pottery soaks up water and when the temperatures drop below freezing--and as we all know water turns to ice and expands--the pot cracks and falls apart. Well, I have two beautiful pots from Aw Pottery in Lynwood. They were both gifts from my friend at Rainy Side Gardeners www.rainyside.com/ One is big enough to set a glass round upon and use for a end table, the other is petite—about as large as a gallon jar. Handy as a small pot as my Irish friend used to say. And both of these pots will go in my garden room.

Before, at my former home, the large one was setting on the cement slab outside my studio. I had Dusty Miller and something else growing in it. The something else died—gone from the pot and from my mind. The small blue pot is planted with maiden-hair fern and baby tears. This pottery supply is wholesale, so go with a friend who has a business if you don't have one, or look on-line at http://www.awpottery.com/ to window shop.

I was thinking about how pottery soaks up moisture and when that moisture freezes, the pot cracks apart. I once put a Coke in the freezer, thinking I could take it to school the next day for Play Day, the last day of school before summer vacation, and my pop would be cold at lunch. That was when I learned how ice expands and breaks things open. I'm not sure how they keep these pots from freezing and cracking, but I'm imagining they have a lot of grog in the clay. Grog is small bits of fired clay, like sand in a way, only larger. If you throw with a very groggy clay, it wears on your hands--shreds your palms in fact. The groggy clay is easier to throw if you're a beginner potter. And it may be the trick to no freezing and cracking open.

Sturdiness in the garden isn't something that always happens. Plants blow over and get stepped on. Yesterday the grandbaby stepped on my new Green Zebra Tomato, today he's going to the zoo. I hope there is no hidden meaning in this animal coincidence. The plant survived, which is good. It bent over to the ground and I stood it back up, patting extra dirt around it. I imagined it would have broken off there at the soil line, but no, it's fine.

So today, the soon-ex will be delivering my big pot for the garden. Also a little table that I made from peeled maple bark and wood slabs I found on the beach. It is what I consider garden ornamentation. Another thing you can purchase at Aw Pottery. Garden ornamentation. I also have a purple glass ball. So next, I'll put together a grouping of these objects, and see what it all looks like. Maybe just a mess—or maybe cool. I'll need some bricks for a little floor area for the chair and then I'm all set.

Okay, I need to get some breakfast and get showered. Today we meet with the attorney. Wish me luck.

Ciao! Flower

PS: Later, the attorney went fine. Everything is negotiated. Next papers will be drawn up and signed. Three months out and I'll be free at last.